This year, I'm thankful for Spike (awww). Seriously though, I am. I read the entire Templar Arizona archives last January when I should have been working on my application for super-special art school, visiting my brother in New York and hate-hate-hating the fucking city, sandwiched between the best live show of my life (Amanda Palmer on New Year's Eve) and the best art show I've ever seen (James Jean's Kindling). By the end of it, the general consensus was "Fuck Art School," and I won't say the comic was an inspiration to me, but Spike definitely has been since, because every time I have to force myself to focus on artistic goals and every time I hear another person say I won't ever make a living doing what I want to do, I can look at her and say She's doing it. But this isn't really a love-letter to Spike thread, it's an art thread. I think it would be neat to be able to discuss artists, our own art, and art business, especially for beginners, and to have a thread to post occasional neat stuff we do, for those of us that aren't as productive as Yasei and jDalton and don't have our own personal thread. Anyone interested?
Templar Connect » Inconsequential Prattle
Art?
(30 posts)-
maecrab
MemberPosted 9 months ago # -
pencilears
Memberalright, I'll bite because I want to see what everyone else has.
y'all know I'm an unskilled furry getting an art degree at an otherwise respectable state college, so, let me show you my better stuff instead of linking to my deviantART account, which has in it several hundred drawings I did on notecards in highschool and my sister's trip to Europe, among other gems.
I made this bowl in ceramics, wheel thrown, cone 10, reduction, glaze called seacrest purple and some black slip on the sides.
another bowl, cone 10, reduction, purple shock over maria's white,
I'm not quite pleased with how the purple came out in this picture, the overlap looks much better in real life.I made quite a lot of bowls in that class, and some mugs, all of the mugs have been given away and only one had a decent handle. my hand-building projects are slug themed or have a terminal case of the ugly, so here is a tree made out of q-tips and hot glue.
Posted 9 months ago # -
Oh wow, Pencil. I love the green/rust bowl. (Grr, you make me wish I spent more than one semester in HS Pottery...)
...for those of us that aren't as productive as Yasei and jDalton...
I'm productive?
Posted 9 months ago # -
maecrab
MemberI'm productive? [8O]
Productive enough to have your own thread
Share and share alike, I suppose...I'm a metal artist. It has been literally years since I have done any of my own work though, so I feel like a bit of a failure. Right now, though, I'm in the process of setting up my first welding shop, and I hope to get back to work this spring. Here is my first real welded steel sculpture, made when I was 15:
Here is my last real welded piece, completed when I was 16 or 17? I can't even remember now. It's named "Uncle Leroy" (sorry the picture's so shitty).
And speaking of high school pottery, I spent for fucking EVER working on the body for this piece in Art I, and slapped the head and neck together in two days just in time to get the fucker fired before a student art show (and it shows, unfortunately). And, of course, because it was my first clay piece that wasn't a pinch pot, the left tit had an air bubble and exploded in the kiln. I had to gorilla-glue it back together, and the fragment pattern led me to the design of the dragonfly on the side.
Posted 9 months ago # -
birdtongue
Memberah, but the mistakes always teach us something. i love the dragonfly on there, it minds me of a tattoo. and your metalwork. the frog just gives me glee-face. those bowls are very well-done as well; the
bluepurple glaze is dreamy. lemme dig up some of my ceramic... also, i wouldn't say i'm prolific, but i just started my own 'art' thread...hokay, not sure where the cds are at the moment, and there are no pics on this computer. however, the flickr account i hardly use has one.
from summer 2004. two bowls and a 'chalice', all raku, all different glazes i thin (and now i'm off to find the notebook. i could be not lazy and just take pictures of everything again, but i just did that with a bunch of necklaces...) i could tell you specifically because i take awesome notes, but i used raku red, dolphin blue, eggshell crackle and pipenburg glazes. the middle had grass thrown on it whilst in the trashcan. ...raku is so flippin' fun. oh, yeah, wheel-thrown. i do not care much for handbuilding stuff, but i really loved being on the wheel, probably because progress was so easy to see as it comes to a screeching halt OHGOD it wasn't centered.i could show you my knitting, but it's not all that impressive to me since i'm mostly following patterns.
