I like to say that the main reason I haven't broken into the professional world of art is because I never knew where to start, who to contact, or even where to look to find this information. And that was all true, too. The art world has this thing with mystery and elusiveness, to the point where, if it was a person, you might think it had some mental problems or a weird fetish.

Well, the clouds have finally opened and the sun of happiness and delight is shining down on me! That's right, my friend. I finally got my hands on a real live copy of the 2009 Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market book. I'd been eyeballing this book for about a year now, and had actually seen the 2009 Artist's & Graphic Designer's Market book while I was searching for the Children's book, but I decided that I'd probably be much happier as a children's book illustrator. Lord knows I'm almost mature enough to draw for children.

I just got the book this afternoon, but just flipping through it and reading the first couple of articles has convinced me that it was a really smart purchase. It tells you a lot of things other people skip over because they figure you already know it. Like, for instance, only about 50% of book publishers will accept your work if you don't have an agent/rep. However, since you don't generally make as much with magazine deals, reps/agents won't even bother with those so anyone and their brother can submit to them.

I'm pretty excited about the whole thing. Plus it's really warm outside today, and according to my body, warm sunny days = ambition and a go-get-em attitude. Hooray for natural cycles!

If I find out any other interesting tidbits, I'm sure I'll share. But only if you're nice to me.

So I've been working pretty steadily on the plarn mesh bag, and it's been going pretty well. The only thing that's holding me up is the obscene amount of bags this thing is taking. I'm about 3/4 of the way through it and I think I've already gone through upwards of 30 bags. I've drained our bag supply, as wall as gone through two or three trips to the store (which I purposefully forgot our cloth shopping bags at home so I could get more plastic bags).

The problem, I think, is that I made the plarn too thick and I'm using a hook that's way too small. So the crochets end up being tight and close together, and use up more plarn. This especially stuck in my mind after seeing and handling a plarn bag at a local craft show. It was looser and not nearly as sturdy as my bag.

But anyway, here's the picture of how it's going! I actually made a little change purse while waiting for more bags for this monster, but I'll have to post pictures of that later.



I have a fresh supply of bags now, so hopefully this thing should be done in a couple more days. I plan on selling this one and donating some of the money toward a good cause. I'm just not sure which cause yet, though. One would think something involving the environment or plastic bags would be appropriate.

I made my first Etsy sale yesterday! Well, to be honest, I made $0 in the sale because it was a sample product, buuuuut... It's a start! And what's really amazing is that I haven't been promoting my shop or adding new items. I've just been letting it stew, and voila!

So I'm feeling much less discouraged than I was, and actually got up the energy to get all my crap together and pull out my homemade lightbox so that I could post more stuff up on etsy. The only problem I have with the lightbox is the fact that I don't have bright enough lights to really get it to work properly, sooooo.... But that's another post.

I'm just really excited. It's a super small step, but it's something.

I'm not dead, honest. I just don't want to work on this blog right now. As much as I know I should, I can't get myself to.

When I decided to be an artist and to do the traditional artist thing, I gave up the community I had before that. And I know it's going to sound crazy, but that community was a cyberpet community that I've been part of since I was about 14. In case you're wondering, cyberpets are little pieces of pixel art (usually) that people "adopt" and put on their webpage. And although I love the people and the imagination and fun of cyberpets, I was always slightly embarrassed about this because it seems so very childish.

So I gave it up, and tried to strike out as an artist in the art community. But I'm not used to not being known. Being in the cyberpet community for almost ten years now, everyone knows who Jewel is and that she's a pretty talented, pretty nice person. But the art people know nothing about be and don't care to know about me, because there are millions of other people that they don't know and care about. I'm just a face in the crowd, lost in the ocean of paint and pencils. And it was a very lonely place, being solely an artist.

But a random conversation with one of my old fans gave me the desire to bring my cyberpet website and forum back to life, and since I've done that, I just can't bring myself to work on my blog. I'm fairly certain no one reads it, so it's not like it would matter much if I just quit updating it. And it's depressing to me to think that no one is paying a speck of attention to what I'm doing.

And that's all.

I know I didn't post a Saturday artist review, and it's not because I'm lazy. I just couldn't find any artists that were interested. And this week, I even asked a couple of artists if I could review their work, so that I'd have at least one lined up for next week. I was trying to be smart!

