In the Weeds

Oops, it's been a week already! Sorry for the silence, beloved readers, but I got lost in the good weeds/bad weeds weed patch.

The Brickbottom Artists Open Studios was grand and caused my Life Wish List to grow a bit. Thoughts about the event are yet to come.

I was offered a day job which will pay only enough to slow the bleeding out of my bank accounts, but not actually stop it. Still, slow is better than fast when it comes to going broke right? With a little finesse, it might even pay for some new studio equipment that would otherwise come out of either my food budget or my non-existent budget. It starts tomorrow. I feel nervous.

The design of the Exquisite Corpse scrolls is nearly done. The last details of paper decoration were finalized today, but how I wished I had finished and photographed them last week, while I was still "unemployed" and had daylight hours to work in. I feel happy and sad at the same time.

On top of all of that, I am fast on my way to failing to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Yes, I took the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge again and, though I will need a blip in the space-time continuum to win it, I have already achieved a personal best of 30,349 words, with one more evening left to go. I feel mildly frustrated at having to stop, though my brain will appreciate the cool down time. Someday I will finish this book, and then I'll illustrate it, and then I'll publish it. Just see if I don't. Providing I manage that part about finishing it.

Typing! Art! Commuting! Woo-hoo! It's been quite a November.

To honor all those who choose to take on more difficult challenges when they are already overloaded with work and have the holidays looming, and for the amusement of all kinds of work-nerds, please enjoy the NaNoWriMo Song.

That's going to be my new anthem for a lot of things, I think. I exit dancing.

-- Jen.

Brickbottom Open Studios 2009, November 21-22

Next weekend is the 22nd Annual Brickbottom Open Studios event, November 21-22, from noon to six.


The Brickbottom Artists Association of Somerville, Mass., has been dedicated to advancing the arts in Somerville and the metro-Boston area for over two decades. The group's open studios, in which participating artists open their work spaces and their homes to the art-loving public, is a major event in the local arts scene. Nearly 80 artists opened their studios last year and are expected to do so again.

Sadly, though a member, I won't be showing this year, as I'm too wrapped up in the new books project.

BUT!! Hordes of talented and exciting artists will be exhibiting, and the event is not to be missed. You can view original artwork in the studios where it is created. Talk with the artists, learn about their creative processes, observe demonstrations of their work. All media are represented from painting and sculpture to photography, digital art and environmental and performance art. Glass blowing, ceramics, printmaking, animation, sound, theatre and music will round out the multi-media event. Genres range from abstract to realistic and everything in between.

Of course, much of the work will be available for sale, including many affordable works ideal for that unique holiday gift.

The event is free. It's indoors. Parking and snacks are available. Take a refreshing break from Thanksgiving preparations and spend an afternoon or two immersed in the vibrant, contemporary art scene of Somerville.

Click the links for more info, and remember:

Brickbottom Artists Open Studios 2009
1 Fitchburg Street
Somerville, MA 02143

Click this for directions.

Click this to view samples of this year's participating artists.

Also, just two blocks away, are the Joy Street Studios which will open more than 50 of their studios on the same weekend.

I will take advantage of not being a participant to be a visitor, catch up with my colleagues and their work, and report on the event here.

The Arting Life: Experiencing Technical Difficulties

Just a quick mini-rant.

I'm working on my Ghosts experiments, and these little things happen that just interfere with my work. They have nothing to do with my work. They have no justification for even being in my reality, let alone interfering with my work. They are the products of some nameless, faceless Idiot thinking they know how to do something -- anything -- right. And they just screw up what should be the simplest things and send my blood pressure skyrocketing.

Things like these affect us all, and all our blood pressure readings, every day in the modern world.

Today's culprits are:

1. Hewlett Packard, whose Photosmart C3180 All-in-One Printer/Copier/Scanner is, apparently, tragically blind. Yes, I realize it's an old model. It seems, as it ages, the vision is the first thing to go (though actually, it has always been a pain). I just spent two hours trying to scan a piece of blotted writing to show an example of paper effects, and this insane old box of wires and plastic bits has given me images of only half the blot or of the blank paper next to it, ten times so far. I'm close to introducing this "smart" appliance to Mr. Hammer, who, simple though he is, truly understands the concept of frustration.

And

2. Staples, whose store at Harvard Square, Cambridge, Mass., sells fountain pen ink but not the fountain pens that go with it. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over? Seriously? Really? I asked the poor slob who worked there why, in that case, they bothered to stock erasers to go with the pencils or envelopes for the stationery. I think he was only pretending to understand what I meant.

