Southern Accents biting the dust
 

I was shocked to learn the other day that they will no longer be publishing this magazine. For many years it was a reliable place for portrait painters to advertise their work and reach the southern market. When I started in this business, you could pick up any issue and find numerous artists advertising there.

I do think in more recent years they priced themselves out of the individual portrait artist market. Every year they went up at least 15% and sometimes more than that. I know few individual artists whose income increases that much per year.

When I managed Robert Schoeller years ago, it was key to our initial success. I think a full page ad in the national issue then was around $7,000 in the mid 80s. I don't know what their latest pricing is, but I thinkI heard it was 26k quite a few years ago - for sure more today. Almost a quadruple jump. Has your income quadrupled since the mid-80s? I know mine has not.

Maybe if they hadn't had high increases in pricing they'd still be able to publish it.

Even Gourmet Magaziine is closing it's doors.

Happy birthday to you, dear Cynthia!
 

Your kindness breaked ice,
and wisdom made this page nice,
Looked at them increased their price,
not to say twice, thrice,...

So your battleship survived storm,
no need for me to confirm,
I am a slow learner I admit,
I will always to learn to better perform.

Happy, happy birthday to you,
So memorable we were going through,
So let us make our dream come true,
Let the world know our view,