LaneBay



LaneBay was a website run by Jane Lane from 2000 to 2001. "Since Mom and Dad often forget to pay the mortgage, it may be the only way I can hold onto my garret."

Quoth Jane:

"Now you can acquire great art without messy human contact. The internet is all about anonymity -- yours as an art buyer, mine as an artist. Wait, that didn't sound right, but let's move on for now.

"I want you to have some first-rate art. So I'm bypassing the critics, dealers, and curators and creating a site to showcase my own work. After all, if Van Gogh'd had a home page, maybe he wouldn't have suffered such complete neglect and cut off his ear just for attention. Or if he did cut it off, at least he could have charged for the live video feed.

"As a special bonus, you have the opportunity to purchase fine works not only by me but by members of my talented family. Once they caught wind of my e-commerce endeavor, they paid me the ultimate compliment by horning in on the act. It's great to be the youngest."

The site promises "a surprise fee for shipping and handling."



You can buy:


 * "Uber-Tuber Art: Limited Edition Potato Prints by Jane Lane": One of this is just a normal potato, which she claims was too beautiful to cut ("Lack of imagination-deadening "artist's vision" makes this piece conceptually compelling"). Another is "Daria Brooding". "My friend Daria was so unnerved by her undercooked french fries that I felt the need to grab a potato that very minute and capture her extreme emotional state. It was a baked potato -- too hot, ouch! -- but after the blisters healed I recreated the scene from memory with a fingerling."


 * "The Way of the Clay: Amanda Lane's Ceramic Creations": She forgot to put a hole in a vase for the flowers to go into and the spirit vessel can't contain anything liquid. But it's microwave safe!


 * "Boulder Statements: Photographs of Celtic Rock Formations by Vincent Lane": Vincent expresses a discontent with how he went through constant discomfort (including sleeping a night in Glasgow airport) to take these photos while his buyers are "staying nice and dry and avoiding the onset of pneumonia. (But it was worth it, really!)" One is just a photo of a pebble in a Bed & Breakfast driveway.


 * "Scrawling For Dollars: Trent Lane's Rock And Roll Doodles": doodles he made on paper plates and napkins.


 * "Hands Across The Checkout Counter: Central American crafts imported by Penny Lane": "You can't undo centuries of oppression or erase the devastating effect of smallpox, but you can do your part to support a non-hierarchical village-based industry!" She then admitted one item was made by wealthy American women who'd emigrated to Costa Rica, who were "not particularly oppressed at the moment (most play cards and lie around the pool all day) but surely victims of sexism at some point".

LaneBay links to commercial sites run by Summer Lane and Wind Lane.