Blogger Blather

I’m worried that I’m becoming someone who thinks “art” needs to match your couch.

I used to write artist and art gallery profiles for Piedmont Review, and for a while I was an artist myself.  My first major at LSU was “Fine Art,” but once I realized there weren’t any cute, straight guys in the curriculum I changed out of it.  Okay, I know that’s dumb, but I had just graduated from an all-girls high school and I wanted boys in my classes.  Come on, I was 18  — what more do I need to say.

So, this past Saturday my friend Holly White who works for Art Papers magazine generously gave my broke ass a free ticket to their annual fundraiser.  She had several incredible photography pieces up for bid; plus, I saw a fab work by Robin Bernat.  So it was a class event, for sure, and the following comments in no way are meant to bash those who had art displayed.  They are meant to bash me and how ignorant I’ve become.

As soon as I entered the event I thought of my friend Tom Redmond who lives in Baton Rouge.  He and I attend art festivals in Louisiana and we often break-down how items are made and discuss how to recreate.  So, I texted him as follows (misspellings were kept on purpose — remember I was using a touchscreen):

String of correspondence starting on Feb 6, 2010 7:56 PM
LYNN TEXT
At a huge charity arr auction right now. Getting tons of inspiration. Wish you were here to help me decipher how some of this was created.

TOM TEXT
Take pix

LYNN TEXT
Gonna start sending by email. Hate being po’ and not being able to buy anything!

TOM TEXT
Barter with the artist

LYNN TEXT
They’re not here. Not booths. Silent auction you just write name and bid amount next to the piece you want. Fundrauser for Art Papers magazine. National fine art mag based out of Atlanta. My friend Holly works for them and got me a free ticket. $30 just to walk in the door.

LYNN EMAIL
RE: Fuggin computer printout
Sheet of computer paper with digital printout. I.e. A fuggin word doc printed on a shitty printer. High bid is $500. WTF?

TOM RESPONSE: it’s art & it’s for charity, you dime-store philanthropist!!

LYNN EMAIL
RE: Ha!
Stem glued to canvas and all painted white. About 3 inches. Current bid us $250. OMfrigginGawd.

TOM RESPONSE: (no reply)

LYNN EMAIL
RE: Paper
Cut paper! So cool in person. Can’t believe that noone has bid on it. Artist has another piece in same series with a bunch of bids.

TOM RESPONSE: (no reply)

LYNN EMAIL
RE: Lightbox
$400. Gotta figure out how to make this! Would be fun way to display stills from my movie.

TOM RESPONSE: easy enough.  photography stores carry them for looking at slides

LYNN EMAIL
RE: Omg!!!
Notebook fuckin tacked to the wall with a tag that you can buy at Office Depot. Right now the high bid is $2000.00 let me type that again TWO GRAND!!

TOM RESPONSE: but WHOSE is it???

LYNN EMAIL
RE: Huge notebook paper
Love this! Big piece of white paper. Craft punch on the sides. Words are marker. 23x 51 inches. Someone just bid 1500.00 on it!

TOM RESPONSE: now this is cool…

In Facebook, I’ve tagged some of my artist and photog friends who I thought might appreciate seeing the work.  I’m curious to know your take on the art pieces that stuck me for various reasons.  What do you think “art” is?

Wow, 2009 is about 2/3’s gone.

At the beginning of the year, I made 3 New Year’s goals.  (See the original post here.)

Let’s see how I’m doing…

1. Be published by a magazine that I have not appeared in before.  (DONE)
   I wrote a feature article for Oz magazine and it’s on newsstands now. Yeah.  One goal down.
2. Create a piece of art (in any media) that I am proud to display.  (DONE)
   I don’t know how proud I am of it, but I did paint a canvas a couple of months ago and it is on display in my kitchen.  (Check it out here.)
3. I couldn’t come up with a third goal on my own, so I asked for input.  Hollis suggested that I strive to “Have sex with a professional soccer player.”  Instead I opted to complete one of my poor abandoned screenplays or manuscripts.  So far, this is NOT DONE.

I’m still having a little trouble focusing on writing.  One day I’ll be gung ho, and the next day I’m ho hum.  But, I continue to try…

So, how are you doing with our New Year’s goals or resolutions?  Do you even remember what they are?

Move over pottery and knitting, there’s a new lame middle age craze — painting parties.

