A Wisconsin company is helping to make the term "starving artist" a phrase of the past. On Campus Creations is based out of Franksville in Racine County, but operates as an online art dealer for students with national reach.
On Campus Creations offers collegiate artists a venue to exhibit their work for purchase and establishes a link between the artists, school alumni, gallery owners, art collectors, friends of the artists and their schools. The Web site works as an easy avenue to search for specific, original art pieces via e-galleries.
Joe Wiesner, founder and president of On Campus Creations, says he started his company to connect emerging artists with a market, but also to support the art programs that help shape them. The company donates more than 25 percent of its commission from a sale to the art department at the seller's school.
So far, students from more than 100 universities and colleges across the country, including the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, are participating.
"By linking the students with their schools, alumni tend to search artwork from their alma mater knowing with each purchase the school will also benefit," he says. "There are amazingly talented student-artists who now have a defined market for selling their art. On Campus Creations provides a free forum for student artists to exhibit and sell their artwork, on their own terms."
Art students also gain valuable, real-life experience in the business world -- presumably more than that 100 level prerequisite course they suffered through as freshman -- by becoming entrepreneurs. Students create a public profile, curate online galleries and determine the market value of their works.
Prices on On Campus Creations range from less than $100 to more than $2,000. Art buyers are able to search artwork by school, genre, artist, medium, price, size and new arrivals. The artist provides the piece's details -- dimensions, weight, medium, creation date and, in some cases, specific information such as inspiration or explanations of titles -- as well as a link to his or her related work.
Wiesner says most students receive their full asking price when selling their work. In its first quarter, On Campus Creations has donated more than $1,700 to schools nationwide.
OnMilwaukee.com staff writer Julie Lawrence grew up in Wauwatosa and has lived her whole life in the Milwaukee area.
As any “word nerd” can attest, you never know when inspiration will strike, so from a very early age Julie has rarely been seen sans pen and little notebook. At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee it seemed only natural that she major in journalism. When OnMilwaukee.com offered her an avenue to combine her writing and the city she knows and loves in late 2004, she knew it was meant to be. Around the office, she answers to a plethora of nicknames, including “Lar,” (short for “Larry,” which is short for “Lawrence”) as well as the mysteriously-sourced “Bill Murray.”
