As launch day approaches, we link up one more time to check over our web site. So far we’ve been meeting on each other’s terraces, balconies and gardens but this time we decide to go to Zai; a cafe/library/art gallery, famed for its gorgeous garden and discrete background classical music. Glasses of lemonade ordered, we get out our laptops to have a final look over our new ‘baby’. It’s looking good thanks to Ali Haji’s experience in web design. The other four of us are happy to admit that we prefer the paintbrush to the keyboard and if it hadn’t been for Ali, this online venture wouldn't have got off the ground.
Lemonade arrives with a friendly reminder that laptops are not allowed in the gardens. Since when? Since June apparently. Too many home workers, fed up with their own four walls, hogging a table for a whole day and buying only a coffee.
Electronic devices go back in bags and we get out our notebooks. Who is going to do what? How are we going to promote our site? Having a website is one thing, getting it noticed is another. We’ve already struggled to get our atrophying PayPal accounts back into action now we’ll have to nudge our Twitter, Instagram and Facebook friends to share the news. We are lucky that Sarah’s daughter Bella is with us as a social media consultant and can point us in the right direction. Who knew that we should post at the same time weekly (as someone who has published a blog for 9 years, I suppose I should have) and that choosing a hashtag with thousands of followers is not a good idea.
If you are reading this first blog, our meeting was a success. Welcome to Bodrum Art Collective's web site. We welcome your comments and look forward to interacting with artists and art lovers all over the world. We’d like to introduce you to our art and to that of the hundreds of artists living on the Bodrum Peninsula and invite you to follow us on: