I’m so grateful to have had artist Christina Madden come to me for help bringing more visitors to her website!
La Casa, oil painting by Christina Madden
The first thing we did was to add metadata to all the images of her art, both for security’s sake and to help promote her art. While the metadata contained within an image is not readable by search engines, it’s essential to have it in place in the event that it, through resharing, it becomes separated from any link to the artist’s website or other contact information. It’s always an option to lock down an image so it cannot be separated from the website where it appears, but then people can’t help you promote your work by sharing, so this way anyone can open the image in Photoshop, access the File Info, and see the artist’s website address so they can see more of their work, find their email and other contact information, and learn more about the artist. Christina’s choice was to allow her images to be shared, so the metadata was a must. This also saves time when adding images to social networks, as the most critical of the meta information – the artist’s copyright – will now be “exposed”, along with the title and description so it does not have to be retyped in. This also makes the metadata available to the search engines, an added bonus and a good reason to take the time to place this information in each image. And What a joy to work with the images of her beautiful oil paintings!
Next we added metadata keywords and descriptions to her pages for the search engines to gobble up, and AddThis sharing tools to her website to encourage visitors to share her pages. We also added a sitemap and Google analytics tracking code to her site and, though the site has been online for some time, submitted it to the search engines as this had not been done previously. In the process I saw that the code on her site was very outdated, and began the process of bringing it a bit more up to speed so it will be more search engine friendly. Completing this task for the entire site will take longer and we plan to take it a little at a time; we also will add proper text with keywords to the “Alt” field in her images.
Morning at Touvelle Park, oil painting by Christina Madden
Christina had started a professional artist page on Facebook but hadn’t completed the setup, so we added a selection of paintings to her page and began promoting it. While working on this, she completed two new paintings, which we added to her website and Facebook page. Boy did they get a lot of attention! Over 200 views for one painting and almost 350 for the other, plus lots of wonderful comments! She’s up to 38 likes now, but it still needs some love, so why not visit and add your own like to her page?! https://www.facebook.com/artistchristinamadden
We began working on March 5 and completed this round on April 21. Currently Christina’s site is appearing in search results on Bing/Yahoo 94% more frequently than it did before, with a 200% increase in clicks from those search result pages, and all but 5 of her pages have been properly indexed by Google. Christina can now view traffic analytics for her site through her Google account and sharing analytics through her new AddThis account. In the past month (April 8 – May 8), she has welcomed 55 visitors to her site, who viewed 266 pages, and average of nearly 5 pages per visit! This represents an 89.66% increase in visitors over the previous month, a 48.6% increase in page views, and, though the total number of pages per visit is down a little, and increase in time spent on her website of 79.5%!
In addition we can see that , although most of her visitors are coming from her home territory of southern Oregon, people from 8 different countries have come to visit since we began working. Sharing has not been intense, nor has anything gone viral just yet, but 5 shares, up from zero ability to share, is promising, and we can see that all the shares so far have been to Facebook. As these results show, search engine optimization, even if not complete, can immediately and dramatically change the visitor frequency and patterns to your website, and the ability to view and analyze these stats is very helpful to gauge how much the work you have put into optimizing your site is helping to increase traffic and sharing.
I am delighted to have finished a website for Norm Rossignol at www.normrossignolart.com! I was already acquainted with Norm as he had a listing on www.soartists.com, the site I created to promote the art community of southern Oregon, and am happy to know him much better after meeting with him and working on his website. It’s amazing how much this endeavor can show you about a person – some clients have even said they learned much they didn’t know about themselves through the process!
Norm is a plein air painter, which means he paints outdoors, on location. He is very supportive of his fellow plein air artists, to the point that he co-founded the Plein Air Society of Southern Oregon (or PASSO) to enourage and coordinate regular paintings sessions “en plein air” with both new and experienced artists. His watercolors are beautiful, and he has taught watercolor painting at ScrappyCraft in Phoenix, Oregon for the past three years. He’s now taking a break from teaching and watercolors to renew his focus on another love – pastels – and they are just stunning! He is also a member of the Watercolor Society of Oregon and The Pastel Society of Oregon, and the Southern Oregon Society of Artists, as well as additional plein air-focused groups.
