Creative Cogitation

I fin­ished up day 7 of the SmArtist Tele­sum­mit and I can tell you, brain full now.

One thing made emi­nently clear to me as that I have to work on mar­ket­ing myself.  So 2010 because the Year of Mar­ket­ing for me.   I have made it my mis­sion to deal with this deep dark hole in my busi­ness plan.

Its an scary propo­si­tion for an artist.  The accoun­tant in me always has some ready account­ing, tax, busi­ness, human resources fac­toid to whip out an a moments notice, but art is not easy to talk about. It is a visual medium.  So I guess I will be show­ing a lot more art in my blog in com­ing days.  If I can’t talk about it, at least you can look at it.

Then maybe some­thing will occur to me.

On other fronts, I know I need to chose a style of the moment and develop it into a con­sis­tent body of work which makes the schiz­o­phrenic artist in me squirm.  “What do you mean I can’t do a land­scape if  I want to?” Of course I can still do a land­scape if I want, but I will be pro­mot­ing some­thing dif­fer­ent  — prob­a­bly — I haven’t made up my mind which body of work I am going to focus on yet. I am lean­ing toward my rep­re­sen­ta­tional abstracts.  I have heard them described as mys­te­ri­ous. It sounds good anyway.

I also have a lot of work to do on the Social Media front.  Holy cow, I didn’t know there was so much of that out there.  Face­book Fan pages? Who knew?  Tweet­meme? Twol­low? Tweet­deck?  RSS feeds?  It is over­whelm­ing. But at least I know if I work it bit by bit, even­tu­ally a whole will emerge.

Also some­where amidst this men­tal chaos I also have to con­tinue to create.

Who­ever said Art is not a real job?!

Got any­thing to say?  Would love to hear it.

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Expe­ri­ence the Art!

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.

So lately I have found myself mak­ing moves, which has the accoun­tant in me is scream­ing, “This is fis­cally irre­spon­si­ble. “  The artist in me is telling the accoun­tant, “put a sock in it.”

It started with the Biennale.

The accoun­tant in me:  “$8,000 in esti­mated expenses?  Are you kid­ding me?  We don’t have the money.”

The artist:  “Every­one (who mat­ters to me) is telling me I must go; it’s a ticket to the show.  I am going.”

The accoun­tant in me:  “But it’s $8,000.”

The artist:  “I will find a way to make this happen…”

You get the idea.

The artist won on the Flo­rence Bien­nale, but the ben­e­fit of attend­ing the Flo­rence Bien­nale is not finan­cially obvi­ous.  The artist still sees the intan­gi­ble ben­e­fits I did receive.  The accoun­tant is still grum­bling. What were the benefits?

• The net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties with like minded artists are unbe­liev­able. All par­tic­i­pants passed through the same ring of fire that I did and came out at the other side.  The Bien­nale is a band pass fil­ter that indi­cates a level of com­mit­ment to your art.
• Some artists faced far more dif­fi­culty than I did get­ting there-risking their lives, jail…  for some other artists get­ting there was just another day on the job, but for me get­ting there was an accomplishment.
• After talk­ing to many of these other like minded indi­vid­u­als my vision of my art has expanded.
• I did it with­out wind­ing up home­less (I am absolutely sure for many of you read­ing this, that fear is one of your fears too).  I con­quered my fear.

What am I talk­ing about then?  A par­a­digm shift.  I per­ceive my world dif­fer­ently. The accoun­tant is all doom and gloom, fis­cal respon­si­bil­ity.  React­ing to the down econ­omy by want to draw all resources inward and con­serve them until the sun comes out again. The artist is telling the accoun­tant, “You have no vision.  Besides, look around lit­tle accoun­tant dude, the world is cur­rently full of peo­ple who fol­lowed all the rules and wound up bank­rupt anyway…”

The accoun­tant in me cer­tain has its place, don’t get me wrong.  The accoun­tant knew it was going to cost 8 grand to get to the Bien­nale. The accoun­tant can orga­nize a plan.  Know­ing what you need to accom­plish some­thing is use­ful too. But I needed to cur­tail the accountant’s pow­ers to some extent as the accoun­tant is fully aware of the worst case sce­nario and plans for it, but really, does it usu­ally get that bad?

Any­way, so today I read some­one else’s blog and the words for this change in my per­spec­tive clicked.  I thought, “Oh. That is what is going on.”  When I cre­ate, I cre­ate.  The whole process from begin­ning to end unfolds with­out regard for worldly dis­trac­tions; I have a vision and it will be expressed in its com­plete form.  But when I am not paint­ing I respond to the world reac­tively.  I don’t know about you but these last few years have given me a lot to react to.

The shift: What I have started to do is apply the cre­ative process to my life.  Rather than respond­ing to deeply depress­ing state of affairs in the national econ­omy, I am mov­ing on.  I have no power over the deeply depress­ing state of affairs in the national econ­omy, why am I giv­ing it power over me.  I no longer want to be a flakey artist when I grow up-I will be a flakey artist when I grow up.  It’s the dif­fer­ence between a dream and a vision.

