Insane Imaginings, Random Reveries & Other Creative Cogitation

Just a quick note to say I am off to Italy for the Florence Biennial.

This last week has been very busy wrapping up local business, Turkey Day, then tying up local loose ends and picking up a few final items for the trip.  I purchased one of them hidden cash belt things, a luggage strap for my hard case with the stretcher bars and brochures in it, an Italian phrase book, a new pocket-sized digital camera (my old one doesn’t even talk to a Vista computer), a tube to put my paintings in (Jerry’s Art-O-Rama had a 4-inch diameter expandable one for sale a the local store) and a new carry on (my old carry on was purchased in 1996 and was exactly the right size for a carry on at the time; it is now too long by about 2 inches-they keep shrinking everything it seems).

As for the tube of paintings I called Delta and they said I could carry it on as my extra personal items as it is likely short enough (at 25.5 inches) to fit in an overhead bin or stand up in a closet.  So I am checking stretchers and brochures case and carrying the majority of the other things I will need on the trip along with the canvases.  I am really glad Delta said I could carry the canvases as they are the whole reason I am going to Italy.  Without them the trip is a waste.

I have prepaid all bills I expect to come due while I am away and left DH all other important things I can think of so this is it.  DH thinks I over prepared for this trip, but that is in my nature I guess – why get surprised by things you can control. Wish me bon voyage and good fortune and I will do the same for you.  I’ll be back to blogging in a few weeks unless I decide to get on at an internet cafe.

Do you have any last minute tips for travelers?

Yours in art,

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

PS. I am still looking for Sponsors & Contributing Patrons to help me pay the estimated $8000 it is going to cost me to attend this event.  Every little bit helps.

The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.

I am largely over my funk from the last show, and I did another one last night.  Even though we had decent traffic, no one seemed to be buying.  It is getting cooler at night around here.  I had a long-sleeve shirt on but I was walking around with my hands in my pockets for several hours anyway.  Not that most folks would consider a balmy 50-60 F evening cold, but here in Phoenix AZ, which is located just this side of the blazing fires of hell, we are used to the heat and it thins our blood down; when the temperatures drop below body temp we start complaining.  Still it was a pretty nice evening, the vibe was good, we had a nice assortment of artists selling wares, but like I said, no one was buying.  This show is probably my last for 2009 as I am going to Italy for 2 weeks for the Florence Biennial, and after that I will have a week to get ready for Christmas and New Years.  I could do one more show, but it would require me to jump off the plane, catch a few Zs then pack up the van for a show the next day. I just don’t think I can do that.

As for the horrible show last week, I will attend a meeting of the organizers who were involved in that fiasco.  It’s not a bitch session, it’s a strategy session and I feel honored that the organizers actually think I have something to contribute to the ongoing discussions.  I hope I can blog about it, but it is next Tuesday and I am getting into Holiday/trip packing crunch time.

Anyway, the market must stink all the way around as I just watched a TV ad that I found hysterically funny.  It is right up there with my dark humor.

Santa goes godfather on his naughty list

James Patterson, crime novelist, whose characters feature the Women’s Murder Club and Alex Cross, came on the TV promoting his new novel, I Alex Cross.  The message was short and sweet.  James Patterson holds up his latest novel and says, “Buy this book or I will have to kill Alex Cross.”  My spontaneous guffaw just about had hot tea coming out of my nose.  Although I prefer to read a book in print, I usually do not buy hardbound editions; I patiently wait to buy paperbacks editions. I am willing to hold out a good long time, I think I had to wait two years for paperback edition of the last Harry Potter novel, but I did.  I do love the Alex Cross character, but I admit the threat of killing him of is not going to make me change my book buying pattern.  So it is up to the hardback buying public to save Alex Cross’ life.  I wish him luck.

What are you doing to increase sales?  What do you think of James Patterson’s ploy?  Do you my Godfather Santa cartoon?  Any other thoughts?

Carry on & yours in art,

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

PS. I am still looking for Sponsors & Contributing Patrons to help me pay the estimated $8000 it is going to cost me to attend this event.  Every little bit helps.

The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.

I dunno, how do you react when someone clearly has taken advantage of you and not delivered on what they said they were going to do?  Recently I and other members of my group were courted by a certain city to do a certain show on a certain day in a certain location.  We were told the establishment that we would be affiliated with & located next to, would be running a special for the event and that the city would be dropping visitors off right in front of this establishment.  I juried in, signed on & paid a fee of $50 several months ago for a 10′x10′ booth & a one-shot 4-hour opportunity to show & sell during this event.  The downside is the location of this spot, which is up an alley and out of eye-shot of the main drag, but given a trolley stop, and signage of  an establishment running drink specials I figured we should do OK.

In the meantime the promoter of the event who got me involved has been promoting, and I myself have done my own marketing mentioning the city and the establishment, my participation in it, and that I would be there right next to the trolley stop.

