How to Build Your Own Art Website

As an artist, having a website is just as important as having business cards. They're necessary for applying to art shows, professional discoverability, and displaying a wide range of work to potential customers.

Building your own website saves you from having to pay someone else to do it, while giving you flexibility and control over content and updates.

During class, we will go over practical considerations for building your own art website, such as precautions you can take to prevent people copying art off the website, how image size affects website speed, the typical costs of maintaining a website, etc.

Your instructor will demonstrate how to build a handful of basic webpages during class. Participants may take notes, or if you prefer more hands-on learning, bring your own laptop (and meet the requisite pre-class criteria below) and Melissa will help you begin building your own personal website in real-time.

NOTE: We will use Squarespace as the host site for the purposes of this class.

Intended audience: Artists who want to build their own art website and are already comfortable using a laptop or desk top computer. Attendees should be sixteen or older, and possess very basic computer skills such as how to use a mouse, how to type, copy, and paste sentences on a computer, and how to upload a file. If you are comfortable using social media like Facebook or Instagram, or Office software like Word or Excel, you should be just fine building a website in this class using Squarespace.

Supplies needed: Artists who intend to listen and take notes need only bring something with them for notetaking. Artists who would like to actually begin building their art website during class should bring their laptop with them. (They will be required to have done some preliminary tasks on the laptop before class, as outlined below.)

The instructor: Melissa Milton (MelissaMiltonArt.com) is a well established artist, and has eight years of experience using Squarespace. She chose Squarespace as the primary tool for the class due to its user-friendly interface. Disclaimer: Melissa is not affiliated with Squarespace in any way, and receives no compensation from Squarespace or others for teaching this class.

In order to use the Squarespace tools during the workshop, participants MUST bring and complete the following PRIOR to attendance:

1. A laptop you are familiar with. Tablets and smartphones will be insufficient for participation. Squarespace's mobile version does not allow many necissary commands.

2. 5 photos pre-selected to upload to your website. Have them already chosen and easily accessible on your laptop.

3. Sign up for Squarespace PRIOR to the workshop at https://www.squarespace.com/ Signup will take roughly 10 to 20 minutes (Out of respect for all participants, no time will be alloted for this in class, which is why it must be done ahead of time). The basic plan begins at $25 a month, or $16 a month if paid annually. You may switch back and forth between plans in the future at any time if you wish, without losing your website.

NOTE: There is no need to register your domain name prior to the class, as the process of registering a domain will be covered by your instructor.

This free class is offered as part of our Non Profit Organization's Arts related Community outreach. Art supplies will be provided by the Gallery. Your art teacher is an artist volunteering their time.

Free Parking. See map below for where our Gallery is located inside of Fayetteville's NWA Mall.

Our Free Tickets are limited to two tickets per person placing the order. This is so one person won't buy most of the tickets and then no show, when there was a wait list of others wishing to take the class. If you wish to invite friends, please have them sign up for their tickets if you already have your two tickets.

If you cannot attend please cancel in advance so that someone on the Wait List may have your spot.

It's Gallery Policy that if someone no shows without canceling, they are not eligible for future free art classes. You may cancel by hitting the cancel button on your original ticket confirmation email. Or by emailing the gallery to let us know.

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