Please Excuse my Dubiosity

I posted a couple months ago about a Vanity Press trying to sucker artists into buying their way into a book that featured over 200 other artists. That one you paid a small fee to be included. That one pales in comparison to this new one I found in my email.

This new one you pay hundreds and even possibly thousands of EUROS to be included. O.o

I got this email about a week and a half ago and I thought I'd share portions of it with you.

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Call for entries

"Featured Artists" Art book

Collectible global art book
Estimated Release Date: November 2009
Hardcover 200+ pages
DIMENSIONS: 21x21 cm - 8.2X8.2 in
Inclusions by selection only

Modern Art Community and Mediaplan publishing invite you to participate in a collectible book of art.
Featured Artists is a daring attempt to feature several contemporary artists in an overview, a book which will be a resource for galleries, museums, artists, art collectors and dealers who constantly seek for new talents and trends in the art community. Featured artists is an art book which is also a source of information, including many artists profiles, and new trends that appear in the art world nowadays.

Having an Artist Profile published in “Featured Artists” art book is absolutely necessary and essential for an artist and also a tool that can elevate your career much higher.

Please note that this is not a free inclusion.

More info: www.modernartcom.com

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I took out the names at the bottom as to not annoy anyone directly, but if you go to the website and check out the info on this I'm sure you'll be as shocked and/or weirded out as I am. I'm left wondering how in the world they think *anyone* would be willing to participate in this and shell out that much money.

I also love how they say that "Having an Artist Profile published in “Featured Artists” art book is absolutely necessary and essential for an artist and also a tool that can elevate your career much higher." All of those desperate artists trying to make a name for themselves seeing that and being convinced of it. Hey, I'm poor and not famous, but I am *not* desperate enough to shell out to pay for a Vanity Press book that I am seriously dubious about helping my career in any way. If you want a longer explanation about why those are a bad idea read my first post about the Vanity Publishing. It's called 'An Opportunity for Vanity' and you'll find it in the archives.

So how much would I be, in fact, paying the publishers for the honor of having them include me in their "absolutely necessary and essential" book? Strait off of their website:


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"If the artist is selected an editorial fee is requested to cover editorial and production expenses. The current editorial fee starts at 490 euros (or the equivalent currency) for one page and 890 euros for two pages presentation in the book.

For more than one page, the artists gets another page free of charge. For additional pages every other page costs 350 euros. (example: an artist wishes to participate in Featured Artists with 3 pages. The cost will be 890+350=1240 euros and have an extra page free of charge)."

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Holy Crap. That's not even taking in account how that converts to US $. Not only does that second paragraph make no sense when following the first but that amount is astronomical.

Not that desperate, and also not that stupid to think that this would help me in any way. Pretty sure I could use that amount of money to help me in much better ways. Like using it to send samples and applications to galleries in large cities. Or basic advertising in various places, plus getting work copyrighted, scanned, or even getting into the print market. Or buying materials to make even more art. Or pay the rent and eat.


These ones, however, do claim to sell the book through larger retailers, but answer me this: If a gallery owner knows (and you can count on them knowing all about these books) that you've paid your way into a Vanity Press art book (instead of proving you have talent through being asked to be featured in something for free because you're awesome) will they still respect you and your work in the morning? I certainly wouldn't. To me all I would see from that is that you are either very naive and desperate for some form of imagined reputation, or that you have very little talent and can't make it in legit circumstances where you can't buy your way in.

Portrait

I would like to announce that I have completed my first real portrait. I am very pleased with how it turned out & so is the client (who is one of my closest & dearest friends). The subject is apathetic as he's 2yrs old and would rather play with cell phones then look at fractured art. I'm also guessing the fractures may confuse his eyes as to what he's actually seeing. I originally made it as a gift but then she said to keep it. This was before she saw it when it was almost complete. She said she almost cried because of how beautiful it was and of course now she wants it. I think that she will appreciate it much more than a random art collector buying it and not knowing anything about the subject and the dynamics involved. But, there will be prints available this week.

What do you think?



Oh, and if anyone is in the market for having a real portrait done for themselves or a loved one (in my style) let me know and we'll work something out.

To See the Unseen

Part of the concept behind my work and the styles and techniques I use is to help people see in different ways. This usually comes across through the fractures & collaging. Each separate piece being how someone else sees the same world you are seeing. Or not seeing - it all depends on how you mentally and physically view the world sometimes. I have also been exploring colorblindness because you can actually show people with normal vision how a colorblind person sees by removing certain colors from the spectrum used in the piece. There's a whole lot of science behind this but I won't rattle on about that since that's not what this post is about.

I want to explore Ultra Violet in my art. I want to show Infrared also. These are things that we can't see with our eyes but it is possible to give you an idea of what is there through science! There are cameras that will take a picture in grey-scale and than will show you the UV areas in bright white. It's obviously not going to show you the real coloring of that area, well, because we are not physically capable of seeing it. Birds and bees can and it's one of the ways they navigate their world. Flowers have all sorts of coloring and patterns we don't see and birds... Well birds are more beautiful and more amazing than we can ever truly comprehend.

Being able to capture infrared would be extremely interesting when it comes to architecture, people, and anything else that holds heat or produces it.

There's a camera I'd love to get to help me out with this, but it costs a few thousand dollars. I'm not quite ready to spend that much yet, although if anyone has any connections/money/leads on grants that may help me get there shoot me an email.

Recently there was an article on the BBC about an exhibit that explored this and more. Pretty fantastic.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8188070.stm

Local Venue for my Art

I have some great news that I thought I should share with everyone.

I now have my work available at the Framed! shop in Meridian off of Fairview. They do custom framing, photo restoration, and have a wide selection of art from local artisans. I was approached by the owner, Paula, a month or so ago when she asked if I would be interested in putting some of my stuff in her shop on consignment. I went and checked it out a couple weeks ago and loved the look of the place and just last week took my work in. Here's the address:

Framed!
1722 E. Fairview
Meridian, ID

It's right there in with Fred Myers by its western entrance.

I have a few pieces there on consignment and those will get changed out every few months or as soon as the work sells. It's a really good deal as the split goes 30% - 70% with me receiving the later amount from the sale. A lot of places want up to 50% of the sale price and that's asking way too much unless they are doing a lot of work getting your stuff sold. So I'm quite pleased with how this is working out.

Currently there are 4 pieces there. All reproductions. A full sized Velvet Giclee MultiBlue, larger prints of Objectivity & Keukenhof, and a medium print of Breadth of Vision.


In the future I'd like to score more places to have my work on consignment, but everyone's got to start somewhere. I'm also in discussion with Dan Looney, a local Idaho artist, about showing my stuff in his gallery. Word is the consignment fee for that would be 25% which is phenomenal!

I'll keep you posted on how that turns out.

Little Jewel (the grasshopper) Prints Available

I've sent in an order for Little Jewel prints so they should be available down at the market by this Saturday. They might even be available on Thursday, if shipping is early morning, for the First Thursday thing on the grove. I should be joining the artists of the Gypsy Gallery down there displaying and selling work.



The scan of the piece looks really good so I hope the prints look as great.