Museum of Paper

Make Money While You Sleep and other Get Rich Quick Schemes

Most professional artists are not normally rolling in money. And people who do art as a hobby spend their money on supplies, books and things that will be helpful in making art.

So we as a group are often the targets of people who want to sell us stuff or sign us up for something that will - you guessed it - bring in some extra dollars.

When it's someone selling us a blogging platform or a workshop designed to help us in some way that's one thing.

And though you likely won't get rich quick at least it's honest cash; and you don't have to keep changing your email address or blog URL to stay one step ahead of Interpol.

Art Supplies : Let's Talk About Stuff

Let's talk about art supplies, papers, inks, ephemera; you know:"Stuff"

How do you store it, handle it, deal with it?

• Do you even try to organizing and find places for it?
• Would you rather toss it entirely?
• Do you sort and categorize your stuff or store by size?
• Do you file it or pile it?

Do you act like you prefer distracting, depressing but un-tackled stuff than feeling disapointment at the end of a few hours spent organizing unsuccessfully?

Wasn't there some magazine in the fifties called True Confessions? Here's one from your fellow artsy soul.

Stuff.  I keep it because -

• I can see the use for almost anything.  I've had a beautiful turquoise swirl of a bowling ball in the foyer for three years because of something it's "going to" become in the garden

• Dad was an industrial builder. For the first ten years of my life, when the next contract was awarded and it came time for dad to go in and set up the site & hire the crews it was again time to pitch anything not considered important by mom.

Today I don't need half of what I've got. To make my situation one or two (or seven) levels more disfunctional - and present you with better opportunities to make suggestions - I present one more challenge:

• If I am not able to organize this or anything else perfectly I am perfectly capable of just leaving it un-organized.

Apparently on some level I'd prefer a pile of stuff I have not tacked than the left-overs from something I'd tried and failed to accomplish - and accomplish to my satisfaction.  Hmmmm. . .

So what do you have to share about your "Stuff?"

Artists on LiveJournal and Blogger Should Jump Ship

Found in a piece about the system-wide Six Apart outage on 5/2/06

"Hope it stops soon though, a sustained livejournal outage is probably grounds for at least 4-5 suicides by distraught teenagers who can't blog about their day."

Well I guess this makes it official, even if insensitively put in the above quote. LJ is thought of by many as a bunch of fourteen year olds, which is a shame since so many creative people built their first blogs - then thought of as journals and by some still approached that way - on LJ.

This combined with the given that blogger/blogspot are flagged as being home to thousands of spammers and splogs seems like it just adds another log to the fire under multiple bloggers to build blogs on something other than the LJ or blogger/blogspot platforms - or move blogs already set up to another format.

Alice in Wonderland : Images and Trends in Paper Art

I visited Nancy Baumiller's blog and while looking at her hand lettered "Listen with your Heart" image I had an actual "Alice in Wonderland" moment, flashing back to freshman year in college during which i was required to take "lettering 101." It was painful then, but Nancy must have done better than I.

She wonders if she could put it on ebay. Um - yes - absolutely.

But you guys decide for yourself and give her advice in her comments area. Heck - make her an offer; it's a cute piece.

Looking through some of Nancy's other things, especially altered books, I was struck by the bold colors many artists are finding comfort with. And how they bravely strike out into fuchsias and bright yellows while I am so timid with some of the same - some of the time . . .

. . . and the topic of brave and new things sparked a memory from an artist's group conversation in the past couple of weeks, centering on trends.

Here's the question:

• Is use of items like wings and crown in images a trend with artists and art periodicals are picking up on it?
• Or is it a trend fostered by what some publications are showing?

Food for thought. Everything changes. Funky goes out and sleek comes in. Or bright goes out and muted rolls in. Is it the same for wings, dunce caps, crowns in collage? And what's next after clocks and wings have flown into the recesses of history?

• Will we have our images smiling enigmatically in honor of Mona Lisa's rumored 500Th birthday?

• Maybe we'll we see Sneakers? Hershey Kisses? Gloves? Handbags? Canes and walking sticks? Insect and animal populations?

• Will we get enmeshed in complex images like Cory Doctorow points out about currency in 1876? ( OK, so that would probably be only in my dreams. )

• Will mainstream paper art ever be making philosophical statements like some cartoonists do today?

And do you have suggestions about a theme you'd like to see in the paper art magazines as the current images fade into the background?

Are you doing work with other images or themes you'd be willing to share with us?

What do you think ; if a magazine or a group of magazines models certain creative behavior will it happen?

Blogs and the Art of the Everyday

So we're talking about art, altering things to make art, whether and how altering things makes something - or does not make something - art. And the next thing I know, I'm coming across this in another blog.

Notice his question near the bottom. So now we can add another issue into the mix.

This time it's about when everyday things can be seen as art.

If only he was using a blogging platform that had trackbacks we could send the magic ping and have an actual conversation between that blog and ours. Darn.

I have such an obsession with this whole trackback - ping thing.
I'll admit it; I'm addicted.

But it is interesting how these what is art issues come up, isn't it?

You Can Take a Giant Step : Want to Get Known?

