Woo! 500 posts. Woo…And Some Book Stuffs!

I was totally going to honor this momentous occasion with a deep, impassioned post about blogging these, wow, last ten years + but, darn it, I wanted to share some more book stuff so that shall have to wait.

Odds are it’d just be stuff I have already said anyway.

HA.

I have had an awful time coming up with an effective cover for this book. I had hoped at one point to get an artist to do up a cover, had mused over doing the art myself, shoot, somewhere there are about a dozen attempts at covers (which I suppose is similar to a young band drawing and re-drawing their name and logo). I was never happy though. I just couldn’t come up with the right image that stood as the flag for what this book was. I couldn’t scratch that nagging itch that something wasn’t working.

This year, as I was having the book edited by a friend I finally started to get the germs in my brain for what I wanted. A neighbor in the building where I was living had held onto her Halloween pumpkin well into Winter and since the building’s first floor is so cold I thought that, hmm…perhaps I can use it, so I hid it away for later use. Well, I finally got the props I needed and during a warm turn earlier this year I put the elements together and took some photos.

These are a few of the raw pictures that I took and out of all of the images one of them became the cover. So, here you go, a sampling of what the cover will sorta look like.

Sorta. 

Free For All

I mentioned in my last post MY theories on why the Arts have been in a slow motion decline.  There’s no science or research in my opinion outside of simply being in a small scene and seeing how things seem to be trending.  One of the issues I brought up was the idea of cost.  Art and Art Shows are too expensive.  In being expensive this limits the artists that can/will participate when charged for space and it limits the patronage when you charge for events.

Now, money is a necessity when it comes to the Arts because the venues need to survive and so they need money and artists need to make SOMETHING for their art or it becomes too expensive to keep creating the art.  So money is part and parcel with the Arts.  There is no escaping that.

But…there is a way to make economics make sense.

Here’s how I always looked at shows -

1. If I get the space free I am not going to charge artists to show.  Now, I am not running a gallery, I am ‘borrowing’ space and using minimal resources so there isn’t a need to charge.  I just don’t believe in charging unless you have to.  There is a point where the Arts ARE for the people, and for the Artists and you can’t nickel and dime people.

2. If I do have to charge I charge as little as reasonably possible.  Some shows, like paid events, you have to make the choice – charge the Artist or charge the patron.  These are shows where there is so much going on that paying to attend is something people will do because they want to see the show.  But you have to be reasonable.  For me, if the event is going to cost more than a few dollars and I need to make the money back then I look at the balance of what I can charge Artists/Vendors and what I can reasonably charge at the door.  I prefer to make my money with volume – lots of patrons – and keep the entry cost as low as possible.  It’s a gamble but it’s better to risk that than to out price yourself and alienate the people who may have come out for the show.  So this is where you lean on the Artists a little more, charge them a couple dollars more for space with the understanding that by keeping the admission low you can get them more potential customers.  It’s a trade-off that usually works.

The thing is though, you have to create events people WANT to come to. Especially if you are charging for space and admission.  It’s not as simple as telling people it’s a great show you have to CREATE A GREAT SHOW.  Something that warrants charging.  It’s more than having some poured wine and crackers, it’s creating atmosphere and fun.  It’s creating value.

There’s a trend lately though for people to charge Artists for space they already have.  These are venue operators/owners taking advantage of the Artists and the patrons they’ll pull in.  If it’s an event spearheaded by Artists and they are coming into a space that may not be open otherwise then it makes sense to pay the owner of the space.  It’s fair.  But there’s a fine line involved.  Same with charging for events.  Like I said, some wine and crackers isn’t enough. You have to build something that people want to attend.  I know the cost of a box of wine and so do those patrons.  Give the people a show.

And if the show is the art, then you better have a lot of artists, a lot of art, and a lot of interaction.  And this better be stuff that people don’t see every day.

Money isn’t an evil, its a necessity.  It only gets evil when people abuse their power, and take advantage of other people for money.

Me, I prefer the free shows.  Sure, with the horror con we have to charge but that’s a show and a venue we pay for, otherwise, for me, it’s about the Art and the Artists and building a sustainable infrastructure for the future.  We need that more than a few dollars and places need to learn that or alienate the public further.

c

(I write books – MEEP!)

You Know, Without The Pretense

Oh to live in a world of art without pretension.  A world of writers without grandstanding.  Le sigh.

There is something of a mystery with artsy folk and writers.  There’s a sense of disdain for other people that work in their same trade.  It’s sort of like how petty music people will act when the band they like gets big, or when a punk band gets popular.  It’s the odd sense of entitlement and attitude that is boggling my poor little mind.