Scanners that cannot scan. Shops that sell ink with no pen to put it in. How happen such things? Easily. We live in a stupid, stupid world. A world where the makers of scanners think a machine that can get confused qualifies as advanced. A world where it never occurs to the buyer of a stationery store that people who buy ink cartridges might also buy a pen to put them in. A world where so many of the people who make things, sell things, provide us with things, never actually use those things themselves and nor have any idea how they are supposed to work.

If you want to know why I'm trying to start my own publishing company with which I can produce my own books, stationery and other items, this is your answer, right here:

You want a job done right, do it your-freakin'-self.

Hopefully, today's Ghosts update post will be ready this weekend. (I'm so annoyed.)

The Arting Life: Just Who Do We Think We Are, Anyway?

Today, I attended day two of the Creative Massachusetts: The Artists Conference 2009 seminar, presented by the Massachusetts Artists Leaders Coalition, at the beautiful Boston Public Library. The program was most informative -- expert panel discussions of various marketing and contractual issues, the nuts and bolts, behind-the-scenes stuff of the arts. Everyone was handing around business cards like their livelihoods depend on those snips of paper. As they often do.

I realized as I was handing around my business card, that I had done a strange thing. I had redesigned my card and printed a pocketful of new ones this morning over breakfast, just for this event. I realized for the first time that I do this habitually. There are a lot of my cards floating around, but few of them are exactly alike.

Other people's cards are these gorgeous, stiff, slick things (ooh, sexy) with colors and photos. Their owners generously clue me to the excellent deals they got from this or that printer on a thousand cards for $100, and so forth. I tell myself I should get such deals, too.

Experts warn us of the dangers of not having a memorable, amusing, seductive business card. The mantra of Identity-Brand-Image is drilled into us -- and for good reason. We want to be remembered fondly. Why else do we bother with cards at all?

By all tried and true wisdom, a card that keeps changing, that looks like it was printed up quick this morning, is anathema to the professional artist.

But I can't help it.

I keep changing. The card has to change with me. What alternative do I have? Should I bind myself to the card, rather than it to me? Should it be the leader, or should I?

Further, I feel compelled to customize my card for the people receiving it and what aspect of my career I want to steer them towards. For every event, I suss who I will meet, and I make a fresh, new Jen Fries business card just for them, referencing precisely what I hope we talked about in person.

The question is: Am I doing everything horribly, horribly wrong, or am I onto something?

The messages from the experts today were mixed. On the one hand, we were urged repeatedly to maintain and guard our public images like they are pure gold. We must make sure our identities are always unmistakably clear.

On the other hand, we were advised that a directed message is better than a generic one. When we contact someone, we should address them, talk to them, not to some faceless "To whom it may concern" or "Dear Sir/Madam." We were told that presenting ourselves in a context of specific interest to the person we are talking to is an excellent way to get the attention of curators, buyers, newspaper editors, etc.

Clearly, marketing for artists -- and all small entrepreneurs, really -- is a balancing act between consistency and customization. How should we achieve that?

I have decided to experiment with the new. The new technology that makes it so easy for me to whip up customized cards and other materials at a moment's notice. The new media hungry for fresh nibbles. All the instant tools that let me put in front of people just what I want them to see and think about at any moment. And I will apply to this new stuff the very old adage:

All roads lead to Rome.

In with The New. Come find me on Face Book.

I'm still afraid of Twitter, though.

The Big Experiment: Ghosts & Cadavers

My, surrealism is kind of gruesome, isn't it?

Anyway... Update

I am working on the design for a Ghosts of My Friends ink blot autographs book. However, writing instruments and, especially, habits have changed a lot over the past hundred years, so the project is not so simple, especially regarding making the idea accessible and user friendly.

I'm also working on an item for another surrealist game, the Exquisite Corpse (or Cadaver). This is a well known collaborative game, played with words, pictures, or both, in which each player writes a few words or draws something, folds the paper to hide most of what they did, then passes the paper to the next player to write or draw, and so on, until everyone has had their turn. Then the paper is unfolded to see what the group created together accidentally. The game is named for it's classic first result:

The exquisite corpse will drink new wine.

And here is a graphical Exquisite Corpse by Yves Tanguy, Man Ray, Max Morise, and Joan Miró, 1926.

The Exquisite Corpse project needs to work a certain way but does not need any special papers or tools to use, so it is coming along faster.

I'll post pictures of prototypes in the coming days.

Meanwhile, if you'd like to enjoy more Exquisite Corpses, while you wait for me to provide you with containers for your own, check out JA/BC Studio's collaborative EC panels. Very impressive, large artworks.

And see what the Library of Congress has for us! The Exquisite Corpse Adventure. I am very excited about this ongoing collaborative kid's lit serial project, which I just found today. Three episodes have been written so far and can be read at the linked Read.gov site. Episode 4 is due this Friday, November 6. Bookmark it!

More to come,

-- Jen.