Want to Get Known? The interconnectivity of the blogging world is something that can exponentially increase attention on what you do; increase your blog readership; increase your visibility.

You, the Service you Perform, or the Art You Make can take a Giant-Step forward.

And being able to let someone else know that we have mentioned them in what we're writing is of great benefit to us - and to them. It gives each of us a nice hand up and a pat on the back as well without having to hold hands and sing kumbaya.

The way we do the job of letting them know that we're talking about them - without having to phone or email them - is through "pings" which provide a "trackback" to what we're saying  AND  who we're saying it about.

Now wait though . . .
    before your eyes roll back in your heads  I've prepared a quick (and easy I hope) "show and tell" on the subject.

If you go along with each step I think you'll soon get it. And if not? Heck - ask me questions!

. . . No brain cells will be injured in the process. Take a deep breath . . .

Let's start by setting up an example. We'll say that:

1.) I want to write a post (article) about something that someone wrote in their blog.  Of course I want to include a link so the reader can just click and see what I'm talking about.

My example to demonstrate this is at this blog entry. You can go ahead and click that now and then come back here.

2.) As you read through that entry you will find a link to the Everyday Economist

3.) My blogging platform (Typepad) has a function that automatically (no kidding) "pings" the Everyday Economist as a way of communicating to that blog that I just referenced it in something I wrote. 

Think of this automatic message as if it were just like my sister tattling on me, running immediately to her and saying "Mommy, Susan was saying a bunch of stuff about you."

With me so far?

4.) OK - so back in the bloggosphere - like magic - the beginning lines of what I wrote about him show up right there in his Everyday Economist's blog.  And even better - my words appear right below the entry that I'm writing about!

Imagine that a magic cloud appears over my sister the tattler's head . . . and in the cloud appear the words that I actually said about Mommy, right there where she - or anybody else - can see them.

Inside Scoop: Fonts That Make You Look Lame

I know I always - or, regularly anyhow - gush about the scoop I get from Get-Known Guru Suzanne Falter-Barnes. But it's true - she never ceases to deliver the goods.

While pointing me to a quiz about - ready? - whether I'd make the cut as a guest on Oprah ( HA - as if! ) I got the bonus of finding Fonts That Make You Look Lame. written by Sheila Parr for the Greenleaf Publishing's Big Bad Book Blog.

Of course no blog would be worth its salt if it didn't tell us something about who writes it and about Sheila we learn:

Her favorite things are fine point Sharpies and breakfast tacos.

Funny. So their tone loudly announces that it doesn't take itself too seriously - as you probably figured out from the title of the Lame article - um - I mean the article about not looking lame.

Part of what Sheila posts is:

"Some fonts scream TACKY and others whisper amateur, but if you’re not a designer you probably have no idea if you’re committing a font felony.

"To protect yourself from snotty judgments about your taste and experience level, follow these two simple rules in all typed work: manuscripts, emails, proposals, and, of course, books."

RULE #1: Avoid the following five fonts at ALL costs,

1. Comic Sans. Unless you are writing a comic book or materials for a film adapted from a comic book (i.e., Sin City—great design) don’t use it.

 

Free Tools Could Manage Even Bill Gates' Workflow

I clicked on this one it because I was looking for something focused on free / open source tools for making my time more productive in the biz side of life. I found it full of resources.

That old "I'm just an artist so I don't really use this stuff" bit just doesn't cut it anymore.

(If you don't ever use "to do" lists and brainstorming, you're the exception.)

Calling all Soul & Blues-Loving Fatbook Artists

Musician Curtis Salgado, world famous harp player and inspiration for John Belushi's Blues Brother's character has been diagnosed with Liver cancer. He is undergoing treatment while waiting for a Liver transplant.

His treatement alone will cost $100,000, and The Rainy Day Blues Association in Eugene  OR is having a benefit concert/silent auction on Sunday, May 28th at the McDonald Theater.

Artist Teri Velazquez plans to offer a fabulously embellished fatbook for the silent auction, and plans to send Curtis a personal chunky book to show how much he is loved. She needs your art to pull this off.

The official call for art asks for:
2 pages, both must be in Teri's hands no later than May 19th:

One page, 4x4, with some room for binding on the left, on the theme of Blues and/or Soul music for the auction.

The cover will be blue, but your page does not have a color requirement--just the theme. With lots of Blues lovers in Eugene there is no telling who will bid on and win the book so this is a chance to get your wonderful art out into a wider audience.

Creative Choices

That always amazing Vickie Enkoff, artist, publisher, writer, purveyor of rubber stamps and general drygoods - and never one to let grass grow under her feet - has done it again. Her new zine is out!

Called Creative Choices, it is about self-care and art. It has articles on taking care of yourself, on creativity, and getting motivated.

Be looking for a lot of art samples, some journal prompts, and more!

I'm thinking it could give me ideas of things to do in the Artsy Aylum, and even some ideas of unique uses for the artistamps of Ephemeria.

Check out this zine and her others at:

http://www.vickieenkoff.com/zzinevickie.htm

This card & the image/stamp is © Vickie Enkoff