Posted 9 months ago # -
pencilears
MemberI'd show you my kntting if I was better than rectangles.
but alas, I am not.
oh man raku was so awesome, I made a couple of bottles just so I could do raku. then gave them away to my friends before taking pictures.
the instructors, Vic and Paul, back at Green River would not let anything that could remotely be used to eat out of be raku'd: so no bowls, no cups, no dishes.
they did like to see masks, this one I made for my world mythology class, before I took ceramics, it was an optional project as a crossover to the ceramics lab. so this is rather old.
during the sculpting process and after firing. glazes were apple crackle and blue crackle applied in blotches, I was not expecting it to go so yellow but it's a nice effect, looking at it now I'm thinking I should've just cut the holes for the eyes. darn.
handbuilding can be fun, but oh I love the wheel, it takes skill and work and it's also so meditative.
I miss Green River's ceramics department. western's ceramics lab is a dusty pit with an emphasis on handbuilding because "it's more creative"
*sigh*
all I want for Christmas is a respirator.Posted 9 months ago # -
birdtongue
Memberhey, you can do a lot with rectangles, as these people will show you! Woolly Thoughts. i borrowed a book of theirs from the library a couple months ago -- more method than pattern (which is entirely their point), but pretty eye-opening.
i understand that the mask is most likely mimicking one present on the cover of a mythology book (Hamilton? Campbell? it looks really familiar, but i can't place it... hmm, maybe my theater text), but i'm definitely getting a Swamp Thing vibe. pretty sweet.
well, my ceramics instructor is both a professional artist and also teaches sculpture, including welding. i'm not sure about liability issues of a community college versus university, but we all had access codes to the lab, so we could go in at literally any time of day. i'd guess he was more of the attitude of initially hammering in the idea that we needed to be safe and teaching us those procedures, but in the end, we were adults and someone was paying him to teach us; plus, he had twins and another on the way, and he had better things to do than reminding us not to poison ourselves, heh. i even raku'd a matched set of bowls themed as a sake set, but i use them for catchalls and such. i think making everything gives you an appreciation for how easy it would be to hurt yourself -- mixing the glazes and clay body exposes you to some pretty noxious stuff, not to mention the physical risks involved throughout the process. the transformation into usable, beautiful objects is consistently amazing.
actually, i remember that the last week of class, he brought in a bunch of donuts, juice and milk, and we all had breakfast together, using cups we'd made on the wheel; that was a really good summer class for a number of reasons. given that it was in an ugly corrugated metal barn/warehouse at the edges of campus/town, *newly built as the main art complex*, sigh, the upside was that we could prop the doors open to the roofed concrete pad -- which is where the salt and raku kilns, and sculptural stuff lived -- and just have fields, trees, sky and birds to look at. definitely needed that breeze, though. i empathize with missing a good ceramics space, obviously.
it may sound absurd, but if you're having breathing issues, just try a soft surgical mask -- it really helps with keeping bad stuff out, but moisture in; also good for when you're feverish and easily dried out. i do not like anything on my face while sleeping, but on my sister's advice, i wore one while i was sick recently, and i stopped noticing it almost immediately. if you feel weird about wearing a mask in public, you could always draw a smile or some other 'mouth' on it:
long post is long.
Posted 9 months ago # -
This is fucking rad do more metal sculpture.
I've been wanting to try metalworking myself, but nobody I know does it and the classes around here are pretty much oriented around car repair. How complicated/expensive a material is it really to get into?
Posted 9 months ago # -
pencilears
Member@birdtounge
ohh cool book, *puts on reserve*
I just got a commission to make knitted scale mail for a friend of mine after he saw this etsy crafter selling hers for 40 bucks or so. so that'll be my next project when the scales he ordered for it come in.regarding the dust hazzard, I dunno, I'm a natural worry-wart sot of person and according to my research into silicosis as a workplace killer, a simple dust mask does not do much, now they were mostly talking to miners but I'm still on edge.
what would make me happy is if the studio at least had a mop station.GRCC had Vic who not only cleaned the place, supervised the mandatory student cleaning hours, but was also the guy who loaded and looked after the kilns for everyone but the advanced students. the lovely effect on the green-brown bowl up above and the reduction-dependent effects on a purple/pink vase I made for my aunt I will attribute to being on his good side, as I can mop like a pro.
the last day of class party was really fun, we got our stuff graded then ate off of it, one kid brought in angel food cake topped with brandy-flavored icing that he had made himself. I miss that class so much, if I can get a job this summer I'll be able to go back for more.
