Insurance Options for the Self-Employed

If you're self-employed and work by yourself you need to make sure you organize the correct insurance for you and your business. This will be insurance that covers you against any unforeseen and unexpected set backs or accidents that befall you and your company. If not protected you could face serious losses or even the closing of your business.

A lot of insurance companies offer something called Public Liability Insurance for the self-employed. If you search the internet you will be able to see a number of different quotes and policies. This is the most important type of insurance for your business. It covers you and your business for claims made against you by customers, clients and third parties, including members of the public.

The exact type of insurance you need depends on your type of self-employment, and one policy will vary from another. In addition, and depending on the nature of your career and your dealings with the public, you may well need to combine Public Liability Insurance with other kinds of insurance. For example, financial advisors may need to have both public liability and also professional indemnity insurance because of the nature of their profession and because of the position of trust they take when dealing with the general public. In addition their may be insurances that their own industry require they take out, related to financial advice, for example.

There are, then, a number of specialist insurances that self-employed workers should check if they need. The following are the most common insurance policies for the self-employed:

Public Liability Insurance

Public Liability Insurance protects you and your company from claims against you by members of the public, customers, clients and is advisable for almost all businesses.

Professional Indemnity Insurance

Professional Indemnity Insurance gives you insurance cover for the services and advice you might give to your customers or clients. Should that advice or service be incorrect or wrongly performed and cause damages to your customer, they would have redress in the courts. Professional Indemnity Insurance covers you.

Employer's Liability Insurance

Essential insurance for all self-employed people who have reached a stage with their business where they need to employ other people.

Commercial Vehicle Insurance

If you use a commercial vehicle for your work then you need to get commercial vehicle insurance.

Business Buildings Insurance.

Business Buildings Insurance is essential if you work from home or rent or own a site - it covers both the building and any of the business equipment inside.

To find a suitable self-employed insurance policy for your business seek out brokers who specialize in self-employed and contractor mortgages, tax solutions, umbrella companies, pensions and insurance policies. They will give you a better rate than most general brokers and financial institutions.

Boy Genius

Illustration from Norman Rockwell's second year as a professional artist. He was all of 19 years old.

Spending time in the Berkshires this week, I got to wondering what artist might be identified with this area.

Norman Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations he did for The Saturday Evening Post. Born in New York, he attended both the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League. By age 18, he had a published book illustration to his credit. That year he was hired as an illustrator for Boys’ Life. At 19, he was promoted to be their art editor, in which role he did his first cover illustrations.

It's absurd to try to choose a favorite from his many illustrations for the Saturday Evening Post. Rockwell layered images rather than trying to create a full-dimension space; this is a great example of that technique.

At age 21, he submitted his first cover illustration to the Saturday Evening Post.He was published eight times total on the Post’s cover within that first year. Over his career, Rockwell did 323 original covers for the Saturday Evening Post.

Rockwell painted his most famous works, the Four Freedoms series, in 1943. It took him seven months. The series was inspired by a speech by President Roosevelt, in which he described four principles for universal rights.

When he wanted to create a fully realized space, however, he had the chops. Freedom from Want's Puritanical white-on-white tablecloth brings the faces into focus, and they are an essay in optimism in the dark days of WWII. 

In 1953, Rockwell and his family moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. From 1961 until his death in 1978, Rockwell was a member of the Monday Evening Club, a men's literary group based in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, which is where my daughter lives, and where I regularly stop on my trips back and forth to Maine.

Rockwell's portrait of his adopted Stockbridge, MA, would do any landscape painter proud.

The early part of the 20^th century is often called the Golden Age of Illustration. Why were so many fine 20^thcentury illustrators able to do such fine work at such young ages? In part, there was an expectation that people in their late teens were fully formed adults, capable of bearing adult responsibilities. In part, the schools were teaching traditional drafting and drawing.

Message me if you want information about next year’s workshops.-*

Salient Tips On Getting The Best Denver Home Loan

ortgage Companies are established in various areas to help people who wish to purchase their home or refinance the mortgage on their existing home. Since mortgages are available in various packages, it is important for customers to be able to select the best packages for their requirements. Information is available online for learning about the configuration and effect of interest rates on one’s finances. At the end of the day, you should be able to pay off the mortgage loan with the tenor mentioned in the loan contract.

