Lessons In Time (Everything Must Change)

When I was a little boy, my room, to the naked eye, looked pretty much like any 11 year old's with the sport's posters on the wall and the baseball glove and souvenir hockey pucks on the dresser and night tables. Yet, hidden way under the bed, in the closets and anywhere I could find, were the pieces no one was able to see.

I had entire cities made of cardboard boxes stowed there for my action figures. My closet was painted (as well as an eleven year old can) with Egyptian hieroglyphs on the walls and my dresser drawers were filled with all the little extras my imagination created to aid the hours of solitude and play time.

And, no matter how much I had already created in this way, there was a to-do list somewhere with another three dozen ideas. . .

This is pretty much how I am today with my Etsy shops.

I have a foundation of things in each shop that I make and remake as they sell. They are the things "on the dresser" so to speak, there for everyone to see. . . but I always have another three dozen and more in some form of process going at any one time.  Seriously. . . all. . . the. . . time. . .  lol

This is both the good and bad of my creative soul.  In one way, it allows me to constantly keep moving forward even when I am making that miniature stone chapel for the umpteenth time, which is the good. I never quite feel like I am in a rut.

On the down side, I can guarantee you I should be spending time making multiples of the things that, come the holiday season, I will wish I had made many of in advance. Because I know they will be selling but I would rather take that extra time and work on something new or undeveloped.

The thing is, my creative "success" has been directly related to a return to those childhood habits and imaginings. Much of what I create today is based on that 11 year old boys fascinations and interests in mysteries and unknowns. So, the change we experience in life is also, as I have found, cyclical.  

Everything must change or it stagnates. In my world I can feel stagnation, when it creeps in, like I can feel the slow movement of the hands of a clock. . . it can somehow be upon you without any notice.

So, take five minutes, if that's what you can spare, and just start on a new idea. Or find something inside from your childhood. Tuck it away and keep at it when you can. . . but consider doing it because, if nothing else, it's a movement forward.

It's a nod to the law of change.
It's a step towards a circle completed '=
And it will keep you ahead of the sands of time. . .if only by a grain or two.

*No tidying. . . this is just how I started the day. . . projects everywhere . . . LOTS of motion just like when I was 11. lol*

Thanx for reading!!

nicolas

This was inspired by an excellent post by Sarah on the AGTeam blog which you can read here:
Time's Catching Up: Making Big Changes

And another view:
donauluft

Sharing the Wealth

The idea of sharing what one does creatively is extremely unnerving to some and even crippling to others. Sharing our work, our art, is a very intimate and revealing experience. The number of people I have known who were amazingly talented creatives who didn't feel comfortable sharing their paintings, drawings, poems and songs is in the hundreds. Even people I knew for years. . . suddenly one day I find out they are oil painters or poets with so much beauty hidden away in under the seams of their ordinary lives.

Of course, once we make the decision to share and to offer it up to the universe, there is a whole new set of concerns. It seems, with the advent of e-commerce, the problematic issue of "copying" has hit an epidemic proportion. And I am not so sure it is an epidemic in terms of the reality of it as much as the perceptions many people hold as to what copying is.

Back in the days of craft shows and art festivals, which I did many of with friends who were not as comfortable in the public eye talking up their work as I was, I heard this line all the time:

"Oh, I could make that!"

And I bet that those words are now uttered tens of thousands of times a day in the privacy of browsing from our e-homes. Everything is more visible. More accessible.

Even in those days it was infuriating to some to think that people would come to these fairs, look through their work and then go home and try to copy what they had seen.

It never bothered me. Of course, it wasn't MY work they were going to try and copy but, if my years and wealth of human experience in the service and coffeehouse industries have taught me nothing else. There are two types of people, those who talk about what they are going to do and those who actually do what they say they are going to do. The latter is definitely the minority.

I believe in sharing what I do and yes, I am trying to carve out a living doing it, but that has only served to make me less concerned about the copiers. Most of whom have no idea how, or no intention of, making a living with their art (or mine).

I believe in sharing my creations because I know deep down that I have brought incredibly original work into this world that is very hard to replicate. Even if the techniques are there, the materials and the desire, without the SOUL that went into it there is no way they will succeed.

And, if someone wants to try, I am truly not bothered by it. That said I will flip out if I see someone copying another artist I admire or know personally. Go figure! Just as I have sent my share of "Have you seen this?" emails to sellers who have had their work "borrowed" I would expect that I would receive the same in return.

I am at a loss often to understand what some people think is copying. With my work, I feel that I cannot copyright French country buildings or surreal landscapes or Egyptian statues or Fairy houses or even the shape, color and composition of these things individually.

I believe the true originality is in the whole package. The story I create with many of them. The presentation and the style that evolves over hundreds of attempts, successes and failures.

