Farewell to My Tag Art

*The beautiful section banner they made for me for my gallery page at My Tag Art.

My Tag Art has just announced that it will be closing its doors on November 1st, 2011.  The last day to purchase tags, redeem any gift certificates, etc., and contact customer service is October 31st.  Meanwhile, the whole month of October is their Blowout Sale month with great deals to be grabbed while still available. ^^

My Tag Art is one of my very first licensing contracts, and the first one that I approached myself, and therefore, I am sad to see the company go.  I feel that I really didn't get to know them as well as I would have liked.  They were very well run -- e-mail communications were prompt and always courteous, they treated me (a relative newbie) with respect, and the royalty payments were always on time.  As an artist, one cannot ask for more than that, especially when we all know that there are crooks everywhere along with false promises, hyperbole (over-promising and under-delivering), and all that goes with things not quite living up to expectations.

I myself had no idea what tubes were when I first looked into it.  It was something I decided to sign up for because I saw so many other artists (especially the up and coming ones) doing it as well.  There are artists with literally dozens of images made available as tubes, but I've quickly learned that images with high levels of detail do not look the best when presented in such small format as images intended for signature and web graphic usage (low resolution, smaller images).

Another thing that happens with your image when you make them available as tubes for tag-making is that you see some stuff that you don't necessarily find to your liking.  After all, consumers, upon purchasing the tubes, are free to manipulate the image by 'collaging' it with any number of other tubes to make their own tags and whatnot -- all the while they are required to put the artist's copyright mark.  Which does create certain confusion for anyone viewing the final tags ... making them wonder how much of it is the original artist's work and how much is the work of the tag artist.  Maybe it's the control freak in me, but I didn't really like this aspect of having my artwork licensed for tubes.

I don't intend to go out and seek new representation when my contract terminates on November 1st.  It was a fun learning experience, and I was fortunate to have this opportunity with a wonderful company that treated its artists fairly and courteously.