Thankfully, though, I finally heard from one of them today and I plan on reviewing their work tomorrow. So hold on to your horses!

I'm wondering suddenly; am I the only artist out there who gets totally distracted every now and again? And in that distraction takes a totally different path than they were taking a minute ago? I'd feel pretty lonely if I was.

It seems like every time I come up with a pretty good idea, before long I either get bored with it or get distracted, and start working on something else. I can feel this happening with the plans I've set before myself. Or at least, I've picked up another project along the way and I worry that I'll drop my regular art and my blog to follow that path.

No wonder I can never get anywhere!!!!

But yeah, in case you're wondering, my interests have wondered back toward pixel art again. Silly me. Won't I ever get it through my head that I won't make money doing pixel art? ...And yet I say this despite the fact that I've made more money with my pixel art than I have my regular art. Hmm... But the one thing about pixel art that I can't say about my colored pencil pieces is that I can't make and sell prints of my pixel art.

Well, I could, but that would just be weird.

But I will try to keep up with the blog and working on my regular art even if I'm falling in love with my pixels again, because, even though I give advice to stick with one kind of art, I love being a rounded person and a jack of all trades.

Have you ever had a bad art day? Just find that everything you do is crappy, everyone keeps criticizing your art and no one seems to understand? When you're feeling that down, imagine for a moment if one of your most prized and treasured pieces of art, that you knew was painted by a famous artist, actually ended up being done by one of his students instead.

"Francisco de Goya's arresting image of a brooding giant rising above a stampede of terrified people and animals has held pride of place for decades in Madrid's Prado museum.

But in an announcement set to raise a storm in the art world, the museum said yesterday that the celebrated El Coloso was not by the Spanish master after all, and was probably painted by a pupil in his studio." --The Independent

Can you just imagine what that would feel like? To one minute having a piece of art that's worth more than likely several million dollars, to having a pretty piece of junk? I think I would be devastated. And I think therein lies the problem.

Why is art so much more valuable depending on the artist who created it? Why should the value and opinion of this piece of art go down dramatically once people figure out it was created by a different artist? If they've loved it and felt pride for it for all these years, one would hope that they would have courage enough to stand against society and still love it.

I don't know what they plan on doing with the painting, if anything, but I truly hope that they continue to display it. It would be a shame and injustice if they removed it simply because its creator is one that doesn't have a big name.

I know I haven't been posting much of interest here lately, but the age old problem has popped its ugly head back into the light. The problem? I feel like I'm doing an army's work of getting my art and my blog seen, but I'm not getting anywhere. And it's extremely frustrating.

Now I realize that this is where 98% of artists fail. They don't know what to do once they've mastered their preferred medium. They'll continue cranking out pieces of art for a while, thinking that that's all they have to do, but realize that all they end up with is a lot of art and dept because supplies are friggin expensive.

And I feel very lost and alone, because I don't have any art friends anymore. All my good art friends split apart long ago, and now they're either famous or forgotten, living the dream or just living.

I don't want to be forgotten.

So tonight I take the tiniest of steps, the very tiniest, and get an Etsy shop finally. Finally, I say! And tomorrow, we'll work on Ebay.

The goal will be, within a month, I'll have called at least three local shops and ask to put my art in their windows or on their walls. I've been told of one that will probably do that for me, and I can't lose anything by asking (except a little fear, which is good to get rid of anyway).

And it's funny; they say that entering contests and competitions is a good way of making a name for yourself, but I have the hardest time finding any serious ones that would accept the kind of art I'd do. I entered the Prismacolor contest about a month ago, but that's the only one I've found so far. So that's another goal. To find and enter more competitions.

And that's it. I feel a lot better now that I have a real (if shaky) plan going.

"FOR years, when the artist Steven Parrino wasn’t jamming power chords on his electric guitar or tinkering with his motorcycle in his garagelike studio in Brooklyn, he was recycling his unsold paintings: twisting them into eccentric new shapes, smashing their stretcher bars or stabbing them repeatedly with scissors.

His destructive approach to art making earned him the admiration of some fellow artists, but it also concealed a painful reality: There was no market for his work. In eight years and five solo New York shows, his former dealer José Freire said, he sold only two of Mr. Parrino’s paintings, one for $9,000 and the other for $10,000.