Bluebell Woods, pastel painting by Norm Rossignol
Norm is a kind, energetic and engaging man. I can see why his classes were popular! His wife is an avid horsewoman and he enjoys videotaping her weekly riding lessons on Gabriel, her handsome Haflinger. He’s not timid when it comes to trying new things, something I learned when he dived in almost immediately to create his first post his his brand new blog! I hope everyone in the SO art community and all who love plein air painting and landscapes will follow his blog as it promises to be entertaining and informative, not to mention lovely, as I’m sure he will illustrate his posts with images of his work.
Norm was kind enough to write this recommendation for me, which I just received this morning:
Wanting my very own web site seemed so daunting to me that I put it off for years. I envied those who had a site and maintained it on their own. Then there’s the need to ensure your images are protected properly from being copied.
Hannah West has been managing SOAR for some time now and I have seen that site do wonderful things for artists. One of the things that stood out from Hannah’s work is “She has your back.” Not only builds a beautiful site but all your work is safe. Another feature I needed was a Point and Shoot style operation and Hannah has a designed system that is just that easy. Most webmasters can build a web site that is just fine, but a web site made especially for artists is another matter. Hannah being an artist herself has that insight needed to develop a tasteful and easy site to display and use. I am most grateful to Hannah for her hard work and dedication to developing my site.
Easy operation
Attractive presentation
Custom built for your needs
Easy maintenance
Safe from piracy
Something to be proud of
What more could you want?
I’ve updated the workshop schedule for this week, with a partial schedule for April. It’s up on the workshop calendar now: If you have any requests, please contact me with the workshop you want and the day/time you want it. I’ll do my very best to accommodate your schedule so you can acquire these important skills artists need to promote their work in the 21st century! See this post for more information and pricing for the workshops.
Essentially what we have is 3 instances of the introduction to Blogging for Artists with Existing WordPress sites (on Friday March 29, Saturday March 30 and Saturday April 6), followed by Friday morning and Saturday afternoon practice sessions that you can drop in on as necessary (with advance notice, of course!). I have also scheduled a couple of Introduction to Image Editing for Beginners workshops, with an ongoing Thursday morning practice session you can also participate in as needed.
These ongoing practice sessions have been repeated indefinitely at the request of participants who felt that the ability to come in two or more times per month for supervised practice and answers to the questions that inevitably arise when developing a new skill would help them to recall the steps more effectively.
I have also tucked in a Using Social Media to Promote Your Art workshop on Friday March 29 at 10am and a Basic Computer Skills class on April 3.
This round of workshops are all $35.00. Please register in advance so I’ll know how many artists to expect! (you can just contact me to confirm that you’ll attend)
Thanks to all who have participated and expressed interest so far!! As always, if the schedule does not seem to fit in with your own, please contact me to arrange a private session or to schedule a new date/time for the workshop you need.
I’m a web designer who created and manages a fairly large and well-visited directory website promoting the art community in my region, the Southern Oregon Artists Resource, and its companion blog, Art Matters!. Both sites, but particularly the directory site, have a lot of other people’s email addresses in each page, and from the outset I wanted to protect them by obfuscating their email addresses. I use a script written by James Crooke for this, and use a plugin called “emOba” (for “email obfuscator”) in the WordPress sites I build. Of course, making sure you pay the extra little bit for domain privacy when setting up your website’s domain name is also extremely helpful, and I recommend doing both to protect your identity and reduce the time it takes to manage your inbox.
If you’d like to try the technique I use at soartists.com, first copy this chunk of code and place it in the <head> section of your page:
<script language=”JavaScript” type=”text/javascript”>
// Script Originally by SSI Developer (www.ssi-developer.net)
// Modified by James Crooke of CJ Website Design (www.cj-design.com)
function protectmail(name, address, link, subject, body) {
document.write(“<a href=’mailto:” + name + “@” + address + “?subject=” + subject + “&body=” + body + “‘>” + link + “</a>”);
}
</script>
Then, in the part of the code corresponding to where you would like the email link to appear in your page, place this chunk of code, edited to reflect your own email address and without the line breaks you see here:
<script language=”JavaScript” type=”text/javascript”>protectmail(“webmistress”,”hannahwestdesign.com”, “Click here to email”, “RE: I found you at the Southern Oregon Artists Resource and wanted to ask a question”, “Hello Hannah,”);</script>
You can see there is no “@” in the email address, the key feature that tips off the spambots to an address they should harvest. It also gives you the opportunity (as addressmunger does) to put custom text for the link, custom text in the subject line and a greeting in the body of the email that will pop up when a visitor to your site clicks the link.