Example –

The best example I can give is one that will always drive me crazy and that is photographers.  For some reason the ‘I am a Photographer and you just take pictures’ attitude just won’t die.  I get that there is a difference, a vast difference, between someone like me, who takes pictures for fun, and someone who makes a living at it.  Just as there is a difference between someone who makes a living at it and truly strives to make Art.  And at the bottom of this ladder you have the every day person who has a camera on their phone and use different lens and filter settings to take pics of stuff.  I get that.  What I don’t get is the ridiculous attitude you get from said ‘art’ photogs.  Me, I am a writer.  I am not famous, I am not rich, but I have been writing for twenty years.  I will damn well say I am a writer.  But if someone picks up a pencil today and writes a poem or story and it’s the first thing they have ever written am I going to get angsty about them if they call themselves a writer?  No.  No because the active pursuit of writing makes one a writer.  Thus, the active pursuit of taking photos makes one a photographer.  You can judge skill and talent and all that, sure, that’s fair, but it’s silly to act as if someone who is an amateur is not legit in their pursuit.  You get the same with any art.

There is this crazy pretension about the arts that kills me.  I get that we’re all competing in the same way anyone that creates a ‘product’ is competing but that there is such a vast chasm between artists breaks my heart.  All of us were just starting out at one point so why the ire?

What’s the drama?

Competition.  Pure and simple.  The American culture isn’t as interest in Art or the arts as it has been, not in the traditional sense anyway, so there are less dollars spent on art in general.  And when less is spent it makes the market way too crowded for the ‘amateurs’.  I get that.  I do.  I can see where it’d be frustrating if you’ve been learning and honing your craft, your skill, your talent, for years, even decades, and yet someone comes along who does something that to you is amateurish and they make money it.  I get that.  The thing is though that we’re biased.  All of us.  Maybe that guy that just took a picture with his really nice camera phone just happened to take a really nice picture.  Maybe the guy that wrote that poem on a napkin just wrote a really damn good piece.  What we miss, we artists, is that some people have that spark in them, that artistic bend, and it’s always there, always, they just never pursued it until later in life.  Maybe they had this gift and just never followed it.

Ohhhhh…

Yeah…

Duh.

There is so much needless greed and angst in the arts and I hate it.  Times are hard, for everyone, and if you make your living in the arts it isn’t getting any easier but the heck of it has always been that artists have to work harder and be more driven than other people.  Why?  Because we generally work alone, we don’t get many accolades, and when we do our jobs right people don’t think about us at all.  Art is meant to take you out of the moment, to take you to a different place, even if it is just a place of inner peace.  That is why art is so transcendent.  When we get petty and bicker, and fight, and fill our lives with pretension and self aggrandizement then we start losing the very reasons we should be doing the art, and that’s to express ourselves.  We need to get over judging who is a ‘real’ artist and applaud when someone makes something full of passion that touches us, or someone else.

You know why people don’t connect with art anymore?

Because we took art away from the people.

We made art about ourselves, the artists. We throw ourselves lavish parties to extol how wonderful we are and how magnificent our art is.  We put outlandish prices on our art because we have a false sense of entitlement.  We charge people to come to openings or shows because we want to nickel and dime them to death.  We lost the people when we started telling them they didn’t understand our art, that they were not smart enough to get it.  In essence, we lost the public when we told them that we were too good for them. We have only ourselves to blame.

It’s time to make art about the people again.

And you know what, if it takes a guy that picks up a camera phone, or a pencil and napkin, or fingerpaints and a piece of cardboard to bring the people back to art then so be it.  I am willing to keep working my butt off to create things I love and believe in and am willing to keep working to make my art relevant to other people.  I have an ego just like everyone else but you know what, I can put it aside long enough to see that I am not the only writer, am not the best writer, but that I can still rock some faces when I put my mind to it.

c

Motorcity Nightmares 2011 – In Pictures

www.meepsheep.com

New Art and Another Fun Event is Over

The year is winding down and as it does, so do the events I am in. This past weekend I did the second Books and Authors event put on by Leon & Lulu’s down in Clawson, Michigan. Leon & Lulu’s is a fun and funky furniture and knick knack store set up in an old roller rink. It’s hard to sum up what they sell exactly other than to say…a little of everything. This year’s event was another well run machine with even more authors than last year (double I think) and just as much energy. I only sold a couple books but it’s hard to complain when there’s free snacks, energetics staff and authors surrounding you, and you get to sit on a terribly comfy couch all day. I spent most of the day chilling on the couch with the lady but managed to snap a few fun pics of the store. You’ll also find my newest painting. Acrylic on canvas and such.

Oh The Places I Have Been…

And by going places I mean that I have been to Flint and Detroit. HAHA. Here are some belated pictures I took recently.