@ivan
I don't think it's that expensive, http://orange85.deviantart.com/ is a friend of mine from highschool and then we went to the same community college, a lot of the tress he's made are mostly bailing wire and other metal he found in the trash by the auto repair classes.I know the art department here has a foundry but I've got some classes to take before I can get in there.
Posted 9 months ago # -
maecrab
MemberHow complicated/expensive a material is it really to get into?
It really depends on what you're wanting to do; at the age of 15 I was taking two classes in metal sculpture a semester at my local community college (Austin Community College has a fucking RAD metal sculpture dept.) and working after school for a professional metal sculptor, so I got a lot of exposure to different techniques. If you don't go in with a decent idea of what you need to do your work, it can be really easy to toss a lot of money away on tools and equipment that isn't necessary, or not necessary at first. And you need different pieces of equipment depending on
A: what kind of metals you plan on working with
B: what kind of scale you plan on working in
C: whether you want to do more welding, forging, casting, etc.
Of course, ideally I want to do all of these, and I think most people should be able to do so, for greater flexibility in their work. Right now, though, here's what I'm facing in getting together my basic set-up for steel welded sculpture:
-$300 for a oxyacetylene torch set-up
-$150 for hoses and regulators
-$300 deposit on oxygen and acetylene gas tank rental
-$70 rental fee per year per tank
-about $70 quarterly for gas refills
note that a basic set-up, including some safety equipment, can run you as little as $120-$150 online, and includes a torch and several sizes of tip (which affects the size and temperature of your torch flame), hoses, and regulators.
Other tools will fall into a few categories:
1. Shaping tools— these include your basic hand tools, like pliers, hammers (of various types and sizes), hand-files, and wire brushes to keep your pieces clean of rust, dirt, and slag while you work
2. Finishing tools— basically, grinders. A small bench grinder or an angle grinder will go from $30-$150, a die grinder (with various tips) will be more like $50 but runs off an air compressor
3. Equipment— in this category, I consider a pipe-vise, an anvil or hunk of metal suitable for wailing on, a steel welding table, or one covered with firebricks, clamps and tongs for handling hot metal, a steel bucket or drum for a quenching bucket, and so on.
4. SAFETY EQUIPMENT— dear god, do NOT skimp on this. Always wear leather gloves. Always wear long sleeves. Always wear ear-plugs when grinding, hammering, or doing anything loud. Always wear natural fibers. Always wear glasses dark enough that you can't see the room around you when welding. Always wear safety glasses when metal is flying. Always keep aloe vera and band aids on hand.A lot of the costs are pretty flexible. Got a steel table lying around? Then you don't have to invest in/build from scratch a welding table (like I did). Got a garage, or a concrete slab of some kind (DON'T work in a small shed or other small enclosed space, if you can help it, unless you're good at rigging up things like ventilation systems)? Great, then you can avoid spending 9 months moving out of your mom's place, getting together trustworthy roommates, and finding a suitable house to rent (like I did), or renting studio space. You can get tools used, if you're flexible in what you want. Metal is relatively cheap. You can start from rusty scrap, or good clean stock; either way, metal is above all else forgiving. Nunna that "hours of labor and then it exploded in the kiln and i don't know why WHY DOES GOD HATE ME" shit.
I'm sorry this post is so long, but believe me, it could be MUCH, MUCH LONGER. And I kinda think "take some classes/read these books" is kinda a cop-out. Although, what worked for me was approaching a metal artist whose work I liked at a street fair and asking for a job. Also, check into your local chapter of ABANA, the Artist Blacksmith's Association of North America. Guaranteed to find you scarred, grizzled old-timers with some good resources for anyone interested; their mailing list is utterly fascinating.
Posted 9 months ago # -
birdtongue
Member@pencilears
WANT. did you see the blue ones?! i now want to make these. i haven't even started beading my knit stuff, and now i want to jump into ren faire goofiness. hmm, looks like she did just knit them straight into the material -- maybe using a crochet hook to slide it onto a stitch, like so...also, if you are not on Ravelry, you should really check it out. i have a ridiculous queue of patterns, but i'm gradually actually making stuff from them. it is a very, very neat site for people who like to work with yarn.
i tended to just not breathe whenever we had to deal with dust (making clay or glazes, generally), then run the hell outside at intervals. low-tech and impractical, but not ineffective. :/ i'm also a bit of a worry-wart, but there's always a point of "what the hell" for me, and the joy of crafting generally brings me to it.