Denver home loans are available with Beacon Financial Mortgage lenders who are reputed in the field and offer low interest rates and various options for customers. If you are cautious about taking mortgages and require discussing your options with a counselor you can call them and they will offer their best customer service.

Denver home loan rates are available for people who are credit worthy and maintain a high credit score. They can get better interest rates with mortgage companies. If your credit score is low, some companies like Beacon Financial Mortgage will make an individualized decision to help you with a proposal. The advantages with selecting a company such as Beacon Financial is that they are accredited and do not charge any lock fee, application fee or other such fees. They have streamlined the mortgage process and have the ability of closing your loan in 15 days.

Try to get the best Denver home loan when you wish to purchase property or a home. You will want to ensure that the home becomes your own after many years of paying the mortgage loan interest rates. You may pay the same amount of interest rate every month when you decide on a fixed rate mortgage. You can either take the fixed rate for a period of 15 to 20 years or you can use the option for a five and seven-year fixed rate loan with balloon payment at the end. This is different from adjustable rate of interest.

If you are interested in finding the best options then you should log on to the websites of several mortgage companies and read the types of loan interest rates to find out which one will benefit you in the long run. Do not hesitate to contact the customer service support and ask them to answer your queries. You should have no doubts when you are paying out money in order to purchase a dream home that you are living in currently.

Most of the popular and reputable sites offer tools and calculators and set up track sheets to let you see the current rates of interests especially when you plan to purchase properties. Make sure you are well informed about Denver home loan rates and make the right decision when you visit the mortgage company. You have the option of deciding on the loan program that you wish to take and the mortgage counselor will help you to select the right option.

So you want to learn to paint

Autumn is the best time of the year to paint en plein air in Rochester. The light is beautiful, the foliage is an ever-changing kaleidoscope, and the weather is usually more stable than in summer.

If you’re a new painting student, we’ll start by experimenting with different kinds of media, learning the fundamentals of drawing, and then concentrating on the process by which pigment goes from the tube to the canvas.

If you’re an experienced painter, we’ll develop processes for mixing clean color accurately and quickly, talk about the difference between studio painting and painting outside, and work on composition.

When the weather closes in, we segue to working in my studio, which is located at 410 Oakdale Drive, Rochester, NY 14618.

Saturday lessons begin on September 13; Tuesday lessons begin on October 7. Both classes are from 10 AM to 1 PM. Tuition is $100 a month.

While I assume most readers already know who I am, my bio can be found here. For more information, email me here.

Message me if you want information about next year’s workshops.

Reappraisal

Reed beds at the Irondequoit Inn didn't thrill me that much when I painted it, but it turns out to have been predictive of where I'm going as a painter.

Recently, I was listening to some fellow painters talking about how to reuse canvas-boards on which they'd done unsuccessful paintings. I remarked that I almost never reuse boards, because I almost never throw things away. My studio and workshop are full of field sketches and paintings that aren’t going to be shown but aren’t going to be painted over, either. As long as I have the luxury of space, I’m going to continue this practice.

Hayfield in Paradise (private collection) was painted about a decade ago. Yes, it's obviously by me, but my color sense, my brushwork, and my composition are all much different today.

I think most artists are poor judges of whether something they’re working on is a success. We usually think it works when it flows off the brush without too much pain. However, often the most important work we’re doing isn’t easy. Trailblazing involves hacking out a path with an ax, after all.

I had most of my inventory off my own walls this summer because it was in galleries. To fill the nailholes, I put up some small works from my slush pile. One of these pieces is hanging on the wall opposite my bed, where I see it when I wake up. I didn’t like it that much when I painted it, but after a week back home, I realize that it’s actually very good. It was jarring several years ago; it seems a lot more like me today.

I loathed this painting of the mouth of the Genesee River when I did it, and almost wiped it out. It has really grown on me over the years, and now I think it's a really cool painting.

Another small painting—a sketch for a larger work—accidentally traveled with me to Maine this summer. Since it had nothing to do with the Maine works I was delivering, I used it to decorate my cabin. When I painted it, I thought it was both elegant and loose. However, the subdued palette has little in common with my work today.