There is another service online called addressmunger.com. Nice service, very similar technique, and easy to use for those who want to generate some code to use, but as a web designer who is also concerned about the amount of code in a page that is not readable by good web bots (like Google’s) I think it’s a little code-heavy.
The first few workshops in my new roster (image editing & working with WordPress, both for beginners) have gone sooo well this week! I’m getting great feedback on the quantity of information I’m offering, patient and effective instruction, value of the information presented for the price, and even my teaching style. It’s so rewarding to see artists move from apprehension and self-doubt to having fun using their newly acquired skills so quickly, and I’m proud of the progress last week’s participants have already made. Check out my calendar for current workshop dates and, whether you plan to DIY or need to feel more confident when dealing with your own webmaster, let me help you take control of your online presence!
By request of two of last week’s participants, I’m announcing that the Image Editing Practice Session for Beginners has been extended to include two dates each month indefinitely, on Thursdays from 10am – 12:30pm. Those who need help with their image editing skills can drop in for a practice session whenever they can, or join the two current participants for a weekly session where supervised practice will hone your skills and help commit them to memory. I will be happy to add an additional ongoing practice session where you can bring your questions, learn more, and practice your image editing skills with me there to help you on a different day/time, as I’ve heard from several artists who can’t make it on a Thursday.
Please email me or use Doodle to request a new date and/or time and I’ll add it to my calendar.
Scheduling for an additional date of the Intro to Image Editing workshop is now underway! Norm Rossignol proposed that we schedule another occurrence of this workshop on Monday, March 11 from 10am – 12:30pm. If you wanted to attend this workshop but the published date and time did not work with your schedule, please click this link to participate in the new session. Here’s more information about this workshop and a PayPal button to pre-register:
A two hour overview of essential image editing information with a half hour question and answer session. Follow along on your own computer or take notes and plan to gets some hands-on practice with me to help you in the followup work sessions. Information regarding metadata and how to embed it in your images is crucial to artists and is a prerequisite for following sessions. You should know how to do this, along with editing your image to it looks its best, before uploading and sharing images of your art online!
Thursday, March 7 from 10am – 12:30pm Fee: $35 To Register: Contact me at webmistress@hannahwestdesign.com, call 541.899.2012 or
I’ve been quite concerned about several issues with artists and the images of their art they use online. As a web designer who feels compelled to watch the backs of artists, it is distressing to download an image from an artist’s website only to find their web designer’ copyright notice in the metadata! I know the artist has no way of finding out, and that’s got to change right now.
In these hard times it’s understandable that many artists are concerned about the cost of having their images adjusted and prepared to use online, as well as the expense involved in starting up a blog to promote their art on the internet. And the social media phenomenon has quickly proven itself to be the marketing and promotion medium of the future…of today!
Last year I taught workshops on blogging at the Ashland Art Center and image editing at the Rogue Gallery and Art Center. In January 2013 I taught a workshop on setting up a Facebook professional page for artists at the Art Presence Art Center in Jacksonville, and in February, a small workshop on image editing for artists. I was happy to receive many compliments on the volume of usable information presented, my teaching style and patience from my hosts and the participants of all these workshops. Since the experiment was a success, and to help artists master the computer skills they need to promote their art in the twenty-first century, I am now announcing my new roster of ten ongoing workshops in four categories:
For most workshops I will present a comprehensive overview of the topic, with a Q&A session afterward. For confident computer users, this may be all you need to get started. For those who would like assistance putting the skills I discuss into action, follow up workshops will provide opportunity for hands-on practice where you can ask questions about specific tasks and problems, practice techniques and accomplish the objectives introduced in the overview.
I realize the dates of these workshops don’t give a lot of advance notice. My intent is to get them rolling as soon as possible for those who need help now and repeat them at least once a month. If you see a workshop you want to attend but the schedule doesn’t work for you, you’re probably not alone. Participate my Doodle scheduling program (links following each workshop below) and we’ll work out another time with others seeking an alternate date. You can also contact me to arrange a private tutoring session.