My shops have developed, I feel, a style reflective of my soul.
No one, in my opinion, can touch that.

And if someone tries to copy THAT, oh I will definitely be in touch with them.  
But not over a pattern or a color scheme or a title or a tag or a theme.
I didn't invent any of that. It was already out there.
As are 99.9% of the things we deem to be a part of our own art.

It's what we create with it, from within, that gives it uniqueness.

And isn't it better to put the time and focus into making what we do better?
Growing it beyond a pattern or a technique?

I, personally, would rather spend my hours sharing that with the world. . .  freely. . .  and hopefully having it touch and inspire others inside as well.

Thanks for reading. . .

nicolas


Another view on Sharing by fellow etsian artist Viktoria can be found here:
http://artisansgalleryteam.blogspot.com/2012/02/to-share-or-not-to-share.html

It's All About a Mood - Working With A Model

I think, as a "builder" of visual art who wants to convey meaning and emotion in my images I have discovered that the most important aspect of creating what I see in my mind successfully is to be sure
the subject I place in the image is tuned in to the same idea.

I began shooting models to incorporate into my work 5 years ago.  It has taught me so much about how to successfully create the work I envision. And how to "listen" visually to the expression of another and to let ideas come from that perspective instead of just my own.

Now, let me reveal this about my imagery that you may not know. If you see an image of mine that includes the human form, I almost always shoot raw images of the model in the most mundane of settings; a living room, a plain backdrop, a simple floor. I choose to create my images from heavy editing and compiling of several/many photos and not from setting up a complete scene to shoot as one image.

In starting down this road I quickly realized how important the mood and presence of the model is going to be to what I do. What they project in their posture, eyes and body language is what the camera picks up.  And that I cannot edit that away so easily.

This is true of all photography using models and, I believe, as much if not more so in the context of product photography. It's not enough to have a "stand in" hold your product and pose. It has to be the right person, with the right energy, because no matter the product you will usually find that they dominate the frame. This is great if they are really present and alive in the frame and, no matter the work of art they are modeling, terrible if they are not.

So it is important to have a model who is comfortable and who is able to be very natural with the product or in the setting you've place them in.  I am not a big fan of the blank, supermodel, indifferent, detached look. I find mannequins far more interesting to view actually. I WANT the human component in every one I shoot to come alive and help create the image. To guide my imagination into the visual experience.

Over time I have moved away from having a slate of concrete ideas when I photograph someone and, instead, it's important to me to learn about them, how they view life and themselves and who they truly are so that I can transform the images into ideas based on what they have revealed as well as what I see in them as the observer.

Sometimes I go back to work I shot three or four years ago and suddenly see something in the raw image that I did not before. Then the idea is born and I get to creating it.

Below is an example that I wanted to share of how I go from raw to finished work.

I shot these images of Corrie back in 2008. She drove from Boise ID to Portland to work with me. We had several long conversations and many email exchanges before the day we spent shooting. We settled upon this idea together of  "The Dollhouse" which is a series about how people are often treated as the new toy in someones life and then, over time, as interest is lost and new toys come into play, discarded.

The fact that Corrie is double jointed allowed for some of the most wonderful and surreal poses to come through. Below is the title page for the series with the original photo of Corrie and then the constructed image as completed.

The bookcase in the finished images is actually a little toy wooden one I bought at goodwill for 3 dollars. It is only 6 inches high but the drawers pull out and I filled it with the items shown one by one from photos I took along the way.

What is never lost throughout this series is that Corrie pulled the doll "look" off to perfection.  Not easy to do when you think about it. Not quite blank but wide eyed and singularly emotive. Perfect in the lack of a "self". The images get disturbing as the series goes on, using her double-jointedness to cram her figure (in editing that is) into the wardrobe side and into drawers and, finally, bent in half head and feet almost touching BEHIND the dresser. . . staring up with the same blank look.

This is the ONLY person I have worked with who could have pulled this off. I listened to what her story was. Her input was crucial to making this truly work.

For products OR images, finding the right model to show off your idea or your handmade dresses, jewelry or tote bags is just as important. Especially for online shopping where the visual image and description are the ONLY interaction people have with your product. Remember that your product has a mood. Everything does. . . so think about what you want to convey, what style, what age group is it for, is it casual or formal, serious or quirky, is it an outdoor or indoor product, etc etc and, in all of that, find the person who best fits those qualities and let them shine!

nicolas

And here is another set of wonderful posts you can check out on working with a model from the product photography world:

http://artisansgalleryteam.blogspot.com/2012/02/working-with-model.html

http://tuckooandmoocow.blogspot.com/2012/02/using-model.html

http://feyzadem.blogspot.com/2012/02/working-with-models.html

http://3divasstudio.blogspot.com/2012/02/dahling-ill-make-you-star.html