Keuka Vineyard accidentally traveled to Maine with me. I realized after looking at it for several weeks that it's not that connected with my work today. Nevertheless, I still like it.

You can’t really make these judgments if you obliterate everything you paint that makes you uncomfortable. That's analogous to ruthlessly weeding out all new seedlings under the mistaken notion that they are weeds. You really can't tell what's in your garden until it has a chance to grow.

Message me if you want information about next year’s classes or workshops.

How I spent my summer vacation

Janith Mason epitomizes the joy most people feel at painting in Maine. It's just that kind of place.

Summer slipped past me like road markers on the interstate, perhaps because I’ve driven 7500 miles since June 27. Working sun up to sun down with almost no days off for five weeks is exhausting, but it was deeply rewarding at the same time.

Sunset over the Hudson was painted at Olana.

In early June I drove to the Catskills to join a select group of New York plein air painters at a retreatorganized by Jamie Williams Grossman.  I came home to miss my own opening of God+Man at Aviv! Gallery, because of a health issue—the first time that’s ever happened to me. (Mercifully, I made my student show's opening the following Sunday afternoon.)

Back in Rochester, the official first day of summer found my class huddled up against a cold wind off Lake Ontario. Since the lake nearly froze solid last winter, that was understandable. In fact, it’s been a cooler-than-average summer here, and our tomatoes are just now thinking of ripening.

I may have missed my own opening in June, but I did make it to my student show. Of course, there was beer.

I was walking in Mt. Hope Cemetery on Independence Day when I saw a young man painting en plein air. Turns out to be an RIT graduate named Zac Retz. He and another young friend joined us one more time before I left for Maine. I hope to see them again.

July found my duo show with Stu Chait, Intersections of Form, Color, Time and Space, closed down by RIT-NTID’s Dyer Gallery. The nude figure paintings might have offended young campus visitors. That’s a gift that keeps on giving, since the paintings had to be packed and moved in a hurry by two young assistants; they’re still in my studio awaiting their final repacking and storage.

My $15 porta-potty turned out to be one of the best investments I've ever made.

I couldn’t move them myself because by that time I was living off the grid in Waldoboro, ME. From there I went to one of my favorite events of the year, Castine Plein Air, which was followed by ten days of painting in Camden and Waldoboro.

Evening Reverie, sold, was one of many pieces I painted for Camden Falls Gallery this summer.

Then on to my workshop in Belfast, which was a lovely mix of friends old and new. This year, a number of participants traveled with their families, which lent a wonderful tone to the experience. From there I joined Tarryl Gabel and her intrepid band of women painters in Saranac Lake to participate in Sandra Hildreth’s Adirondack Plein Air Festival.

By the time you read this, I will be on the road again. This time it’s not work; I’m going to see family. I’m really looking forward to being back in Rochester teaching again, and starting on a new body of studio work.

 Message me if you want information about next year’s classes or workshops.

Altering Magic Cards

Wolf in Sheep's Clothing by Aaron Boucher. It really does look less threatening.

My son-in-law Aaron Boucher is a pretty talented kid, although he doesn’t have much formal art training. I’m never going to turn him into a full-time painter (at least if my daughter has anything to say in the matter), but when he expressed an interest in altering Magic: The Gathering cards, I gave him some Golden Fluid Acrylics and fine brushes to work with. Golden Fluid Acrylics are sheer enough to work well on the flimsy cardboard cards, and he spent a happy afternoon painting.

Rampage at the State Fair by Sandy Quang.

Altering Magic cards perfectly fits my personal definition of fine art: the expression of creative imagination in a format that is completely without usefulness. That’s different from my definition of fine craft, which I think means the expression of creative imagination in a format that’s primarily useful. (Other than that, I make absolutely no distinction between art and craft.)

Portrait of Madame X, by Aaron Boucher is an extension alter.

The project worked out great for my Labor Day weekend. Nobody suggested a ten-mile hike over broken terrain. I got to read a novel, my daughter got to cook, and my husband took a long nap.

Mesmeric Eyes, by Aaron Boucher.

Happy Labor Day! Message me if you want information about next year’s workshops. Information about this year's programs is available here.