Team Annoucements and Updates

[JessicaTorrant]

Hello team! My first announcement is this - we now have “sticky” aka pinned threads! If you have been involved in managing another team or teams, you know this is something we have been collectively asking Etsy admin to get in team discussions for a long time now. This makes things so much easier to keep the most important threads at the top allowing for maximum team participation and ease in finding the key team threads to post in.

If you have been a long time member of Fine Art Friday, you know this has been a rather relaxed team - and I’d like to keep it that way. At the same time, there have been some complaints of confusion when there are overlapping threads for treasuries and/or new listings. For this reason, I am going to be more pro-active in closing threads that are identical in theme to existing pinned team threads. For example - for treasuries, we have two main threads. One for Fine Art Friday treasuries and one for all other treasury promotions. So if someone posts a new thread for treasuries, it will be closed so there is no confusion for fellow team members of where to post. I hope this action will be understood as for the greater good of the entire team and nothing personal.

I will share any new updates for the team or important information here in this thread. Feel free to comment, post questions or concerns, and I will highlight any of my responses similar to how Etsy admin handles general forum threads.

Thanks so much to all who make this team such a wonderful place to be!

[JessicaTorrant]

Instead of pinning an earlier thread, I thought I'd share this team update from June about team tagging.

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Hello everyone!

My how this team has grown in leaps and bounds! I want to thank our regular team members for participating in the forum and for contributing to our weekly Fine Art Friday treasury making, sharing, clicking and commenting. I'd also like to welcome all of our new members to the team. Please feel free to jump right in! This crowd has proven to be more than welcoming, helpful and supportive to fellow members.

I was recently asked a question about tagging treasuries with fineartfriday and how many members must be included to use the team tag. This led to a lengthy reply that I soon realized would be helpful for everyone to know. I apologize in advance if this post is even longer, but bare with me because I think there are a few points I can clarify to make things easier for all of us to move forward.


FINE ART FRIDAY: A few clarifications

When I began the idea of Fine Art Friday, it was on the main Etsy forums in 2010. It was suggested as something the entire Etsy community could participate in. When the new Etsy teams format came about, it made sense to create this team to support the movement.

Now that we are here now, a few clarifications need to be made. Don’t worry! I’m not about to spring any new hoops on you to jump through or anything. I just think there is a little confusion to clear up. Truth be told, this has been an evolving idea from start to present and I’m sure it will evolve from here. I just want us all to be on the same page as we move forward.


FINE ART FRIDAY - TAGGING TREASURIES

Most of us familiar with Etsy teams know how the majority of teams usually operate. Juried or open membership, various rules and expectations, tagging and treasury making, etc. But we here at Fine Art Friday operate a little differently when it comes to the tag “fineartfriday”. The "fineartfriday" tag used in treasuries was suggested to the entire Etsy community as a way to celebrate and share Fine Art on Etsy once a week. Since it began before this team began, I’d like for the tag “fineartfriday” to continue to be something all who care to participate can feel free to use - team members or non team members alike.

That means that “fineartfriday” as a tag used in treasuries can be used by anyone, featuring anyone’s work, and membership in this team is not required whatsoever.

HOWEVER this should not stop anyone from seeking out fellow Fine Art Friday team members to include in your collections. In fact, if you use 100% team member listings in all spaces of your treasury, you can tag your treasury with “fineartfriday” AND “etsyteam” which all of a sudden changes the meaning of the tag to be team specific.

Here is Etsy admin confirmation that 100% team member inclusion is what you need to tag your treasury with etsyteam and why it might be advantageous to do so (see the two highlighted admin posts)- www.etsy.com/teams/7718/site-help/discuss/6783659/

I think this can help everyone involved. Those who want to participate in Fine Art Friday treasury making but don’t want to join our team, for whatever reason, don’t have to. Those that want to focus on the FAF team and supporting fellow members can by creating 100% team member curated treasuries and tagging them with both fineartfriday and etsyteam. And if you'd like a mix of team members and non team members, not a problem! Just don't use the etsyteam tag along with the fineartfriday tag for those.

To those that may be thinking this is giving too much relaxed room for non team members - the large majority of fineartfriday made and tagged treasuries are by team members. This is just to allow the “movement”, so to speak, to grow with or without joining our team - it’s as simple as a tag. There are great artists on this team, AMAZING artists! Still, Etsy is a giant ocean of talent that we can help to shine a light on through our virtual gallery treasury building. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, for every non team member artist you include in a Fine Art Friday treasury, that’s yet another person that may be introduced to our team and be encouraged to join.


FINE ART FRIDAY - TAGGING YOUR OWN LISTINGS

Here is where the “fineartfriday” tag becomes team specific once again. Only members of the team Fine Art Friday should be tagging their Fine Art listings with this tag. I apologize if I didn’t make this known throughout the transitions of this idea/movement. Though team membership is open for all to join, it is sort of understood that one would not use the “fineartfriday” tag on something that was not fine art. The beautiful thing is, when you search that tag, you see fine art!

If you are confused by what the definition of “fine art” is, let’s just take a look at what Wiki has to say:

"Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application.

Historically, the five greater fine arts were painting, sculpture, architecture, music and poetry, with minor arts including drama and dancing.[1] Today, the fine arts commonly include the visual art and performing art forms, such as painting, sculpture, collage, decollage, assemblage, installation, calligraphy, music, dance, theatre, architecture, film, photography, conceptual art, and printmaking. However, in some institutes of learning or in museums fine art, and frequently the term fine arts (pl.) as well, are associated exclusively with visual art forms."

(I know, I know - Wikipedia isn’t the greatest - but it’s a nice tidy summary isn’t it?)

All I ask of team members tagging their listings is that they take an honest look at what they are selling and ask themselves if it is fine art. You can sell whatever you want to be a member of this team. You can be a buyer only and be a member of this team. It’s open to everyone. But as far as team tagging goes, I ask you all to be supportive of the Fine Art specific nature of this team and only tag accordingly. What I’ve learned, especially being on Etsy, is that there is an incredible slippery slope between fine art and fine craft. There are a lot of sensitive feelings about these definitions, and I don’t want to personally get into debates of which is which. But it should be pretty clear that a sweater is a sweater meant to be worn and a 12’ x 12’ knitted installation of a womb serves no other purpose than to be observed and experienced. (Meanwhile my mind is bridging a gap between the two and finding the perfect scenario for an artist to write to me saying “but I make sweaters with statements - they are moving installations and you are part of the art!” and I would only be able to respond with “Hmmm... ok, you got me there!") You can see that things could easily get messy in monitoring team activity and that is why I choose not to and instead depend on the intelligence of those both participating in tagging their items with the fineartfriday tag and searching for said tag.

IN CONCLUSION

I hope this helps to clear things up and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask! And once again, a giant thank you to all members for participating and helping to support one another!

[Former_Member]

Awesome, Jessica!

[Former_Member]

Thanks Jessica