The area that I have always been weak at is mar­ket­ing me.  My mis­sion this year is to address that defect head on.  Since I have been unable to do it by myself, I am buy­ing the tools I need to make this hap­pen.  I am tak­ing classes, and doing my home­work and embrac­ing the idea that for a while I will have to spend more time on this stuff than paint­ing. Yes I am spend­ing money on some­thing other than the art-for me it is a lot of money.

But I real­ize do need to keep paint­ing to be ready to take advan­tage of oppor­tu­ni­ties as needs arise.

Oh, and I have given the accoun­tant another thing to squawk about.  Remem­ber that Bien­nale net­work­ing I was talk­ing about?  That net­work has pre­sented the oppor­tu­nity for a mere $1000 to show in NY and get the full court press of pub­lic­ity from NY Arts Mag­a­zine. It’s the pub­lic­ity that is the thing. Oh yeah, lit­tle account­ing dude is scream­ing.  The artist is say­ing, “Shut up, obvi­ously I have work to do.”

What are your thoughts?

Yours in art,

Jake

Artist, AKAJake.com Come Expe­ri­ence the Art!

Fol­low Jake Beck­man Online!

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 thought I had already posted this, but I guess I spaced it. I wrote is a few weeks ago.

Of course now that I am back from the Bien­nale and the infor­ma­tion is of no cur­rent use to me, I have found out what those tem­po­rary impor­ta­tion licenses are called; Taw­era Tahuri  of New Zealand told me this thing is called a Car­net.  I Googled “car­net” and bingo up pops the USCIS web­site which is where US folks would apply for one.  Most of the fol­low­ing is copied from the USCIS website.

CAVEAT: I have not ever obtained a Car­net so there may be nuances I am miss­ing.  For exam­ple, I recall the EPS wanted artists using them to ship to the Bien­nale to get an Employer Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Num­ber (EIN) in our given name to use in their ship­ping process somehow-my guess is that it may be nec­es­sary somewhere…

Mov­ing along…

“Car­nets are “Mer­chan­dise Pass­ports.” They are inter­na­tional cus­toms doc­u­ments that sim­plify cus­toms pro­ce­dures for the tem­po­rary impor­ta­tion of var­i­ous types of goods.  In the US two types are issued: ATA and TECRO/AIT Carnets. “

• “ATA Car­nets ease the tem­po­rary impor­ta­tion of com­mer­cial sam­ples (CS), pro­fes­sional equip­ment (PE), and goods for exhi­bi­tions and fairs (EF).  They facil­i­tate inter­na­tional busi­ness by avoid­ing exten­sive cus­toms pro­ce­dures, elim­i­nat­ing pay­ment of duties and value-added taxes (min­i­mum 20% in Europe, 27% in China), and replac­ing the pur­chase of tem­po­rary import bonds.” This would have been the one desired for ship­ping to Italy via FedEx etc.
• “TECRO/AIT Car­nets, used between the U.S.  and Tai­wan only, appear sim­i­lar to, and serve the same func­tion as the ATA Car­net.  TECRO/AIT Car­nets result from a bilat­eral agree­ment between the US and Tai­wan, cov­er­ing only com­mer­cial sam­ples (CS), and pro­fes­sional equip­ment (PE).  Mer­chan­dise enter­ing coun­tries in addi­tion to Tai­wan may also be accom­pa­nied by an ATA Carnet.”

Ben­e­fits of a Carnet:

• “Car­nets are valid for one year,
• “Are accepted in over 75 coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries–see list below,
• “Elim­i­nate value-added taxes (VAT), duties, and the post­ing of secu­rity nor­mally required at the time of importation,
• “Sim­plify cus­toms procedures.
• “Car­nets allow a tem­po­rary exporter to use a sin­gle doc­u­ment for all cus­toms trans­ac­tions, make arrange­ments in advance, and at a pre­de­ter­mined cost,
• “Facil­i­tate reen­try into the US (and pre­sum­ably other coun­tries of ori­gin) by elim­i­nat­ing the need to reg­is­ter the goods with US Cus­toms (and pre­sum­ably other coun­tries of ori­gin) at the time of departure.

“CARNETS DO NOT EXEMPT HOLDERS FROM OBTAINING NECESSARY LICENSES OR PERMITS.

“Mer­chan­dise Cov­ered by Car­nets: Vir­tu­ally all goods, includ­ing com­mer­cial sam­ples, pro­fes­sional equip­ment, and items for trade shows and exhi­bi­tions, includ­ing dis­play booths, ordi­nary goods such as com­put­ers, tools, cam­eras and video equip­ment, indus­trial machin­ery, auto­mo­biles, gems and jew­elry, and wear­ing apparel, extra­or­di­nary items, for exam­ple, Van Gogh Self-portrait, Rin­gling Broth­ers tigers, Cessna jets, Paul McCartney’s band instru­ments, World Cup class yachts, satel­lites, human skulls, and the New York Phil­har­monic.” We artists mov­ing sculp­ture and other art­work around fall into this extra­or­di­nary cat­e­gory. “Car­nets DO NOT cover: con­sum­able or dis­pos­able goods (e.g., food and agri­cul­ture prod­ucts) give­aways, or postal traffic.