Then, on New Year’s Day 2005, Mr. Parrino died from injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident. Demand for his art has since increased, and in September a Parrino retrospective that had toured European museums surfaced at the Gagosian Gallery on Madison Avenue. With Gagosian’s high-profile endorsement and a limited number of works for sale — only two paintings and a dozen drawings out of 56 exhibited works — the top price for a Parrino in that show reached nearly $1 million."-New York Times

...

Do I even have to say anything about this? Didn't all of us, as artists, know this was true anyway? That as soon as we die, our art goes up in price quite a bit? Yes, I think we all did know that. We know that people are disgusting, money hungry opportunists who would rather appreciate art for its monetary value than for its artistic beauty.

Still, even though we all knew that, it's still rather surprising that art dealers are being so quick about it. To be selling million dollar paintings just a short three years after your death, when before your paintings were hardly selling at all, is crazy.

Of course, I don't understand why or how a painting would sell for even $10,000, and maybe that was the artists' problem in the first place. Maybe that's art's problem in general; we put such a huge price tag on so much art that we make in near impossible for most people to buy in, and so therefore we narrow our prospective buyers. I mean, one painting selling for $10,000 a year would more than cover what I was making working as a cashier at the hardware store. If I could make $1,000 I would be thrilled. But then, I have a solid support system behind me so I don't have to worry about money, while on the other hand, many artists who are trying to make it on their own would have to sell several paintings a year at $10,000 to make it.

Nonetheless, it disturbs me to no end that the non-artists are making out like bandits when these artists die. Why did they have to live tormented lives, watching their art not really make it? Why can't we start making and selling and buying art for art's sake?

The world may never know.

Exactly what happened and why varies depending on whom you ask. What's clear is that the city asked a professional artist to take down two of her works, and when she refused, officials from several departments struggled with whether to remove them anyway or let them stand.

In the end, the city decided not to censor any individual works, but to take down the whole exhibit next month and replace it with announcements and advertisements.

City officials say that was the plan all along. But the way the process unfolded left the exhibit's curator, local arts advocate Sinem Banna, convinced her voice and that of the artist had been unfairly squelched. -San Mateo Daily News

So basically, the city asked an artist to put some art up in a display they created, but when they discovered that the art contained, "cartoonish drawings of bald, naked, childlike figures, some in compromising positions, interspersed with dogs, rats, fleas, corporate logos and cryptic messages sprinkled with profanity," they decided that, you know what? this isn't appropriate for the public to see. They only wanted to remove two pieces of art, but the artist and curator complained of censorship, the city decided, heck with them, and told them they'd just take the whole thing down in a month.

Ok. Let's see here. This is a complicated one. On the one hand, I just want to smack the artist and the curator. Come on now, ladies. You're smart, educated people. You should know that putting nudity, even the cartoonish kind, in the public eye is going to cause a ruckus. Just because it's art doesn't mean that everyone is going to want to see it. Keep your more controversial art behind the curtain so that people have to either look for it or they get the chance to be warned before seeing it. Don't just throw it in their faces.

Granted, I gather that the city didn't even bother looking at the art before it was decided upon. They just let the decisions pass over to the curator. Not only that, but they didn't set up a contract that stated that they had the right to take any piece of art down. But otherwise, I can totally understand their point of view. If a piece of art is disturbing, you shouldn't be forced to keep it up. The fact that the artist and curator said that taking down the pictures was a violation of free speech is ridiculous. The artist has every right to express her artistic view else where, but I would think that when she's brought in by someone else to do a job, that she has to do what they ask of her. Any other job she would get fired if she didn't do what her boss told her to do.

In a way this bothers me on more than an artistic level. People these days are so eager to cry wolf. Society is really changing, and what it's becoming is a very scary picture. Suddenly, everyone is afraid to offend anyone else, and most of all, they're afraid of getting sued because they offended. If we're robbed by a black person and we report it, people are very ready to accuse us of being racist. If we tell someone that their kids did something they shouldn't have, the parent starts hating us because we accused their kids of doing something they obviously couldn't have done. I even heard a story the other day of a woman who was very brutally raped. In court, when she was trying to tell the story of what happened to the jury, the judge interrupted her to inform her that she couldn't use the word rape. She couldn't say sexually assaulted. She couldn't even point out the man who had done it. The man tried to sue her afterward, I think. In the end, thankfully, the jury decided that the man had raped this poor woman, but this all makes a very clear point.

