Shopping Online Safely - Steps I Take to Protect Myself

The dangers of online shopping are well known. Horror stories abound of people who have lost loads of money while shopping online. You may be tempted to shun all online shopping, because you just don't want to take the risk.

However, as our lives become and more intertwined with activities on the Internet, it will become increasingly hard to avoid all online financial transactions. Instead of avoiding the issue, why not take steps to protect yourself?

I'll outline steps I take to limit my online risk. Following these steps are no guarantee that I'll never lose money. But they greatly reduce the chances that I will lose significant amounts of money with my online activities.

To start it's important to recognize two levels of risk:

1. My Immediate Purchase Risk - the risk that I will lose money with the transaction I am currently making.

2. My After-the-Fact Financial Risk - the risk that my financial information will be stolen and used subsequent to the transaction I am currently making, possibly repeatedly.

While both kinds of risk are important, the second can lead to far greater losses of money than the first. We'll cover steps to avoid both kinds of losses, but you'll want to be especially diligent about lowering your After-the-Fact financial risk.

Reducing My Immediate Purchase Risk

In making a purchase, the merchant's reputation is everything. When I consider purchasing from an unfamiliar online merchant, I do my my best to establish that the merchant has a good reputation. Most legitimate retailers work hard to avoid cheating their customers, and their reputation will reflect that effort.

Reputation on Online Auctions

With online auctions, establishing a merchant's reputation is usually pretty easy. Generally each seller will have a score indicating how well they've done in satisfying their customers. Don't under estimate the value of this information. It's very revealing. I usually make sure that the seller has been involved in a large number of transactions -- no less than 30 -- but a much higher number if I want to be really safe.

Further I read the feedback that the seller has received from their buyers. It's important to take particular note of any neutral or negative comments. If the percentage of negative comments is greater than a couple percent, I will probably avoid this seller. Additionally, if the negative comment percentage is low, but there is a consistent theme of poor shipping performance or of buyers not receiving what they expected, I also will likely move on.

Reputation Through the Better Business Bureau

If the merchant is not selling through an auction, establishing it's reputation takes more work. I'll usually take a quick look at the Better Business Bureau web site for online businesses ( http://www.bbbonline.org ). It's pretty rare to find an online merchant listed there, but if it is listed and it has poor performance, I immediately know to avoid it.

Further, if I can find the physical address of the business, I can use the main Better Business Bureau web site ( http://welcome.bbb.org/ ) to find the local Better Business Bureau responsible for the merchant's geographic area. Many times the local Better Business Bureau will have a listing for the online merchant.

Dark days

Descent from the Cross, 1616-17, Peter Paul Rubens.

Today and tomorrow, you may notice that your devout Christian friends seem weary and drawn as they deal with the most difficult two days in the Liturgical Year. Yeah, they’re grocery shopping.

That and pondering the stark reality of what Good Friday and Holy Saturday represent—that moment when Jesus was dead and it appeared that his final gambit failed. It doesn’t take much for the honest Christian to stand in the disciples’ shoes, for we have all doubted our faith.

The first comic book artist was Peter Paul Rubens, who could invest even death with great motion and drama. He painted several Depositions, and they would be difficult for a modern artist to mimic, since most of us have never seen a dead body that hasn’t been propped up with embalming and makeup.

Note the beautiful juxtapositions in the top painting: John the Baptist’s face pressed against Jesus’ wounds, a limp, bloody hand in that of a swarthy and lively young man; the other blue hand being held against the fair pink cheek of Mary Magdelene, the dead Christ’s face next to his grieving mother’s face.

Descent from the Cross, 1612-14, Peter Paul Rubens.

Rubens based this painting closely on an earlier version, above, reversing the composition and changing up some figures. But something radical also changed. The earlier painting is pure Baroque religious styling: Christ is idealized, and his handlers touch him with the reverence due the Eucharist. In the later painting, he is a dead man being brought down from the cross by his friends.

The Deposition, 1545, Daniele da Volterra.

A very different treatment is Daniele da Volterra’s fresco of the deposition. Yes, he was working from drawings by Michelangelo and, yes, he’s a Mannerist, but there’s still something very compelling about that dead Christ jutting out in space toward us.