@Ivan
at least on the jewelry scale i've experience with, the important item to remember about joining metal (non safety-wise, anyway) is that you are not melting the flux, but heating the metal around it to the point that the solder flows.i would bet that a good plumbing or auto welding class would still serve you well for the basic concepts and practices; really depends on what metals and methods you'd want to work with. a general welding class still ought to cover the artistic side, and large sculpture obviously would. have you tried asking around metal supply shops? i'm sure they'd be able to recommend something/someone. heck, even bike shops that do repairs or rebuilds would be a good start.
i'd say that, like most crafting hobbies, the biggest expense is in startup -- training, safety equipment and tools. once you know what you're doing, your raw material list and resulting product becomes a lot more flexible. i'm sure my grandfather the plumber (iirc; maybe just welder) /bar-owner /moonshiner would have told you much the same.
Posted 9 months ago # -
birdtongue
Memberawoop, that's what i get for taking hours to write a reply. solid info, maecrab, who cares if it's longish.
Posted 9 months ago # -
Awesome, thanks. Mostly what I was worried about was the consumables, didn't really have an idea how far oxy went and at the rate I go through bits was envisioning things like $70 for a few operating hours. I'm coming at this from more of a scrap/machining perspective, since I've already got a drill press setup and some basic experience in shaping steel, I'm just a little cagey about jumping into a new medium blind after what happened to the plastics (we will not discuss what happened to the plastics). I'll go take the course the local community college offers first so I don't set myself on fire quite so much, but I'm definitely gonna do that now.
Posted 9 months ago # -
maecrab
MemberFYI, though, if it's a more industrial-oriented course, they'll focus a lot more on machine welding—SMAW, MIG, and (if you're lucky) TIG. Oxyfuel welding is mostly just used for cutting in industrial applications, and even so is getting replaced slowly by plasma torches. It's the most flexible type of welding, in my opinion, and therefore the best for art, but you can get a small MIG machine for a decent price, and MIG is SUPER easy. I call it the glue gun of welding. Also, there's no open flame, which is nice though the risk of electrocution is something to be careful of.
Posted 9 months ago # -
Nice stuff Meacrab!
Well, I went to art school and I do art & design for a living. Trust me, I know what it's like to hear you can't make money off art. It's all bullshit. I left behind three years of engineering before I decided to go to art school. If you work hard enough at what you love, the money comes. I love saying I do stuff like this for a living:
[+] Embed the video | Video Download Get the Flash Video [+] Embed the video | Video Download Get the Flash Video Here's some of my art:
http://feeves.deviantart.com/I've always envied you metal people. That medium has such visual flavor.
Posted 9 months ago # -
pencilears
MemberI have an art question, so I suppose I'm better off in here than making a new thread.
I have a mac, I got it for school. I used to have a very old PC and a copy of PScs2 on a cd from a friend of mine from highschool. Old computer is now more dead than dead celebrities.
New beautiful lappy did not come with so much as a paint program (I found one for free online, but it sucks) and I can't get it to talk to my scanner/printer thing that it was sold to me with.
Obviously what I need is a friend who knows more about computers than I do to poke at it in the meatspace but I that is not available. so I'm asking for help here.what do I need to do so that I can get this thing working as an art computer?
and do I want to try the Gimp?Posted 8 months ago # -
birdtongue
Memberyes, Gimp is mindblowing in its options. i'm not that kind of artsy, but i've used it to crop, rotate and convert bmp to jpg from scans, or lighten too-dark photos.
what OS do you have on the laptop?oooh, durr... hrm. been awhile since i've mucked about with Macs, so i don't know any of the whizbang art programs or drivers and such, but if Gimp runs on your system, it might neatly solve all those problems; we installed Windows 7 recently, and it started talking to the scanner with little fuss, via Gimp. (there is a default scan dialog, but it closed after each picture -- not cool.)Posted 8 months ago # -
pencilears
Memberok, I've got gimp up and running, seems to be working fine except it won't register pressure sensitivity.
