I realize now that this review of Boundless Gallery should have been higher up on my to-do list for EmptyEasel—after looking at the site I was really very impressed.
(Full disclosure: BoundlessGallery is now an EE advertiser.)
BoundlessGallery.com sells all types of art by original artists—Paintings, Photography, Glass Art, Metal and Wood Artwork, Ceramics, Sewn and Knitted Art, Jewelry, and even Fine Art Prints. Basically, no matter what kind of art you make, at BoundlessGallery you’ll find a category that will work for you.
The site is also cleanly laid out and immediately engages visitors with its “art finder,” prominently displayed on the main page.
The Boundless Gallery Art Finder is a general search tool for finding art, but it’s a bit different from most of the art search engines I’ve seen before. That’s because it uses fairly intuitive graphical buttons instead of dropdown menus or checkboxes. (And rollover text if you don’t want to guess what the icons are.)
The color selector isn’t as advanced as, say, Sistino’s, but at least it does allow buyers to search for more than one color at a time. If you’re looking for a specific shade of orange, however, you’ll have to settle for looking through ALL the artwork tagged “orange” by individual artists.
And just like the color selector, you can pick several categories to search through simultaneously as well. Plus, if you get tired of using those little picture icons, you can also search by keyword or artist’s name; or by clicking on “more options” and then narrowing your search by style or theme.
Boundless Gallery also has a specific tool that I’ve never seen before. It’s an adjustable price range that lets buyers move sliders to enclose the amount they’d be willing to pay for their art.
For buyers this is helpful because they can remove artwork that doesn’t fit their budget. But, it also helps artists because there’s no sticker shock when a buyer looks at the price.
The size restriction tool (below the slider) was the only feature that was confusing to me.
I think it could be very useful, and I believe it’s unique to Boundless Gallery just like the price slider is, but it took me a while to understand how to use it. I think for the sake of first time visitors it definitely needs some improvement.
Despite that, Boundless Gallery would still be my pick for the easiest way to search for art, of all the art websites I’ve reviewed.
And on the artist’s end, uploading art is pretty simple and straightforward too. You get up to six images per artwork and fill in all the typical information. I didn’t find anything too out of the ordinary with that.
Once your work is up, however, potential buyers are allowed to send you a private offer to buy your artwork at a lower price than what you listed it for. Then it’s up to you whether to take the deal or hold out for the full amount.
There’s also a system set up for custom and commission work.
If someone likes your artwork they can submit a detailed request for your services. Again, it’s your choice, and you name the price.
To increase your chances of selling art, however, you may want to choose to pay a dollar per day to be featured on the home page. There are only four spaces for artwork in this Artist Showcase, so your art will be rotated in and out randomly along with all the other artists paying for the privilege.
You can pick which days you’d like to be featured, too. When I looked at the schedule for the coming week on Boundless Gallery, there were never more than 30 artists scheduled for one day—so for approximately every seven page views, your art would show up. That’s not bad.
If you don’t want to pay to get on the main page then you’ll just have to get picked as the Artist of the Month. (That’s pretty unlikely, however.) The artist who IS chosen will get four works displayed right below the Boundless Gallery art finder and above the Artist Showcase.
From everything I saw on the website, and compared to many of the other sites I’ve reviewed, I think that BoundlessGallery.com is definitely worth trying out.
I should also mention that when this article was first written, BoundlessGallery simply charged a 25% commission fee. Recently, however, they’ve created three different payment options for artists—you can read about that here.