The List of Car­net Coun­tries (as of Decem­ber 30, 2009) on the USCIB web­site: Alge­ria, Andorra, Aruba , Aus­tralia, Aus­tria, Balearic Islands, Belarus, Botswana, Bul­garia, Canada, Canary Islands, Ceuta, Chile, China, Cor­sica, Croa­tia, Cyprus, Czech Repub­lic, Den­mark, Esto­nia, Fin­land, France, French Guiana, Ger­many, Gibral­tar, Greece, Guade­loupe, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Hun­gary, Ice­land, India, Ire­land, Isle Of Man, Israel, Italy, Ivory Coast, Japan, Jer­sey, Korea , Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liecht­en­stein, Lithua­nia, Lux­em­bourg, Mace­do­nia, Malaysia, Malta, Mar­tinique, Mau­ri­tius, May­otte, Melilla, Miquelon, Monaco, Mon­go­lia, Mon­tene­gro, Morocco, Namibia, Nether­lands, New Cale­do­nia, New Zealand, Nor­way, Pak­istan, Poland,  Por­tu­gal, Puerto Rico, Reunion Island, Roma­nia, Rus­sia, Sene­gal , Sin­ga­pore, Slo­va­kia, Slove­nia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, St.  Barthelemy, St.  Mar­tin, French Side, St.  Pierre, Swazi­land,  Swe­den, Switzer­land,  Tahiti , Tai­wan*,  Tas­ma­nia, Thai­land, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United King­dom, United States, Wal­lis & Futuna Island

(Wow — I have never even heard of some of these places)

There are three basic com­po­nents to the Car­net appli­ca­tion process:

1. Gen­eral list
2. Car­net appli­ca­tion, and
   
3. Secu­rity deposit.

Basic pro­cess­ing fees are deter­mined by the value of a ship­ment.  In the US fees range from $210-$350 and the nor­mal pro­cess­ing time is about two work­ing days…  Pay­ment usu­ally can be made in the form of a check, money order, or credit card…  In the US as the National Guar­an­tee­ing Asso­ci­a­tion, USCIB (United States Coun­cil for Inter­na­tional Busi­ness) is required to take secu­rity, usu­ally 40% of ship­ment value, to cover any cus­toms claim that might result from a mis­used Car­net.  Accept­able forms of secu­rity are cer­ti­fied check or surety bond.  Cash deposits are returned in full and surety bonds are ter­mi­nated upon Car­net cancellation.

So if you get a Car­net, pre­sum­ably you can use what­ever ship­per you desire, but I still would go with one that ships between your coun­try and Italy so you have no issues deal­ing with get­ting your stuff shipped back home.

I really would have like to have had this infor­ma­tion – I dunno – back in Sep­tem­ber per­haps?  But I am get­ting more and more edu­cated in inter­na­tional shipping.

Thanks to Taw­era Tahuri of New Zealand for the clue.

If you have fur­ther knowl­edge of inter­na­tional ship­ping of art please share it with us all.

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 $7651.31 I charged to attend this event; this amount is the sum all the receipts I can find relat­ing to the trip-about $4,000 is the Bien­nale artist’s share, then hotel & air­fare, plus pack­ag­ing for my art, taxis, meals in Italy, postage and other inci­den­tal expenses. I have raised about $2079 in dona­tions–many thanks to those who have con­tributed to this event.  But I need more assis­tance and 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.

Sorry to have fallen of the Blog planet for so long.  Hol­i­days.  Was busy liv­ing instead of writ­ing blogs.  I hope you all were enjoy­ing the hol­i­days as well.

It’s the Happy New Year now and I am back. At the moment I am con­sid­er­ing how to use Social Net­works as a mar­ket­ing tool.  Quite frankly I know very lit­tle about it.

Sure I have a MySpace account, a Linked-In account, a Face­Book account, a Twit­ter account, a Manta account, my web­sites ArtandBusinessConsulting.com & AKAJake.com and blogs ArtandBusinessConsulting.com/blog/ & AKAJake.com/blog/ but how does one use them to mar­ket your business?

So this will likely be the topic of sev­eral of my next blogs as I see how these accounts can be used to mar­ket one’s business.

In the mean­time if you have any insights to offer please feel free to post them.  I would love to hear from you.

Today, I updated my Linked-In account, attempted to update Manta which hung up for some unknown rea­son, posted my first Tweet in a long time, and posted a new blog entry on MySpace and now here.  It seems that Linked-In  will fol­low my Tweets and my blog on ArtandBusinessConsulting.com and Manta will also fol­low my Tweets so I guess I should use Twit­ter more often.

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 $7651.31 I charged to attend this event; this amount is the sum all the receipts I can find relat­ing to the trip-about $4,000 is the Bien­nale artist’s share, then hotel & air­fare, plus pack­ag­ing for my art, taxis, meals in Italy, postage and other inci­den­tal expenses. I have raised about $2079 in dona­tions–many thanks to those who have con­tributed to this event.  But I need more assis­tance and 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.