*head desk* as far as I can tell this seems to be a "known problem" but tablet troubleshooting for a mac with gimp are a bit hard to find.Posted 8 months ago # -
Reinstall the tablet driver, make sure everything's plugged in and recognized before you start up the Gimp, and try again. Probably it doesn't work, but a lot of times what order things happened in determines whether everything gets recognized properly or not. If all else fails, ArtRage is actually made for Macs and is supposed to have pressure sensitivity.
Posted 8 months ago # -
In my experience, OSX's options for free art stuff is limited. What GIMP are you using, the one that runs on X11 or the Aqua integrated Gimp.app? I lasted all of an hour with the X11 one's quirks before I called it quits. My biggest GIMP complaint is that it isn't quite as good as photoshop for art. It's what's on the tin; an image manipulation program.
Seashore (if that isn't the useless one you mentioned earlier) is nice. It's Gimp-powered, aqua-integrated and is a decent mspaint replacement. Like GIMP, it doesn't compare with photoshop for art.
You should know you can get 30 days of CS4 free. If you're an especially devious bastard and partition your hard drive with all your work files and 'permanent' stuff on a secondary logical drive, you can get away with re-imaging whenever you need another 30 days. However, this is a tad tricky to pull off if you aren't already more than familiar with what you're doing, and being a mac newcomer you'd probably want to take some time to get used to the system before up and trying such a drastic workaround.
However, consider this solution; a Windows boot or a Windows virtual machine can run your old photoshop. A Windows boot will run the best, but you need to restart to switch between Windows and OSX. A virtual machine won't perform as well, but runs side-by-side with OSX. Both need a
validworking Windows key.If you want a Windows boot, BootCamp can tell you exactly how to do it. If you wanna try a virtual machine, there are plenty of places on the Internet to turn to, and I can offer my experience if you'd want. I personally recommend Virtual Box, an open source VM software put out by Sun.
The main caveat of a virtual machine is that it has to share resources too, and I wouldn't suggest it on a MacBook that isn't Pro or any machine with less than a gig of RAM. Even on a good machine you won't get top performance, but if you gear it right and just run PSCS2 it could be a solution, at least for the time being. The great bit about a virtual machine is it's the least drastic way to run your old Windows software, so if you want to try one, I'd say give it a try.
Posted 8 months ago # -
pencilears
Member@ivan
ok I tried that, no effect. Art Rage looks pretty great for what I need but it is more than free. so I'll just bookmark that as another possible option.@sprak
yeah it's a pro with snow leopard, and shiny spanking new, so, I think I can do the partition and running windows thing.
I'll ask around for an XP install disc, I've got a friend at another school who works for his family's PC repair business, he might have one I can use, he's just a bit hard to get a hold of right now.
I don't mind sticking with my old ps2, it's done ok for me so far.Thanks everybody =D
Posted 8 months ago # -
of CS4 free. If you're an especially devious bastard and partition your hard drive with all your work files and 'permanent' stuff on a secondary logical drive, you can get away with re-imaging whenever you need another 30 days. However, this is a tad tricky to pull off if you aren't already more than familiar with what you're doing, and being a mac newcomer you'd probably want to take some time to get used to the system before up and trying such a drastic workaround.
Oh my god do people actually do this
There's this thing called bittorrent, you might have heard of it, you don't have to dick around with partitions and registries and reinstalling everything constantly if you want to pirate software in 2010.
Pencilears: I've installed the same copy of Windows on multiple machines a few times and never had any trouble, their copy protection is pretty weak. You can probably just borrow the backup CD from anyone who owns a PC, which is probably pretty much everyone you know. Worst-case it sticks you in a trial mode and you've got a few weeks to get a unique key.
Posted 8 months ago # -
Oh my god do people actually do this
A lot of people already reimage regularly, especially corporate user. Reimaging, as opposed to reinstalling, will actually leave the computer with every application that was installed when the image was taken, and when done right can keep a computer running more smoothly. Plus, Macs have no registry to worry about.
As for the trial thing, the big advantage is that it's legal.
Posted 8 months ago # -
maecrab
MemberWell, that got dramatic quickly!