A couple of weeks ago my sister, niece and I checked out Corks n Canvas.  Here’s how they describe what they offer (from their website):

“Looking for a fun evening out with friends while creating your own masterpiece?  We have the answer! Bring your favorite bottle of wine or beverage, and paint a picture along with a local artist. She will show you step-by-step how to paint a beautiful work of art that you will take home at the end of the evening.”

I have to admit, it was kind of fun.  But I was disappointed because they don’t really teach you how to paint.  Our class was sold out (36 people).  And EVERYONE’S painting of the “Dirty Martini” (including the instructor’s) looked awful.  A big part of the problem was that the painting shown on the website was not the one they had on display.  So everyone’s perspective was off (it’s tough to show depth — looking down into the glass) because we were copying something that didn’t look right to begin with.

On the left is the sample shown on the website.  (But, as mentioned, this was not what they had on display at the gallery.)  And on the right is my “masterpiece.”  LOL!

No need to make resolutions since I don’t have any bad habits (ha!), instead I decided to set 3 creative goals for myself in 2009.

1. Be published by a magazine that I have not appeared in before.
2. Create a piece of art (in any media) that I am proud to display.
3. Help me out here — I feel like I should have a third goal — does anyone have a suggestion?

After posting two back-to-back liquor-related blogs I decided that I needed to add a “Booze” category.  But, “Booze” sounded a little harsh, so I went with the much cuter heading of “Drinky poos.”

For those of you who are not blog savvy, you can click on the categories listed to the right or at the top of each post and you’ll see everything that I’ve classified in that category.

In other non-related, but equally non-riveting news, I just made some pirate-themed bottle cap magnets to celebrate the upcoming national holiday “Talk Like a Pirate Day.”   I know the pic is a little out of focus, so sorry.  I’m too lazy to take more so you’ll just have to deal with it, matey.

My oldest sister, Gail, celebrated her birthday on July 31 and she had absolutely NOTHING on her wish list.  It must be nice to not need a thing.  I, on the other hand, have no problem rattling off a number of items (at all price ranges) that I’d like to have.

Since booze is always a good gift, I decided to get her a few bottles of wine.  As they say, presentation is everything, so I bought a square wicker basket to lay the bottles in and then wrapped each in tissue paper.

A handmade card topped off the present.  Looks pretty good if I do say so…

I recently had a free afternoon so I decided to work on something creative. I pulled out every scrap of paper I had with an in-progress idea on it.  I dabble in a lot of different things so the selection of work included:

• 2 feature length screenplays
• 2 short screenplays
• 2 novels  
• 3 ideas for (other) novels
• 2 short stories
• 2 humorous essays
• and several haikus that I want to turn into folk art

Whoa, look at me!   I’m so prolific, right!?

Wrong.

Remember, these are all works in progress — none are finished.  And I don’t know if any of them ever will be.

I spent that whole afternoon working on a new essay — it was just supposed to be a one or two page piece — and I couldn’t even write a first draft.

I’m discouraged, but I still think I’m going to get my creative writing groove back.

Until then, I guess I’ll just keep making arts & crap to satisfy my need to create something.  So, who wants a wire and bead bookmark or bottle cap magnet?

Tom has been getting bagfuls of bottle caps from a friend who works at a bar.  His goal is to make some type of intricate wall art with them.  I am also interested in working with bottle caps, but have simpler goals –  I just want to make some magnets.  So he graciously parted with several bagfuls of Budweiser bottle caps and gave them to me a few weeks ago; but, I’ve been procrastinating on actually doing anything with them.

Yesterday I finally got around to trying out a new craft.  Check out the fridge magnets I made:

The Hello Kitty collection is for my niece, Whitney, and the religious icons and misc. stuff are for Hollis.

I got the idea for the bottle cap magnets from a craft booth at the downtown Arts Market.  I bought one to use as a sample, and also typed “bottle cap magnets” in Google Images and got back tons of images to use as samples.  In fact, I discovered a flickr group for Bottle Cap artists called “Bottle Cap Creations” — check them out here.

Tuesday night I had some writers at my house to plan a literary luncheon that’s taking place in Baton Rouge later this year. One of my guests asked to see what I had created in my altered book class. (See this blog post and this blog post for background info). I didn’t really have anything to show since I used the techniques I learned to make altered greeting cards (instead of altered books). But, I gave away the two cards I made since they were for specific people and events. But, I do have a couple of photos, so check it out…

This is the front of an altered greeting card I made for my mom for Mother’s Day. The textured background is masking tape that’s been treated and painted. The heart embellishment was made by putting layers of tissue paper on top of a rubber stamp and wetting it.

