Today I will be painting on the Ivanhoe library mural, Lord willing, the Creek, etc. The past two days have been seriously disrupted by many hours on the phone trying to solve the website problem, which also took down my email.
If I was a smoker, it would have been a couple of 2-pack days.
Contemplation
I really contemplated whether or not it is possible to run an art business without a website. Many artists only use Facebook and/or Instagram. Having dabbled in those several years ago, my gut instinct is NO NO NO NO. And NO!
There are no Yellow Pages, direct mail is cost prohibitive and cannot be easily updated, and I’m not inclined to wear an A-frame sign or a weird chicken costume and stand on a street corner. I don’t want to rent public space when I have my most excellent studio and painting workshop here at home, an easy 35-second commute by foot from the house.
So, my inclination is to just relax and recover, and then look into another hosting company. BlueHost used to be based in Arizona, and humans were accessible here in the United States without a robot on the phone to direct you to another country where some poor (but very smart) person with an accent (occasionally accompanied by background children or roosters) would keep reassuring you that they really were sorry for your problem and would do their best to help. It wasn’t until after a series of phone calls that added up to 5 hours (yes, I counted) when I insisted that the case needed to be escalated and stated that I will look for another server/host company that I got an email saying the problem was resolved.
Maybe it is resolved; however, my confidence in BlueHost has taken a hard battering, and there may be a separation in our future.
Techie Details
They upgraded me to an expensive plan, which I declined. They moved me to a more reasonable plan, which included a $199 “migration fee”. Then they neglected to “migrate” my site to the reasonable plan; on one call I was reassured that it had been done, and it worked briefly. Next, the email that is attached to the website ceased functioning, and I was told that it had not been migrated. WELL, MIGRATE ALREADY!
Ugh. Can we talk about something more pleasant? Let’s lift our eyes until the hills. . . from whence does our help come? Not from tech, that’s for sure and for certain!
4 Comments
Your little cabin is so sweet! I can understand why you’d want to work there and nowhere else. I agree that a website is important for a business, but I also know how frustrating it can be!
Michelle, it is sweet indeed! It was a shed that we filled with avocado green sinks when we remodeled the house 27 years ago. I call my business “cabinart” because when I started, we lived in a cabin and I was drawing people’s cabins.
BTW- I included a painting you did on my birthday message for my Mike (turns 72 today). I bought a notecard (0f course) and didn’t want to part with it. So gave it to Mike… so it stays in the family! Ha ha ha . Now I can frame it. I tagged your #cabinart. But also gave a shout out that the art was yours.
Thank you, Anne! I’m curious to know which card you plan to frame. I don’t know what it means that you “tagged” my “#cabinart”. If it means someone goes to my website, I sure do hope it works.