Fast forward to the night of the show.  I get there after spending several hours with my roadie (DH) loading up my van with art-du-jour, trinkets, lighting and all manner of other things one need to have to show and sell stuff at night.  It takes a couple of hours.  We get there and it takes another couple of hours to set up. I sell paintings, which mean walls, among other things-it is quite nice when done, but it does take time and is labor intensive.  When I am done, I decide it would be nice to stop over to the establishment and take five, only the establishment is having a private party which is to continue halfway into the stated hours of the event.

I am feeling crabby after to hiking to public restrooms & a might bit parched as well but I figure the trolley stop will make it all better.  You guessed it – there was a trolley stop – but it was about half a block away where debarking passengers couldn’t really see us, not right in front of the establishment as our group had been lead to believe. Anybody looking for us was going to have a hard time finding us if they had never been there before.

I remind you this location is up an alley and around a corner so folks on the main drag don’t really know you are there without decent signage.  Which brings me to the signage: The signage was a large sandwich board placed dead-center & perpendicular to the entrance of the alley, psychologically blocking the entrance. It made no mention of our little group, and merely indicated that the establishment was closed until 8 PM for “private party only;” from our standpoint it was basically a “DO NOT ENTER” sign.

Needless to say, traffic into our little corner of this happening scene did not exist-despite music, lights and wares aching to be examined and despite lots of pedestrian traffic half a block away.   A friend of a fellow vendor purchased a single greeting card from me; that was it the whole night.  I probably had 10 visitors, obviously brave and curious soles who decided to explore & ignore the private party only sign.  We folded up our tents as 9 PM instead of 10 PM because there was no traffic and the establishment in question closed soon after their private party let out.

So I paid $50 to be there, plus a sales tax license, plus 20+ man-hours (tear down and put away takes just as long as load and set-up), plus wear and tear on my van & equipment, to sell a greeting card for $2.88 to someone else’s roadie. That card cost me about $1.40 and for which the city and state are going to take their $0.24 bite, plus 2-$0.44-cent stamps to mail in the sales tax form reporting this glorious sale; my net on the card is about $0.30. Basically I paid $50 for the opportunity practice setting up a show and to sit there in the dark for 4 hours. Those sitting there with me at this non-event were equally disenchanted; the promoter was also in our number, and having a hard time looking us in the eyes.

The day after the event, the promoter offered us a free show in the same location.  Yeah.  Right.  OK, the promoter is looking for another place for us to put down our stakes, but at the moment…  I have avoided mentioning which city, which event and which promoter as I hope sooner or later someone will make this right, but who knows what will happen-I am not looking for any additional trouble, just venting.  $50 is a lot of money when you are flat broke.  It could be worse I know, but in the language of the wild west “I feel road hard and put away wet.” Already figuring I shouldn’t throw good time and money after bad.  But I don’t know what I could have done that would have made this turn out different and feel pretty stupid about it.

I guess the worst part is I don’t understand why.  Why would the city ask us to do this thing in the first place?  Why would the establishment just bail on us like that? What did they get out of our art-show fire-drill? I know the promoter didn’t see this coming ’cause I sure didn’t and beside the promoter was right there rotting with us.

What do you all think?

Yours in art,

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

PS. I am still looking for Sponsors & Contributing Patrons to help me pay the estimated $8000 it is going to cost me to attend this event.  Every little bit helps.

The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.

I started asking about what do I do if I need to make a phone call while I am in Italy.

My travel agent suggested I contact my cellular service provider, so I did.  My current cell phone is not GSM compatible.  I am not due to renew my plan for another 6 months or so, so the idea of renewing that early for 2 years, just to get a GSM compatible phone is not super attractive.  I had decided the next go round I would get a phone that would be friendly for text messaging; hitting a number button 3 times to pull up a letter is annoying.  But in order to get a GSM phone with those abilities I would have to sign up for more than my current plan, I’d have to add email-it might not be a bad thing, but I have multiple phones sharing minutes and I am not sure how that plays out under the new plan.  The least expensive plan I saw was $99 a month which is $40 per month more than I am currently paying for my base plan and I don’t know how much more the other phones are going to run or even if it is possible to have them share minutes under the new scenario. This cost is in addition to the $149 to $179 cost of the upgraded phone.  On top of that their roaming charge is $1.99 per minute in Italy.  All in all this looks to be a very pricey way to go, but as I said I have been thinking about upgrading my service anyway, just not quite so soon.  At a minimum I will pay an extra $240 over the next several months that I would not have otherwise paid and their roaming per minute fees are just about double the alternative.

The Alternative: A friend who lives in Italy suggested I pick up an inexpensive unlocked GSM phone and get a chargeable SIM card for it.  My first foray into this idea found a service that offers a phone loaded with 30 minutes for $179.  Alternatively they sell the SIM card alone loaded with 30 minutes for $59. This company also rents cell phones, but I have heard there are expensive insurance contracts on rented cells so it is probably just as cost effective to buy one.  I can get an international calling card with non-expiring minutes for my husband that will run $25. If he were to call me on this GSM phone my incoming call would be free and about 28 cents a minute to my husband on the calling card.  My outbound calls would be about 99 cents a minute and free to him, which is half of the cost of my current cell service provider.  The GSM phone purchased this way does not require a plan or incur a future obligation to me.  My current cellular service does not sell unlocked phones so there is no way for me to upgrade my phone and use the rechargeable SIM with it.