And this shows the front and inside of a “Happy Summer” card I made for a friend in Atlanta who likes tiki stuff. The “money” slides out and has a handwritten note on the other side of it. I drew the tiki and palm tree in photoshop and cut them out. The “pop-up” palm tree is a fun and simple technique.

There’s nothing that will suck the dignity out of you like hawking your wares to a group of people who don’t want to buy what you are selling.

Up until now I’ve only sold my film, The Lady from Sockholm, on the Web. I realize that tens of thousands of people have looked at my film online — and only hundreds have bought it. But the rejection is not quite the same as being there to see someone bypass your product.

Last night I participated in the first in-person sale of my DVDs ($15). Plus, I had some bookmarks for sale ($5) and beaded paper clips ($1). The place was 16 miles from my house, so roundtrip was two tanks gallons of gas — about $8. My goal was to at least get my gas money back. Some writers I know were selling their books at the event, so I considered it a social gathering and didn’t factor in my time for the three hours I spent there.

So, what did I sell?

• 2 DVDs ($30)
• 2 paper clips ($2)

That’s it…

My goal of $8 was met, but it was still a little disappointing. Although I will say that the crowd wasn’t huge. Probably only 40 or so people looked at my table. Don’t get me wrong, it was a very nice little gathering — I’m just trying to frame what went down for all of you.

Most artists succeed because they understand emotion, can harness it and recreate it on canvas, the page, on screen. But after our artistic work is done we have to turn that emotion off and not take it personally when people dismiss our work — to our faces. (At least have the courtesy of talking about me behind my back.)

Photos courtesy of Connie Rachal – www.myspace.com/conniewriter

I want to do a couple more of these events before I decide if it’s worth it to continue perusing in-person sales. I didn’t have to pay a fee to participate last night and that was key to me making any money. There is an event next month that would be about $20 to enter and I may try that one.

Anyone have any experience with this kind of thing? My biggest moneymaker would be selling the DVDs since there is no new work associated with it.

I thought the paperclips would be scooped up because they were only $1 and people are always looking for inexpensive things to let their kids buy at these events. But the only child who showed interest ask for one for free. I was actually a little speechless since I had already given her sock puppet cards (that was my “free” item that people could take — and they’re cute). Sylvia, the writer sitting next to me, knew the girl’s grandmother and she handed her a dollar to get one. Made me look like a scrooge, but the kid had been around before with adults and no one was offering to buy her one so I didn’t think I needed to let her have something. That child needs to learn that NOTHING IS FREE and LIFE’S NOT FAIR!!! Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, so Sylvia gives her a dollar and I let her pick two of them — so she got one free and paid for one. I tried to give Sylvia her money back but she wouldn’t take it. How do you handle a situation like that?

Lastly, the bookmarks were a bust and take the most time. Maybe I’ll just make those as gifts?

I attend a lot of art festivals and gallery exhibitions, and it seems whenever an artist doesn’t have much talent they deem themselves a “folk artist.” I actually like folk art and own several pieces by R.A. Miller, but many calling themselves folk artists are simply trying to ride a trend.

Last night at my altered book class I made a craptastic “folk art” collage. The background techniques I learned were pretty cool, but the junk I piled on top was dreadful. In my defense, I wasn’t trying to make “art” — just trying to learn. The playing cards were cut because I wanted to try out these ragged edge scissors I bought. Ditto on the lavender paper with the pinking shear edges. The polka dots on the puzzle piece were from a hole punch.

The hot pink background is crumpled and torn tissue paper that was glued to the page. The green striated background was made by layering masking tape and then painting and blotting the surface.

Last night I tore up a book.

I ripped out pages. Glued parts of it together. And made the original work by the author indistinguishable.

I feel so guilty!

How can I, a wannabe published author, destroy another writer’s work?!

The only excuse I have is that in the arts & crafts world this is considered “altering” not desecration. Tearing up the book was a requirement at my first “Altered Book” class. Yes, that’s how bored I am in Baton Rouge, I’m breaking out the hot glue gun and taking a continuing education class at LSU.

So, Maida Silverman, I’m sorry I tore up your book “The Glass Menorah,” may Yahweh forgive me.

Example of an altered book by Jeanne Minnix. From www.alteredbookartists.com