Welcome to our first Sortly user feature! Sortly is used all over the world to organize and keep an inventory of almost anything. Take a look at how Nadine Robbins uses Sortly to keep an inventory of her paintings and track her art work.
Nadine Robbins (bio) is a painter who grew up in France and she can be found in her studio in Hudson Valley, NY.
Sortly: Please introduce yourself.
Nadine Robbins: My name is Nadine Robbins and I’m a painter.
What was your inspiration to become a painter?
I’m lucky. I knew at a very early age that I wanted to be an artist. When I was voted “Best Artist” in my elementary school, my path was solidified. From then on, I never doubted that art would be my life’s work. After college, I started out as a Graphic Designer and moved through the ranks to eventually own my own agency. It was a very rewarding and creative career, but I yearned to create for myself. So I started to paint again.
The years in the design field have influenced my work and made me into the fine artist I am today. People inspire me and I’m intuitively attracted to those who exude authenticity and confidence. I try to capture them in various ways whether it be in a humorous pose or a candid one. I like to keep it real. It’s a wonderfully sharp contrast to the commercial world.
How did you find Sortly?
I have original art or prints in various galleries and online. It’s been frustrating trying to figure out a way to track my art. There are good programs out there that are designed to track art, but I didn’t need a big bulky program. I needed something that was easy to access, update and share. So I asked the question on Facebook (always a great place to get info) and a friend suggested Sortly.
How do you use Sortly?
I went online to get some ideas on how to use the app and then listed what my art needs were: Location, visual identification, quantities, sold, not sold, to whom, how much and the collector. Immediately, I fell in love with the Sortly. It’s so easy. I started by creating a “location” for my work called Art. I then created various sub locations such as galleries, my collection, and donations. Within each of these sub locations, I added my artworks and their tags, prices, locations and quantities. Every painting has an unlimited list of variables and having an on demand tracking system is essential. You never know when you’ll meet a collector who wants to know more about prices or who has collected your work! Let me give you an example, I have a painting called “Bad Habit.” The original is at the Frying Pan Gallery in Wellfleet, MA. But it’s also available online at Saatchiart.com. It hasn’t sold yet and therefore is still part of my collection. The prices for the original and prints are marked-up differently depending on who’s selling them. So I have the painting in 2 sub locations: One called “Frying Pan Gallery” because that’s where the actual painting is located and the other called “Artist Collection” because it’s part of my unsold work. Within the sub location, the painting is tagged: Not sold, Prints available, 12×12 print size, Frying pan gallery, Saatchiart.
The best part of all of this? I can download the data into an excel file. The one thing that was missing was how I could share this info in real time with my gallery. So I contacted Sortly who suggested that I could give access to my account to the gallery over the Cloud, who could then edit within their location and add tags on the fly. Hopefully a SOLD tag ☺. I haven’t yet put this access with my gallery into practice but I see it has tremendous potential and will have to keep you posted. Oh and I can’t forget to mention that you can attach pictures to items and move items from one sub location to another!
The possibilities are endless and my sorting system is in it’s infancy, but I’m sure it’s going to evolve as Sortly does too. Come to think of it, I haven’t put in the sizes of my paintings! Bad Habit is 42” x 42”. Better get on that pronto.
What system were you using before?
I had no system before other than what was in my head. I’m fortunate enough to be selling my work, so before I started forgetting things, Sortly came to my rescue.