Working With Your Art Images in Photoshop and PS Elements
Learn how to prepare the digital images of your art to look their best, protect your copyright and meet submission requirements. The skills you learn in these workshops will help you manipulate your photographs with confidence, save money, prepare your images for show and gallery submissions and transform your art images from potential copyright liabilities to online marketing assets!
Requirements:
Laptop, iMac or mobile device that you can use image editing software with.
Basic understanding of how to work with your computer or device.
Image editing program such as Photoshop, Photoshop Elements or similar. iPhoto is not desirable for editing art images, please plan to use another software for this workshop or purchase one of the programs created by Adobe or Corel HERE.
Images of your own artwork to practice with. I recommend making a copies of several images – some in pretty good shape and others that need a lot of adjusting – and place them in a separate folder.
Introduction to Image Editing
A two hour overview of essential image editing information with a half hour question and answer session. Follow along on your own computer or take notes and plan to gets some hands-on practice with me to help you in the followup work sessions.
Thursday, March 7 from 10am – 12:30pm Fee: $35 To Register: Contact me at webmistress@hannahwestdesign.com, call 541.899.2012 or
In this workshop you will have the opportunity to work with your own images with my assistance. We’ll begin with helpful practices for handling your image files and embedding copyright, contact and website information and other metadata to your images. We’ll also go over various file types and when to choose them and how to use layers to add a visible copyright notice to your images, resizing your images and choosing different resolutions. Once you’ve mastered these skills you will be able to email, post and share images of your art online with confidence that wherever they roam, your copyright and contact information will travel with them, and people can use this to contact you and talk about purchasing your work or request permission to use it.
Thursday, March 14 from 10am – 12:30pm Fee: $35 To Register: Contact me at webmistress@hannahwestdesign.com, call 541.899.2012 or
This workshop will focus on more advanced techniques you’ll need to prepare your images for submission to festivals, shows and galleries. We’ll talk about the different specifications you have encountered and learn how to prepare the photos of your art appropriately, as well as making adjustments to the color, lighting and focus to accurately present your art to show jurors and gallery owners. We will practice more advanced ways to use layers and how to finalize your image files for different uses.
Thursday, March 14 from 1:30 – 4:00pm Fee: $35 To Register: Contact me at webmistress@hannahwestdesign.com, call 541.899.2012 or
Learn how to create an online journal of your art activities from scratch using WordPress! From installing WordPress on your website’s host server or at WordPress.com to creating posts and managing your WordPress installation, you can learn to use blogging help you promote your work online, build your following, increase search engine rankings and drive traffic to your website. It’s a fun and creative endeavor in itself!
Requirements:
Laptop, iMac or mobile device you can use to work online (sorry, a smartphone will not be sufficient!)
Basic understanding of how to work with your computer and internet browser.
Completion of Image Editing Workshops or prior knowledge of how to embed metadata into your images to protect your copyright and enhance search engine optimization.
Introduction to Blogging, for Artists with existing WordPress sites
Do you have a website designed with WordPress but aren’t sure how to use it? This workshop is for you! We’ll log in to our blogs, explore the “back end” or administrative section and the post editing window. Learn how to use the word processing functions WordPress provides, upload and insert images into your posts, manage updates, what your plugins do, others I recommend and how to take care of them, and more. You’ll leave with an illustrated post and money-saving skills to begin maintaining your blog on your own.
This immersive workshop is designed for confident computer users who are ready to begin blogging now. We will install WordPress on your host server or at WordPress.com, set it up and learn to create an illustrated post. We’ll also go over maintenance tasks, how to customize your blog with plugins and themes, and more. At the end of the day you will have a working blog with at least one completed post and the skills to begin managing your blog as well as publishing with it!
Please have the materials you need to create with – text, images, and a banner image – set aside in their own folder on your computer for easy access during the workshop. For lunch, we can munch together at my studio or in town, arrangements TBD based on participants’ preferences.
Saturday, March 16 from 10am – 4:00pm Fee: $75 To Register: Contact me at webmistress@hannahwestdesign.com, call 541.899.2012 or
This workshop will give an opportunity for beginning WordPress users to ask questions and get hands-on help with the answers, bring problems you’ve encountered for resolution and continue practicing the skills you need to progress to an intermediate level of blogging.