The point is that, as a society, we need to have morals to stand on. When you do something wrong, you should have the opportunity to defend your case, surely, but we shouldn't defend the accused person's case so strongly that we don't let the accuser have a say. It just seems all backwards and upside down.

So the artist should have bowed to the wishes of the city. If she had taken down two pieces of art, her whole display would have been up until August, and then more artists would have continued to display their art there. Now the art will be gone in July, and will be replaced with ads. And yet, the artist is acting like a victim, rather than like someone who was responsible for her own demise.

I've come to realize that, when it comes to the different types of papers an artist can use, I don't know much at all. It's not that I don't know the names of these things; I can happily name off about ten types of artist paper. The problem is that I don't know what they're for or really how to use them. Which is pretty sad.

I've decided that I want to experiment a little with the things I learned from Savannah Horrocks (read my review) and play with watercolors in my art, at least a little. The problem with that is that I can never use watercolors without turning my paper into a small group of hills and valleys. And that's despite the fact that I knew most watercolor paper needs stretching (I'm just really lazy, is all).

Then top that off with the fact that Savannah also uses bristol board and card stock in some of her mixed media pieces (which sometimes include watercolors), and you have a very large amount of respect thrown her way. I just can't figure out how that's done. But! There's always tomorrow. I'll certainly have to experiment.

UPDATE: I asked Savannah how she gets her paper not to wrinkle. Her reply was that she usually tapes her pieces down, but they still manage to wrinkle. I told her that I didn't feel like a loser anymore.

A young, New York artist, having trouble breaking out into the world, decides to get noticed by shocking the public. Yazmany Arboleda, a graphics designer and performance artist, couldn't get people interested in his art, even after showing portraits made up of rubber balls. So what is a young, unnoticed artist to do?

Well, that one's easy. You make art that threatens the lives of the presidential candidates.

But since no gallery in New York would take in his art, he decided that what he would have to do is rent an empty store for a couple of days and put his art up that way. But first, he had to get people interested. He and his friends made up fictional galleries on the internet that said they would be exhibiting his Assassination show, but only by appointment. When anyone called or emailed, Mr. Arboleda responded that the show had been closed, stirring the public and making them really interested.

So when he started putting up the show, plastering the title of the work, "The Assassination of Barack Obama" and "The Assassination of Hilary Clinton", on the store front windows, he happily got even more publicity when, before he got the show set up, the police and members of the secret service were waiting for him outside the building early in the morning. After questioning, however, they decided he was just a crazy artist type and let him go, but not before censoring the words on the store front by removing the word "assassination".

On the one hand, I can understand this guy's point of view. It's so hard to get noticed in the art world, and we all secretly know that we have to sacrifice a little something of ourselves to be popular. But on the other hand, I totally hate publicity seekers. There's something rather perverted in the way they'll do anything they can think of to get the much sought after attention. They, in many ways, remind me of obnoxious children that need some time in the corner.

Somewhat to his credit, he does go on to say that what he meant to portray with this show was the way the media were assassinating Barack's and Hilary's character. That, however, doesn't cover up the fact that he skillfully twisted the words to draw as much attention as possible.

I understand that doing things in a sensible, moral fashion in the art world is a long and hard journey, but finding the easy way out is almost, in my mind, like cheating. And unless he continues to do these sorts of stunts, I doubt he'll continue to be in the spot lights for long.

Source

I realize that I'm a little behind the times with this bit of news, but it's very shocking to me, and I just have to share my feelings about it.

"MIDDLEBURY, Vermont (AP) -- Call it poetic justice: More than two dozen young people who broke into Robert Frost's former home for a beer party and trashed the place are being required to take classes in his poetry as part of their punishment."

The story, which you can read in full at CNN, goes on to describe how about fifty young people, all but two of them teenagers, broke into Robert Frost's house with $100 of beer and just totally trashed the place. The damage was estimated at almost $11,000. And to punish these kids? About half of them have to take two classes on Frost's poetry.

At first, I thought to myself how good this was. "Yeah," I was thinking, "maybe they'll learn about the amazing guy that used to live in that house, and come to realize how stupid and selfish their party was." But after reading the rest of the story and then thinking on it a little bit, I realize that none of these kids will ever fully care about it. Sure, they'll worry about what it will do to their record, their reputation and their family's name, but they aren't going to be consciously thinking, "Wow, I just destroyed a little bit of history."

