It’s easy to deride Artist Statements. I’ve done it myself countless times when they are pompous, self-congratulatory, or badly written and trite, trite, trite.

But like the About section of any website, where we click in the hopes of connecting with the human being behind the virtual page, an artist statement has only one purpose…

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Carol Steinberg on the set of "House"

This was just too kewl not to blog about: one of our very own smARTISTs has over a dozen of her paintings being used for “Adverse Events,” an episode of “House.”

It aired Tuesday (look at the end of this post if you missed it), Sept. 30, 2008.

The irony is: Carol Steinberg doesn’t even watch TV. But she has something else a lot more important than a TV, she has…

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Throughout the course of my a book tour, whether speaking in New York, Seattle or Oxford, Mississippi, one common refrain ran true: I constantly met artists who felt guilty about attempting to market, and sell, their work.

Where on earth does all this guilt come from?

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Two weeks ago, we looked at flesh-real babies made out of Marzipan, of all things. And implicitly asked if the medium co-opts the message.

Or, can you take something made out of sugar and almonds seriously because it is made out of sugar and almonds, and not…say… marble.

But besides all that, my main concern was that something as compelling as the Marzipan babies had no artist’s name connected to it.

These miniature wonders came across the Internet highway as “anonymous,” and I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a connection. Almonds ‘n sugar = no artist to be taken, seriously or any other way.

This week, the medium is no less quirky – nails – but this artist is not about to be forgotten.

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Okay, so this art is really not in question at all. And the materials aren’t exactly “quirky.” And yet… something about the whole way these images landed in my inbox gave these the same aura of quirkiness as our Marzipan babies of last week.

After these driftwood and oak horses turned up in an email, without an artist’s name, I was compelled enough to go searching on Google.  ”Driftwood horses” did not lead me to the artist’s website, but to another website,  where I did find her name and her website: Heather Jansch.

What I found most interesting, on this viewing adventure, was that the presentation of her images was so much better on the website that was not her own.

And herein lies a caution tale for artists:

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