(Note: this post is gonna be a loooong one)
It seems to me like one of the most important things about DIY-ing yourself an art education is learning from other artists, especially those with established careers. This includes anything from one-off courses taught by local artists, to attending gallery openings, to apprenticing yourself (an option I realize is not always available, and unheard of in certain fields). A few years back I had an e-mail correspondence with an artist named Acataphasia Grey, who makes sculptures of taxidermied animals, asking for advice. If you have an artist you admire, you might consider doing the same; in my experience, artists can be pretty forthcoming with tips for young artists.
a tidbit from the first e-mail: "I use Craigslist a lot to give away stuff to other creative types, I wish more folks would think to let someone come take something before just throwing it away."
I'm guilty of packratting EVERYTHING because 'I can use it in something! someday...' Giving stuff away seems like a good way of not throwing stuff out, and also attracting some good karma for when you need something later.
What she has to say about art school in her FAQ, which prompted me to ask for dvice in the first place: "OK. I’m gonna say some bad things about the UW Seattle. Ahem. I have a 5 year degree in large scale public art, a BFA, from the UW…and I wish I never would have gone. Really! I could have taken that money and invited working artists to dinner and parties to pick their brains about art speak, and working with galleries, and framing, and anything at all I was interested in. Instead, I had to learn How Not To Walk Out Of A Crit, Why Rocks Are Better Than Bronze Dolphins, and We (Heart) Chihuli!! I was so violently shy I wouldn’t go to open studios. The best thing there is Norm in metal arts, he is a complete doll, maybe if I had taken ceramics and gotten Jaimie I would have felt better about it all, but really, seriously folks—college is not what it used to be. Go to a technical school, like Pratt, and learn useful skills. Don’t go to How To Be An Artist Schools. Oh, and art school doesn’t like you to decorate horses, sew skin over things and frame dead cats. It wants you to hot-glue barbie heads to a chair and paint them gold and say it is having a dialogue about AIDS with the toaster that is hidden in a box around the corner."
The fist advice she sent me, personally: "Everything you need to know, you can learn by taking a working artist out to dinner a few times and have them tell you. I can guarantee it will be cheaper! Also, work at a gallery, unpaid is fine, and try to get onto a commitee to judge public art in some way, like a jury to select entrants to a public art fundraiser. Travel a bunch, then spend money on signing up to a community college that has the facilities you need (forge? Welders? Kilns? Winch?), and keep membership active so you can use the good stuff."
pt. 2: "If you can, take ANY classes available in practical arts. Do NOT fret at the bit about how much you already know: just suck up the wisdom of everyone you can. Especially these areas: ceramics, welding, forging, casting. Then, TRAVEL. Europe is tiny, you can practically bike across it -- TRAVEL! I'm not kidding, you can do it, just about anyone can. You don't need a safe and easy package trip, with planned days and nights. Just go. Trust me. Also learn from anyone who shows at galleries or deals with committees. Stifle all your instincts and just learn from them as hard as you can. Doesn't matter if they seem inept -- they are showing and you are not -- they can teach you something. All this is free -- college is not. Buy people dinner or coffee, that's cheap for learning too. DON'T talk about you unless they want to help you advance yourself, and then cautiously. Learn! It's free!
If you have relatives who will pay for school, tell them you need to travel first. Then do it right away. Paris is good, also places in the US, just go. Get any job if you have to and save $1K, you can go to europe on that for 2 weeks. Talk to people and tell them you want to travel, they will give you resources, really they will."
pt. 3: "On travel: why do I harp on it? Because it will give you perspective. You don't know what you have to choose from if you don't know the choices. You will lose fear the more you travel, and fear is our enemy. You will have it, even if you don't know about it, and travel kills it. Honestly. Try it and see. Language is no barrier at all. Think about a sweet ernest person coming up to you and asking you something in gestures and pantomime. Would you be mean to them or happy to figure out this mystery and help them? Never lose your temper, never be rude no matter HOW rude you think someone is being to you, always be meek to strangers at first, don't be afraid to appear as helpless as you are right then -- it will work. If it doesn't that time, YOU weren't at fault, you keep the moral high ground. Don't do anything you will beat yourself up for later! You will almost always not know why something looks like it does, so always try and go for the best possible outcome and it will almost always be the case. I'm not kidding. I can tell you story after story, including ones of friends who pointed and were rude and angry and things went bad for them, and I made apology faces and MY stuff was just perfect.
If anyone offers to help you, let them. It's a lie if anyone says people offer to help and don't mean it, and you are expected to say 'no'. Everyone wants to be proud of a success. BE a success, and make the people that helped you proud! It's what they want in return! Just reporting progress is good enough, too. If someone offers you gloves for your trip to eastern Europe, take them, thank them, don't forget to email them and say how warm your hands are. You will probably get a scarf mailed to you. Or money to buy one, or more gloves, or a train ticket.