Daniele suffered from his association with Michelangelo: after the master’s death, he was the poor unfortunate assigned the job of adding loincloths to The Last Judgment. Henceforth he would be nicknamed Il Braghettone, or the breeches-maker.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

Maundy Thursday

Christ Washing the Disciples' Feet, 1548-49, Tintoretto (Jacopo Comin). In this version (one of at least six painted by Tintoretto) the disciples are almost buffoonish in their attempts to remove their stockings. Judas is in crimson on the left, isolated from the other disciples. At the top right is a portal through time in which the Last Supper is taking place.

Non-Christians are sometimes surprised to learn that Easter, rather than Christmas, is the most important holiday in the Christian liturgical year. (Easter is really an entire season of the church calendar, rather than a single day.)  

Within the liturgical wing of the church, Lent is a 40-day period of penance and prayer that leads up to Holy Week, which we are in now. Today is Maundy Thursday, which remembers the Last Supper as recorded in the synoptic Gospels.  The services that will be held tonight start the Paschel Triduum, or the church’s commemoration of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Seven Sacraments Altarpiece, 1445-50, by Rogier van der Weyden, shows baptism, confirmation and confession on the left and ordination, marriage and last rites on the right. The central panel includes the Eucharist in the background.

The Last Supper having been a Passover meal before the Sabbath, the service is traditionally held at the beginning of Friday as per Jewish tradition, which corresponds to Thursday evening in our western calendar. Its primary component is stripping the altar, but it may also include washing of feet by a priest or bishop and the blessing of Holy Oil.

The Seven Sacraments Altarpiece, 1445-50, by Rogier van der Weyden, shows the use of chrism, or holy oil, in the sacraments of baptism and confirmation on the left. 

The English word Maundy comes from the opening of the phrase spoken by Jesus to the Apostles after washing their feet at the Last Supper: Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos. (“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”)

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

Local artist

The Tiger, 1929, Charles Livingston Bull, for Barnum and Bailey.

I was trying to locate a show by a friend last week. Google came up with a number of references to her paired with the phrase “local artist.” It’s a funny term, and one I dislike.

There are local movements in art communities (such as the Northern California Tonalists or the Bay Area Figurative Movement) but in general most of us are working within the broader movement of our age. This is particularly true in today’s world, where boundaries are blurred by the internet.

Even worse is the term, “well-known local artist.” It’s amazing how many artists are unknown in their home towns and well-known elsewhere.

Saturday Evening Postcover art, March 6 1918, by Charles Livingston Bull

Consider the wildlife artist Charles Livingston Bull. Born in West Walworth, New York, he demonstrated an aptitude for drawing at a very young age. He enrolled at the Rochester Athenaeum and Mechanics Institute (now Rochester Institute of Technology) to study drafting, and took a taxidermy apprenticeship at the Ward Museum of Natural History.

Professor Ward sent the young man to the 1893 Chicago World Exposition to design a bird display for the government of Guatemala. His work there garnered him the job of Chief Taxidermist at the National Museum in Washington. Bull took night classes at the Corcoran Gallery of Art for seven years, until he felt ready to pursue a freelance animal illustration career.

Boys’ Life cover art, Apr 1932, by Charles Livingston Bull

He illustrated more than 135 books and numerous articles for magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post, Life, Collier's, American Boy, and Country Gentleman. As exquisite as his drawings are, he’s pretty much an unknown here, in his hometown.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

Hold the date

The Servant, by little ol' me, will be in this show.

Sitting in my living room on a cold spring day, Stu Chaitand Jane Bartlett and I were trying to track down the threads that connect us. We have many friends in common, but unless you’ve done a meet-cute, most of us slide into friendships without too much fanfare. After some thinking, Stu and I could be precise: we met in the Ellwanger Garden on a glorious September afternoon to paint en plein air. Stu and Jane met at a mutual friend’s opening. Jane and I no longer even remember, we go so far back.

We’ve all travelled a long way since then: Jane concentrates on contemporary dye-work and clothing design. Stu left realism entirely, working with watercolors on canvas. And I am peripatetic, wandering fromplein air assignments elsewhere to figure work in my own studio.