This workshop will provide those who are comfortable blogging with WordPress with an opportunity to bring their questions and get hands-on help for answers, troubleshoot problems they’ve encountered and gain more advanced skills. Topics can include blog maintenance, adding plugins for advanced functionality, working with photo galleries, customizing posts with basic html, attracting the attention of search engines and increasing traffic.
Learn how establish your social media presence, integrate social sharing into your website and put your social networks to work building your audience, driving traffic to your website and increasing your search engine ranking!
Requirements:
Laptop, iMac or mobile device you can use to work online (sorry, a smartphone will not be sufficient!)
Basic understanding of how to work with your computer
Completion of Image Editing Workshops or existing knowledge of how to embed metadata into your images to protect your copyright and enhance search engine optimization.
Set Up Your Facebook Professional Page
Facebook should be the main component of your social network, and this workshop will be devoted to creating and setting up your professional page on Facebook. The time is coming when Facebook will REQUIRE business and professional posting to be done separately from personal posts – don’t wait ‘til the last minute! Get your artist page set up and start building a following for your art business while keeping your personal page private.
Integrating Social Networks with Your Blog or Website
Your website or blog should be the centerpiece of your online presence, and visitors should be able to follow you on their favorite social network and share your content with their friends with ease. We will explore the various social media networks and their usefulness, decide which ones to use and set them up, then integrate them with your main blog or website using one of three options: Networked Blogs Facebook application, WordPress’ JetPack plugin modules, or AddThis.com’s sharing plugin.
Do you want to learn one or more of the above skillsets, but find yourself hesitating because you don’t know how to work your computer or software well enough? Don’t let that stop you! Join my basic computer skills workshop and I will help you get up to speed with the skills you need to progress and learn more! Topics include: computer terminology, working with email, basics of using software programs, working with files, and much more.
Learn how to use your computer from a teacher who has the patience to work with you until you’re confident working on your own! I’m always happy to arrange private tutoring sessions if my workshop schedule doesn’t fit in with your own.
First Session: Wednesday, March 6 from 10am – 12:30pm Fee: $35 To Register: Contact me at webmistress@hannahwestdesign.com, call 541.899.2012 or
I have affiliate relationships with both Adobe and Corel, which I initiated simply to make a few bucks if anyone who would like to attend a workshop wants to purchase the image editing software they need. Most are inexpensive, but there are premium selections here too. Some are for downloadable versions of the software, some are in the box; follow the links to the company website to order them in the version you prefer.
Three years of promoting the arts community of southern Oregon through the Southern Oregon Artists Resource and of Jacksonville as a board member of Art Presence and curator of the art exhibits at GoodBean Coffee have shown me that the arts bring more benefits to our communities than many realize. I’d like to share what I’ve learned about how art affects our community and hope this will rekindle an appreciation that becomes a deeper commitment to supporting the arts in Jacksonville.
The arts have been made and practiced as long as there have been humans. They are key to children’s cognitive and physiological development, and the expressions of abstract thinking, sequencing, and eye-hand coordination needed to make art prepare young minds for mastery in reading, language and mathematics. Integrating the arts into core subjects helps students achieve better understanding, learn faster and retain information longer. Creative problem-solving and collaborative skills gained through training in the arts give kids the edge they need to succeed in the new knowledge-based economy and participate in the rise of the creative class. A new emphasis on the arts in education reflects the fact that creativity has become a valued asset to employers in many industries.
Art also has proven value in healing, and we are fortunate to have some incredibly effective nonprofits putting art to work on behalf of the most vulnerable in the Rogue Valley. From children recovering from abuse and kids battling cancer to adults with cognitive challenges or contending with degenerative diseases, art therapy is providing relief from symptoms, positive self-esteem, better communication, recovery from physical and emotional trauma and open doors of opportunity. All these contribute to a healthier community.
Results from the Arts & Economic Prosperity IV™ study in June 2012 showed that economic activity generated by the arts results in $135.2 billion in total economic activity to the nation’s economy and supports 4.1 million full-time jobs. After reading the study’s results, the U.S. Conference of Mayors urged mayors across the country to invest in nonprofit arts organizations as a catalyst to generate economic impact, stimulate business development, attract tourists and area residents to community activities, and improve the overall quality of life in America’s cities.
Additional 2011 and 2012 studies have so firmly established the contribution of the arts to the economy that government at every level has implemented programs for investments in the arts in education and nonprofit art centers, as well as entrepreneurial support for individual artists.