Tell total strangers what you want. They will try and help. Family often says what can go wrong, but total strangers often try and help in any way they can think of. Try it. Tell a lady waiting for the bus, if you get into a talk, that you want to go to Norway. She probably knows someone in Norway and will give you their phone number there. I mean, tell them the truth about a goal, not a made-up one, I think people can tell!"
pt. 4, re: talking to artists at openings etc.: "OK. How to ask or talk to a big personage. Tough one. Harder than you imagine, easier than you think. Here we go. You need 2 things: timing and courage. Courage cannot be learned, timing can. To find the courage, know this: most people admire courage. They can tell when you are being brave when you want to run away, and will be flattered that you think they are intimidating. For heaven's sake don't even THINK about the flattery, they can tell if you do! Just remember: you seek wisdom, you know they have it, you will listen to them. Don't get all second-guessey here. Just keep honest. Keep sincere. Trust me, no matter what you do, dishonesty and honesty both are transparent to others. Don't be false, don't even think of trying it. It won't work, you will hate yourself, you will build weird false hope that you can do it, and it won't fly anyway. Just eradicate any notion of it from you now, it's not your friend.
Timing. Every person has an ebb and flow when they talk to people. Work out what you want to know in advance. Do you have a question or two? Or do you want a chance to really talk with them? If a question or 2, when you are introduced, do NOT waste time telling them how much you like them. Bad: "Hello, Mister Chauncy? I loved your work on the peoples of possible Mars! I'm a huge fan! I watched you since I was 12! Hhahahahha! My mother says you are crazy, isn't that funny?!" Good:"Mr Chauncy, I read that you found a rare plant in Australia that can be used against snakebite. Is that ANY snakebite or just Australian ones? Can they be used for any North American snakes?" See? Don't waste time with what everyone says. They said it, you need to get to the point right away. DON"T waste their time. Be polite, don't skip protocol, but be polite. To this end, learn what polite means! Ask older people, make them fake introduce you to people, they will enjoy lecturing you, and you just suck up that know-how like the sponge I know you are. NEVER get impatient. Long rambling usually produce gems of some sort. IF you pay attention.
If you want a longer talk, say it. Don't hedge, people hate hedging. Just say, hey, can I take up some of your time later? Here's my email address on a card, tell me when you can and I'll do it. You know stuff I need to know, can I pick your brain? I would love to. Please.
pt. 5: "How to be noticed enough to actually interact meaningfully with the slightly older set. Yup. Always a problem. We lack the confinence to show ourselves worthy, and own the intelligence to understand that we are not being given the chance. Couple that with KNOWING the right or clever or helpful thing to say at JUST the right moment, yet not being able to bring self to doso. Nasty, smarting territory!
OK: Be there, be smart, be helpful. Show up early to events like gallery openings. If you see people in a dither, offer to do something practical. NO: "can I help?" YES: "Let me get you a hammer. Here it is. What are you looking for? What colour is it? Should someone run and get that? I'm free to." NEVER say 'can I help?', it isn't any use. Watch closely what people are doing, and just step in where a hand is needed, think of it like a dance: step in wherever there isn't a partner.
If nothing else, be there at opening, wherever it is, and get a good table. Spread stuff around, don't let anyone sit there, and when the people you need to speak with come in, be ready to offer seating. It will not work every time. Once is all you need.
Don't drink too much, look after drunk people. The day after, never tell them how drunk they were, just, if they say something, tell them they were so cute (or funny, or human, or intense, or anything you think of, but do NOT make them feel bad. They will know you are being nice and will be very grateful for your tact, and will be quite aware of their drunkenness without having it be rubbed in).
Once you are known as being reliable and tactful and not nasty, you will gain credibility by the back door. It doesn't hurt to have lots of useful things with you at all times. Off the top of my head: SAFETY PINS! Needle and thread, cough drop, clean tissues, mirror, cheap fans you can give away, breath mints, taxi numbers, hair bungees -- the best coup I ever made was when this absolute cool girl 7 yrs my senior went on about how she braided the bones of a black cat's tail into her hair every morning. I asked why she didn't any more and she loftily said she had lost them. I pulled the dried tail of a black cat from my purse (I am so not making this up, I found it that morning and scooped it up) and gave it to her, and after she got over the shock and maintained her dignity and I didn't rub it in, she's been my dear friend for over 15 years now.