Some are from Flint’s Back to the Bricks , our huge car cruise/show to honor the love affair with the automobile. The second batch of pictures are from The People’s Arts Festival. Nothing really artsy here, just fun stuff I took.

Winding Up a Busy Season…

Phew, it’s been a bit of a whirlwind since the publication of The Meep Sheep a few months ago and I am still going strong. The thing that wears you out with the book process is the promotion, as I have said before, but it’s also some of the most fun you have. Getting the book out to people lets you gauge interest, lets you fire people up about the book, and lets you feel the satisfaction of selling something you made. It really reminds you how special writing (or any art, really) is. Man they are rough though. It’s lots of work to get out there, to talk up your book, and to tell people, over and over and over again what your book is. Me, I always go for the soft sell because, heck, if someone is interested in the book, then they will come to me, if not then I certainly don’t want to bully them into looking at something they are not into. Seems silly and I hate when people do that to me.

I have done a lot of shows during this ‘season’ and the last big one is coming up this weekend in Detroit. It’s The People’s Arts Festival and is a fantastic art festival near downtown Detroit. I did it with my girlfriend last year and we had a blast and I really moved a lot of books, which was great, as was meeting the other artists and seeing the amazing art on display. This year we go with a new book, a lot of new art and hopefully a little more wisdom on how to set up effectively. After this weekend though I go into the downward portion of the shows. I am hoping to get into a writer’s show I did last year that will happen in October and am going to be putting together the second  annual Halloween show that some friends and I did last year. Other than that it’s promoting the books online, looking for an agent for my Meepies, and seeing what lies ahead.

It really has been a busy Spring and Summer and I could use the break but will definitely miss meeting all the awesome people out there. For now though, we still have some time. Hope to see some of you on the trail before the journey ends.

c

Snapper

    Of all the things I like to do artistically I think photography is the one I am most self conscious about. I mean, writing, it is what it is. I have been writing since I was a teenager and while you never like it when people dislike what you are doing, you also have to come to terms with the fact that you do what you do as a writer and all you can do is try to become a more effective writer and let people think what they will. With painting I pretty much got the worst I will get this year when people told me I painted like a child. Now, while my style may be child like I think to call what I do childish is silly. Again, you have to accept that you do what you do and just work on getting better at it. I am just not interested in painting things that don’t make me smile. See, I can accept the limitations of my writing and painting but that’s because I have been putting both out into the world for a bit of time now, with photography, it’s still raw. Still new.

   The funny thing is that I have been taking pictures for pleasure for years now. five years at least. I am on my third digital camera and have gotten better over the years but am still finding my ‘voice’. Still finding how to do it. I showed my photography publicly for the first time this past Friday and it was pretty scary. I have posted stuff on here or online in general for years but there’s a difference. One is that I don’t really get a lot of traffic, especially random traffic, on this site, so only a few people are ever seeing it. It is also different to have someone in front of you and know they can just verbally vomit on something you have poured your heart into. It’s rough. Rough but fun.

   It really is fun to get your work out there. I will never be a full time artist. I don’t have the time or talent to hope for that, but I like to show the things I work on. Selling is fun, but sometimes it’s more valuable to show and not have to worry about the money of it all. And it’s fun to get the feedback. Generally people seemed to dig my stuff. Like my paintings I have to find a better way to display, but it was nice to get positive feedback. And even more fun to know that I freaked out a couple people with my pics that had fake blood in them. Mwahaha. Hilarious. Funny because that means they were effective, and that’s a good thing.

   I won’t ever go down as a great photographer, and when you know as many really good ones as I do it gets intimidating to try to even take pics, but I still love it just the same. I love having another outlet for my creativity. Another way to tell stories. And eventually I hope to find ways to get all three together for a party, the writing, painting, and pics.

For now, they’re happy to pass the light around and share the stage.

f

A Look Around

As anyone who cares knows I live in downtown Flint, Michigan, a city with a lot written about it, much of which seems to be biased one way or the other. We are not a sainted city, but neither are we a city of monsters. Flint’s the greatest love of your life but the person who you hate just as much as you love. In a moment you can see the hope, the beauty, and the promise and in the next you can see the bitterness, the anger, and the sloth that keeps the city in the news for all the wrong reasons.

Some friends and I had been looking for historical pictures of the building where I live and couldn’t find a whole lot so I figured I’d take a walk along downtown today and photograph what Flint looks like on June 1, 2010.

Left Overs

    So, in my rush to post the shenanigans from last night I left out a few pics. Just more stuff from what I did when I was playing with fake blood and fake slime. OH, and this weekend I am at the Motorcity Comic Con in Novi, MI selling my books, art, and other fun doo-dads. If you have a notion, you should totally come by, it should be righteous.