In Jacksonville we know cultural tourism is essential to our local economy, but it turns out that arts and cultural tourism is the fastest growing segment in the entire industry. Half of all Americans take at least one trip per year, of which 80% seek cultural or heritage opportunities; 15.4 million overseas cultural heritage travelers came to the U.S. in 2010, outpacing the average growth of all overseas arrivals to the United States. It’s so important to the national tourism industry that new commitments to support cultural tourism have been put into place at every level of government.
Communities which embrace the arts enjoy higher property values, which are more likely to remain stable during economic recessions. Jacksonville has benefitted greatly in property values and new residents with higher average incomes in the past twenty years. When residents would rather stay than move away those property values can be sustained. Though we’ve taken a hit with everyone else, we weren’t hit as hard as many other communities and have bounced back with greater resilience than most. Southern Oregon is one of the top three regions where people moving out of state choose to relocate, and Jacksonville is one of the most desirable spots in the region. The evidence I’ve seen makes me think we have the Britt to thank for much of the gentrification we’ve enjoyed, but to sustain this we need to remain mindful of two things:
• As a city becomes more prosperous in terms of property values, artists are less likely to afford living and working there, and
• Arts & culture need active and ongoing cultivation to sustain property values, retain high net worth individuals and families, and give visitors a satisfying arts experience.
Art Presence was founded by artist Anne Brooke four years ago. Partnering with local businesses to provide venues for artists to exhibit and sell their work and attract visitors with a variety of outstanding events and displays, the group has helped bring revenue to our business community, supported local talent and is making strides toward contributing to art education, in schools and through the Art Presence Art Center in Jacksonville. With Arlis Duncan’s help, Anne achieved nonprofit status for the organization under the umbrella of the Arts Council of Southern Oregon, which in turn made the Art Presence Art Center’s new home in the former Children’s Museum possible. Soon after celebrating this accomplishment, our situation there became tenuous and finances strained. Some are concerned about the organization’s ability to survive 2013.
I’ve spoken with transplanted residents who love our gallery. They love Jacksonville, yet many left major arts & cultural centers to make a new life here and miss this vital part of their former lives. Their support shows that in its short existence the Art Center has already improved the quality of life for many of our Jacksonville neighbors and has the potential to do much more.
Communities that fail to support the arts suffer from its neglect. If we would continue improving quality of life for residents, increasing property values, building an attractive destination for our visitors and increasing revenue for our businesses, we must do more to support the arts in Jacksonville. We must make sure that our city seeks out and obtains its share of available funding for the arts in education, nonprofit art centers and cultural tourism, and makes a commitment to do whatever necessary to support artists and cottage industries as a key strategy for sustaining Jacksonville’s economy. The numbers are in: a healthy and sustainable local economy needs a thriving art center. Art Presence has proven its commitment to our city’s prosperity and stands willing to contribute everything the arts have to offer toward that end. We urge our Mayor to answer the call of the US Conference of Mayors to invest in Art Presence, our own nonprofit arts organization, as a catalyst to generate economic impact, stimulate business development, attract tourists and area residents to community activities, and to improve the overall quality of life in our city.
Art matters to everyone in Jacksonville, and we ask our neighbors to take action in whatever way you can:
• Visit the gallery and attend opening receptions and artist demonstrations. If you can’t buy art, leave your contact information in our guest book. Proving local support is crucial to obtaining grants and donations.
Go to art-presence.org: comment on posts, make suggestions, subscribe to new posts & our newsletter, and view our committees to find an area where you can contribute and who to contact. Share our content with your social networks.
Contact us if you’re a grant writer who’d like to help us acquire funding. We will often be required to match grant funds with locally obtained funds, so…
Donate to the Arts Council of Southern Oregon with “Art Presence Art Center” in the memo line. Contact Arlis Duncan or go to artscouncilso.org for more information.
Write a letter to the Jacksonville Review’s editor, the Mayor and/or City Council and tell them why the arts in our community are important to you and your family.
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DISCLOSURE: This is not a review site, but I do have affiliate relationships with companies whose products and services I and my clients use. If you make a purchase within a few days of using one of my links, I will receive a small commission for the sale. If you have any questions and want to learn more, please contact me through my Facebook page.