In fact, just carry crazy crap in your purse. You never know. Also, people get bored. It starts conversation if nothing else."
pt. 6, advice after I e-mailed her in a dither after simultaneously graduating high school and losing my job (also my access to studio space/equipment at said job) and being at total loose ends: "Run straight to the nearest few temp agencies and ask them what they have for you. You get paid every week, you do something different all the time, and you get money to pay bills while you breathe and figure out the next move. Say yes to banquet work -- you get tons of opportunities to take home free food! Bring big ziplock bags to work with you. If you don't hate the sound of it and it pays anything even OK, do it. You just never know what will happen. Also, I got two good perm jobs from temp: Nordstrom, and Regence BlueShield. 1 day jobs can be fun, and it's all money you don't get sitting at home trying to decide what to do first.
If they all turn up their noses at you for being young, pick a store you like that is hiring and just sign right up. Even at food joints, they usually feed you, and most places get a discount. So sign up to an art supply place, or a clothing store you want stuff from.
They have a high turnover so they don't expect you to stay forever."The last recommendation she gave me was to buy a book calledTaking the Leap: Building a Career as a Visual Artist (amazon link). Excellent book. It's tailored to the needs of an artist doing standard fine-art type stuff; showing in galleries in particular, which I realize more and more visual artists are drifting away from, as the 'net offers so many possibilities. But definitely useful for people like me, since I have yet to figure out a way for metal sculpture to translate to online content in any meaningful way.
Anywho, if anyone actually read this all the way through, discuss!?Posted 8 months ago # -
maecrab
MemberOh shit, I just realized Mondays with Tuesday totally exists, you guys. I feel ashamed for starting this thread, and in the wrong forum. Anyone know how to change its location?
Posted 8 months ago # -
pencilears
Membernahh, keep it here, it's not like this thread going to get lost in all the discussions in the main forum. may as well keep it easy to find.
@Ivan
yeah no worries, it's just going to take me longer than I anticipated.
I gotta focus like a locus on my school stuff anyway so I suppose being prevented from doing drawings on the computer for a bit isn't going to hurt.speaking of that, it looks like I've got one studio art class this quarter (two art history, one geography figure I'll get a second minor in geography take some GIS classes and have something hire-able out of this education) and we're going to learn how to do basic color and design.
which I am looking forward to. because I've never had basic design and color in any sort of formal context and I've felt like I've been cribbing bits of my art education off the internet.
not that that hasn't been helpful.I read all of that art advice, lot of it sounded good, not sure if I'd be any good at traveling the world.
Posted 8 months ago # -
maecrab
MemberOkay, this place has been dead'r 'en Heaven on a Saturday night lately, so I'm gonna POST THE SHIT OUTTA this forum tonight, you guys. Just watch me.
Ahem: my biggest problem has been getting equipment and a space to work in, as far as metal sculpture goes. I've had a lot of frustration in that department. It's been going on four years since I had the facilities to work on my own sculptures (up until a little over a year ago I was working in a production shop, so I was at least learning...), which is pretty incredibly depressing. I like doing other things sometimes, to try to fill that gap; I'm terrible at drawing and painting, but I've always liked crafty things, so here's a few of those:
A poster I made about 4 months ago
A pretty badly-made papier mache squid
A work-in-progress fish-man, also papier mache
A necklace I gave my roommate last week for her birthdayAnyone been productive recently?
Posted 7 months ago # -
pencilears
Memberwere we talking about knitting here?
well we are now
I'm midway through making a knitted scalemail gauntlet set for my friend
here's my progress so far
front side
back side
like the woolly wristlets I made for my sister, only MANLY and TOUGH,
Posted 2 months ago # -
Knitted scalemail... That's just... wow, I have no word.
Posted 2 months ago # -
pencilears
Memberyeah, me neither, I have no idea where he's intending on wearing these and whether or not the scales will eventually cut the yarn.
he found this girl on etsy http://www.etsy.com/listing/48226646/griffin-dragonhide-gauntlets
and asked me to try and replicate her with the scales he already had.Posted 2 months ago #
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