Why is this one of my favorite pieces of Jane Bartlett's dyework? Because it is mine!

What links us as artists? All three of us are zealous about craftsmanship. Despite that, all three of us are intentionally loose in our handling, content to find the happy accident that allows a piece to transcend our intentions. Beyond that, we work in highly complementary forms and color palettes.

Vitis, by Stu Chait.

This is all ever so cool, because the three of us are having a three-person show together at RIT-NTID’s Dyer Gallery this July. The opening is tentatively scheduled for July 18. Mark your calendars, and be there or be square.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

Organize Your Business Online For Success in Business Building

When your brain does not have focus, the thoughts appear as chaos. I know how that feels, it happens to me, too. Here are some techniques I have found that will help you put those ideas to beneficial use in your business.

First, get out a pen and paper. Do not use a pencil and paper as a pencil gives a subconscious message to your brain that the information is not really important and can be erased at will. Next, find a quiet place where you can work for about thirty minutes without interruption. Then brainstorm. Brainstorming is a technique that you will find to be very helpful in getting focused ideas on paper. Just write down all the thoughts as they come to mind. Do not try to edit their content or interrupt their flow.

You will find the ideas may be slow in coming at first; but, as you practice, the ideas will come quickly. Once you have them on paper, then look for developing patterns. Are some of the ideas related to each other in meaning? Group them together in categories.

Which of the thoughts seem most relevant? You can then go to Google and look for related content on the topics that will help you build your information on the topic. Which of the business related topics really interest you? Pick those first as they will be the easiest for you to use.

For example, if you are interested in sports, are there ways that you can use a story about a particular sport in order to build interest in what you want to say to your customers? Is there a lesson or technique that can be applied to both sports and your business product? Be creative and stretch your thinking here just a bit.

If you are wanting to attract online customers, then see what is being searched for online by going to Google again. This time, go to the keyword tool and look for the topics that are being searched for that apply to your business. I often find related topics that are actually more searched for than the topic I was planing to use.

It is really not what you want to say that is most important. The most important technique is saying it in the way that your customers want to hear about it and will remain interested so that you can lead them to realize that you are the one who can help them with their business issue better than your competitors can.

The biggest asset in this method is your clients will realize you care about their needs and that you are willing to develop a plan specifically for them.

Just a bit of organization will help you get your message out to the people who need to hear what you have to say. Then, both you and your clients benefit and that is what good business strategy is all about.

How not to buy art

I went on ebay this morning and found you some great masters. Here, a Joan Miró for $75... or was it $90?... dollars. The only difference in buying this from a gallery is the bland assurance of the gallerista that it is genuine. And when you get it back to your brokerage office in Des Moines, it will hardly matter.

The Wall Street Journal ran an article called “How to Buy Warhol, Degas and Renoir on the Cheap.” I hope they were using Sarcastic Font, because it should be read as a story of how to get suckered.

What are people buying when they purchase a smudgy scrap of paper or a print overrun from the hand of a master? Not art, for sure, but bragging rights. And they’re not even particularly good bragging rights. Experts can’t agree about the authenticity of paintings that, if accepted into the artist’s oeuvre, could be worth tens of millions of dollars. Does anyone believe they apply the same level of scholarship to a painter’s grocery list?

And here, a genuine Pablo Picasso. You can tell he really did it because of the bull.

There was a time when it seemed like every gallery in New York had a Joan Miró print for sale at a knockdown price. And yet they were anodyne, unmemorable, and their only selling point was that the collector could say they had a ‘name’ work in their collection.

I once sold a Leonard Baskin print on ebay. I needed the money more than I needed the print. Someone got a far better deal than had he or she bought one of those Mirós. But that buyer knew art and knew the market.

And who would try to forge an Egon Schiele anyway? Just everyone, that's who.

The buyer who loves art but doesn’t know anything about it should try to learn something about it under the tutelage of good advisors. He shouldn’t be buying putative Old Masters; he should be buying new works that have room to appreciate. And if he isn’t willing to put even that much work into it, he should stick to collecting old LPs and band posters.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!