Does anyone else have any ideas?

Yours in Art,

-Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

PS. I am still looking for Sponsors & Contributing Patrons to help me pay the estimated $8000 it is going to cost me to attend this event.  Every little bit helps.

The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.

Its like a supernova sometimes.  After I wrote my last bitchy blog, I sat down and did what I said what I was going to do.  I created and created and created for 4 solid days, from the moment I woke until exhaustion drove me to rest.

It was my annual foray into the silly season, Xmas Dementia.  Normally I wait until Turkey Day to do this particular exercise, but given the trip to Florence I need to get things done a lot sooner and so I did.  This season I have done 14 new cartoons.  Its a record for me.  Very seldom do so many of my 20 or so ideas make it that far-usually its 1 or 2.  If I were to go back and look at my notes, I might find that several of these ideas have been “developing”; I don’t know for sure as I hardly ever go back and look at things that I “kicked in the corner.”

I will be posting the new funnies in XmasDementia.com once my Xmas letter goes out.   I have enough for an entire gallery page in one shot.  It just feels good.

And now for a little taste of what is to come…

Santa Jaws - Xmas Dementia Cartoon by Jake Beckman

Yours in Art,

-Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

PS. I am still looking for Sponsors & Contributing Patrons to help me pay the estimated $8000 it is going to cost me to attend this event.  Every little bit helps.

The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.

Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda

Today I have been reminded by someone very close to me about what he perceives to be all my failings to act in the past. I find the entire exercise unproductive. I am also finding it a negative experience as he goes on and on about it, which has been taking up far too much time in my brain housing group. Of course before he started nattering on I didn’t know what today’s blog was going to be about and now I do.

I can learn from the past to be sure, but I refuse to beat myself up about what may have been. The past is gone. Nothing I do today will change it.

I can only do what I do today. Sure I can make plans for tomorrow, but action only occurs in the present.

The first day to do anything is now. The first day to start that learning a new language, exercise program, diet, marketing plan, cooking class, get spending under control, start that painting, take up underwater-basket-weaving, or whatever evil little shoulda that is hanging out in your brain housing group is today. It is do or not do. TRY is the precursor to failure.

If you don’t do, “why not” can be a valid educational analysis but it should not stop you from acting tomorrow when tomorrow becomes today. “I failed to act yesterday” is not a reason to not act today. Nor is there a chastisement to be applied to the failure to act yesterday; “I failed to act yesterday” does not mean “I am a bad person” or “I am a failure”; it simply is, in the past, unchangeable. “I failed to act yesterday because I watched SciFi reruns all day” may be a call to change behavior, change priorities or whatever, but again it implies no value judgment in and of itself; it is a call to action.

Beware of the shouldas that do not properly belong to you. Some people live vicariously through other people and will implant shouldas in the unwary people they hold influence over. If you are a little pudgy, but not unhealthy, and someone is berating you about being fat maybe that is a shoulda you need to ignore. Maybe the proper shoulda on your list today is to tell your nag where to get off, or maybe it is just to ignore them.

I should blog more often (as a marketing tool) is one of the shouldas in my list, also I need to paint more, and I need improve on my marketing efforts in general. These artistic goal centric efforts are competing with a million other shouldas in my life. Prioritizing shouldas requires you to develop a selfish streak. I am no Objectivist, or Existentialist, but from the creative standpoint Ayn Rand or Søren Kierkegaard did present ideas that may resonate with you. If your true goal is to be an independent creative person, you must understand that those around you think you are nuts, wasting your time with pie-in-the-sky ideas, and need to find something sensible to do with your life. They are more than willing to load up your plate with well-intended should ofs. I believe that after satisfying your basic needs of food and roof-over-your-head, your next priority has to be creative goal-centric, not cleaning your house, fixing the drip in the kitchen faucet, responding to irrelevant email, blogging perhaps, dealing with continuous demands of significant others…

The act of creation is selfish; it is fulfilling a need in you that others may not understand.  These others are more than happy to convey to you their displeasure with your chosen path over and over again.  They will also remind you over and over again how your effort has failed in the past thus proving their thesis that you need to be doing something else; they, of course, will also tell you what that something else woulda, coulda, shoulda been.  If you have not done so already it is time to banish these unproductive ghosts from your mind.

So having completed my blog and marketing effort for the day, and banished my unproductive ghost via this blog, I will move on to other selfish pursuits in the now.

I am curious, having now espoused my philosophy regarding the creative effort, how do you make time for your art?

Yours in Art,

-Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!

PS. I am still looking for Sponsors & Contributing Patrons to help me pay the estimated $8000 it is going to cost me to attend this event.  Every little bit helps.