Why didn't they give those kids a steeper punishment? Why didn't they send them to jail, or fine them out the ears to pay for what they did? Well, would that have done any better than the poetry class? Would they walk away feeling deep remorse for their actions? I think the truth is that they aren't at the moment capable of feeling that. Why? Because art isn't a priority in our society any more. Poetry doesn't sit on the same high pedestal that it used to. Our nation has moved on from those dreamy things of yesteryear, and on to more solid subjects. Poetry is replaced by loud and annoying music. Fine art is shoved out of the way by flashy commercials.

You can't put as much blame on the kids that came to the party after it was announced. As humans, especially teenagers, they were drawn into it like a herded sheep. When you see a friend do something stupid, you're more likely to do the same stupid thing. But the one person who instigated the party should really be put on the spot. That person has nothing to fall back on and no one to blame but himself.

Our society would benefit greatly if we could just incorporate more art into it somehow. Kids would have a way of expressing their angst and frustration in positive ways, rather than by physically acting them out. The problem is that adults were brought up without art, as well, so that only the artists can see how dreary their lives are without it. And how do you convince head strong adults that their parenting methods are a little off?

I enjoy being home. A lot. I love to clean, to make the counter sparkle and the carpet fluffy. I get so much joy out of just being here, with my cats, making life easier and cleaner for my husband.

It's been so long since I've been home that I've almost totally forgotten how wonderful it can be. This is where I have always known I was meant to be. And although most people are arguing with me over my decision to leave my job (even my mom!), I know best what will make me happy.

And it's not like I didn't spend many a late night thinking about all this stuff; could we afford it, or would I get bored? Already the answer has come to me. This is where I'm supposed to be. Taking care of my house, cats and husband and following my dream as an artist.

Speaking of art, I have both good news and bad news. First, the bad news. A while back now, Prismacolor changed the design of its markers. At first I was rather shocked, and then I was a little grumpy about it. The four-in-one markers now sport a brush/tapered tip on one end rather than a fine point tip. And although this probably is good news for some and might not even matter to most, it's a big deal for me. Now I don't get as fine a line as I used to, which is devastating when you're making pieces as small as I am. But..... I can live with it.

At any rate, that's not the point I was trying to get at. What Prismacolor did that really bugged me is that it changed the color of at least two of its colors. Did that make sense? I first noticed this when I got a couple of markers at Michael's one day. The new dark brown is more subdued and much less red. The dark green is likewise a little less saturated and a touch yellower. These changes didn't matter much, though, because they were subtle and probably a good thing, in the end. The kicker was when I got a new light cerulean blue, because my old one was drying out. Well. Let me tell you, I am highly disappointed. I've always loved the light cerulean blue because it was a subtle kind of blue. Kind of greyish, with a slight leaning toward purple. It was perfect for almost everything I used that shade of blue fore. The new one is totally different. Lighter, much more vibrant, and much greener. It's a sad and startling difference.

But I'm not worrying too much about it. Because (here's the good news) I finally ordered myself a set of 72 markers and 120 pencils, baby! I'm excited. I looked at the list of markers that comes in the 72 box and there looks to be at least one color of blue that's like the old light cerulean blue that I remember. And the best part about ordering them is that I got free shipping. Not just any shipping, mind you. Really good shipping. I ordered on the night of 21st and they're scheduled to be here on the 24th. Awesome. Expect new art!

I often find myself putting off writing in this blog because I feel like I have more important things to do. There are also some illogical reasonings floating around in my brain, like I can't work on art on on writing (or creative things in general) until the area is clean. I just don't get it. What am I trying to do, anyway? Keep myself from writing or doing art? It doesn't help that, knowing my work space is dirty, I become apathetic and don't want to clean it up. So it's a really stupid cycle.

Secretly, I think it's just another way of sabotaging myself so that I can't even get started. That way I don't have the chance to try and fail at whatever I'm doing.

So where did this gripping fear of failure creep into my heart, anyway? I like to think that it's something that just recently came to me, but I think, truthfully, that I've only noticed it within the last couple of years, and that it's been with me for most of my life. I could probably name a dozen things I never did or never finished because I had a fear of failing, but that would be embarrassing.

So maybe I just need a healthy dose of humility and a hard smack with a clue stick to remind me that I'm simply human. Humans fail, and that's how it goes. Besides, failure leads to learning, which leads to perfection.