A new Web site sells student-made art at student-friendly prices. M.L. JOHNSON talks to entrepreneurs who combine art, business and college.
PROVIDENCE, R.I.
Christopher Schmitt: "Frontier." (AP Photo/Courtesy CollegeCanvas.com)
Julie Kumar: "Ink Figure" (AP Photo/Courtesy CollegeCanvas.com)
Renee Solorzano: "Train." (AP Photo/Courtesy CollegeCanvas.com)
Ian Densford: "Boy and Girl." (AP Photo/Courtesy CollegeCanvas.com)
Lace, Frederickson and Harroff update the Web site from their dorm room.(AP Photo/Stew Milne)
Still got that poster of Bob Marley smoking a spliff on the wall? Maybe it's time to upgrade to some original art. A new Web site can help.
CollegeCanvas.com site sells student-created art at prices affordable to college students -- or art lovers who don't have the money or inclination to pay high prices at fancy galleries.
In only four months, the site's founders, three Brown University students, have made thousands of dollars from the venture, CollegeCanvas.com, and they hope to see the business expand to other college communities.
The Web site grew out of a fortuitous mix of skills and friendships.
When John Harroff, 20, arrived at Brown from Geneva, Switzerland, he made friends with student artists from the nearby Rhode Island School of Design. Many had artwork stacked in their apartments and dorm rooms, and last year Harroff borrowed a painting from one to decorate his dorm room.
"People would always come in and comment on how much they liked it, and offer to buy it," says Harroff's roommate Joe Lace, 21, of Toronto.
The compliments led to inspiration and then a business plan.
Harroff, Lace and a third friend, Mike Frederickson, decided they could sell their friends' art to other students who wanted to decorate with something creative and original. Many RISD students have gone on to become well-known artists, so buyers also have the opportunity to pick up artwork that could become valuable down the road.
Harroff had the connections to the artists. Lace, an economics major, focused on financing and marketing. Frederickson, a 21-year-old computer science and visual art major from Boston, built the Web site.
Despite Providence's burgeoning art scene, there are still relatively few places for student artists to sell their work, and even fewer places where other students can afford to buy them, Frederickson says.
Enter CollegeCanvas with comparatively low prices and student-to-student sales. The partners market the company by leaving slips of paper on dining hall tables. At RISD, the fliers say, "Hey Artists! Need Exposure?" At Brown, they ask, "Is Your Room Boring?"
Harroff quickly signed up 15 artists, nearly all of whom have sold work since the site launched in December.
Brown alumnus Justin Medoff of Concord, Mass., already owned paintings by his mother -- a RISD graduate -- and aunt. He says he had wanted to expand his collection, but found shopping at galleries expensive and inconvenient.
From CollegeCanvas, he bought a tapestry to give as a Christmas gift and a pen-and-ink drawing he plans to hang in his room. Both cost less than $30.
"It's great," he says. "You can look at it online, and they'll let you return anything after you get it. It's guaranteed."
CollegeCanvas sells prints as well as one-of-a-kind paintings, drawings and tapestries. The work appeals to a variety of tastes -- with oil paintings of ocean scenes, abstract sketches in ink and a silkscreen of a naked zombie.
"If you say it's art, it's art," Frederickson says.
Pete Watts, 22, a senior at the Rhode Island School of Design, says CollegeCanvas offers student artists a convenient alternative to galleries that charge commissions of 50 percent or more. CollegeCanvas charges its artists 25 percent.
Watts, who specializes in printmaking, says he earned about $130 from the sale of two prints that were part of a series of industrial scenes. Several friends have sold works on the site as well.
"We're all pretty happy about it because there's not a lot of opportunities to make money from your work," says Watts.
Frederickson and his partners say they originally wanted art priced for college students' budgets -- some prints can be had for as little as $15 -- but they added more expensive works once they found alumni and parents shopping on the site as well.
CollegeCanvas has shipped art to buyers in about 10 states, and the partners say they envision expanding it to other college communities.
In the meantime, the business has given them one other perk.
"Some artists will let us decorate with (their work) until it sells," Frederickson says. "We have a well-decorated suite."
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asap contributor M.L. Johnson likes Tal Levy's floral photographs.
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Find it online:
CollegeCanvas: http://www.collegecanvas.com/
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