Archive for September, 2007
Feeling uninspired? Think your work is shit? Want someone to tell you how great you are? Fear not, young artist. Let a Hot Intern (or any number of other folks) stroke your ego for a few minutes between brilliant projects.
The sign-up process was relatively painless. They included humor in the process as well, which is always good, incorporating positive words into the annoying anti-bot detection requirement, as well as making the button read “I’M A HUMAN”.
For the actual uploading of images, Animoto supports uploading from your local machine, or accessing some of the popular photo sharing sites online including Flickr, Facebook, Smugmug, Photobucket and Picassa. I chose to grab some images from my Flickr site. After giving Animoto permission to access my Flickr account, I chose an album. This process from within Animoto was less than perfect because, for a 30 second clip, one is limited to around 15 photos. Animoto does not display photo counts for the albums in Flickr, at least. I had to login to Flickr to check album sizes. A minor annoyance. The next step is to choose music. You have an opportunity to upload music from your machine (with a warning that it had better be legit), or choose from selections offered on Animoto. I tried to upload from my machine, but the Animoto service did not seem to have this feature completely bug-free yet, so I had to go with their selections, which included three genres: Indy, electronic or hip-hop. It seemed all of the selections in each category were lame, so I went with what looked to be the least lame. There was no way for me to tell, as the “play” button intended to preview the music before selection did not work. Okay, so I have the photos loaded, the music selected. Lastly, I need to tell it to create the video. I do this and wait a short amount of time before I receive an email letting me know that the vid is ready for online viewing. It seems to be a fun little tool, but not very useful in the end because of the lack of control the end user has as to which images are displayed in which way. I think the display order is based upon the way the photos are ordered in the album, but I think it’s more of a throwaway “Oh, neat” thing than anything. We’ll see how it goes, as with all 2.0 startups. View the video below. Update: The embedding feature seems to spit out bad code, so you’ll have to follow the link to view the vid they made for me. View the vid for reals.
Cool. The folks over at Big Sky Documentary Film Festival got ahold of me earlier this summer to ask if it was cool if they used a photo I took (left) for their 2008 promo materials. I just noticed that they’re using it on their site, too. I get no cash for it, but I love that they’re using it. Go have a look at the original, uncropped photo. Seems like some of my other photos are getting some notice as well. The folks over at Schmap sent me a message saying that two of my photos have been shortlisted for inclusion in the Minneapolis shmapplet. From the Schmap site: Schmap is a leading publisher of digital travel guides for 200 destinations throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The innovative technology behind Schmap Guides is also used by clients, partners and bloggers to power schmapplets – a range of fully customizable map mashups and map widgets. Founded in 2004, Schmap is privately owned and based in Carrboro, North Carolina. Interesting concept, eh? The two photos are below.
Gluek opened in 1934 and is the oldest bar in Minneapolis.
Beautiful animated documentary of a creative spirit.
The opening last month of Old Favorites New Loves was a lot of fun. It got me a phone call from another venue in town that’s interested in me displaying my work in their space. They wanted me to come up with the cash for marketing and refreshments in a week. Near impossible. I may show there in the future. Instead, this month I’ll be in may favorite alley, the best gallery in town. Drop in as you’re out and about taking in the art during First Friday Art Walk and Gallery Night in Missoula. I hope to be set up somewhere around 5.30PM, and I’ll be there until around 8.30. Drop in, bring your friends, bring your family BRING YOUR CHECKBOOKS (everything’s cheaper in the alley — no overhead!) The alley is on Broadway, just West of Higgins, directly across from FedEx Kinko’s and between Allegra Printing and Office City. Looking forward to seeing you there.
As an unknown artist, I’ve tried to utilize a number of the free online tools available to me to get my name out there. Plenty of pay-per-use services are also available, but here I’ll highlight the free services with which I’ve had experience.
Have others of you had similar or different experiences with any of the above sites? Can you warn us against sites not listed here? Can you recommend sites not listed here? Give reasons, rants and raves in the comments.
Lucas stopped by the other night and told me about an article in Missoula.com Magazine that dubbed Missoula “The Paris of the West”. The article featured several well known visual artists and writers and profiled their lives and their art. Did the feature tell the whole story? The writing was good, as was the story. The photographs were incredible, featuring, for example, Missoula writer Jeff Hull sitting at The Oxford Bar. The Ox is the oldest bar in Missoula, though it was not always known as The Oxford. It pre-dates prohibition, and has since become a pretty seedy place. It’s open 24 hours, and after 2AM, it is a haven for drunks looking for a cup of coffee and some sustenance to sober them up enough to drive home. Meanwhile, regulars sit and play cards for money up in front. It’s a dirty bar that welcomes all sorts of riff-raff, and I’ve spent more than one early morning there. But. The writer does not seem like the type to frequent a place like this. Yet the photo implies that it is his stomping grounds. Maybe it is, I don’t know him. But I’ve never seen him in there, and the photo is pretty glitzy. Seems pretty staged to me. Regardless. Missoula, the Paris of the West? Condos have been popping up relentlessly here in town. Last year, I attended an open house at one of the condos that opened near Le Petit Outre. It’s a beautiful space, office buildings on the first floor with contemporarily designed two bedroom condos above. Apparently I looked like a potential buyer, as the realtor mentioned that “this neighborhood is full of artists, and is close to downtown. It’s a great location.” It is a great location, close to downtown, and, like he said, is a neighborhood full of artists. I looked at him and said, “The things you say are true. Don’t you think that by building a $350,000 per unit set of condos that you are pricing the artists right out of this neighborhood?” He had no response for me. Last year, I was lucky enough to have been able to pay my rent four months running by selling artwork. This year, I have not even had enough cash to buy materials to mat and frame artwork, much less spend cash on marketing (posters, ads, postcards, postage) for exhibitions. My former day-job laid me off in October, saying that they were going to call me back to work in March. March rolls around, and they still can’t afford payroll, so they can’t call me back, but could I come back in June? By June, they would definitely have their act together enough to cover payroll and call me back to work. I said, Sure, see you in June. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, believed them, and did not look for other work. Meantime, I experimented with different things, including trying to build this site from scratch as a means to earn a little extra cash. I experimented with different art styles, I made a bunch of art, I lived frugally, I was looking forward to returning to work, but I wasn’t looking for another job. June rolls around, and they can’t call me back to work. It takes me a while, but I am lucky enough to find a job. It’s a great job, great boss. Hard work, mowing lawns and landscaping in, sometimes, 100º+ temperatures, with, recently, heavy smoke from wildland fires. In the meantime, I fell behind on some of my bills and, though I make enough to make it, when you are behind, it’s difficult to catch up, much less make ends meet. So I’ve been working 9, 10, 11 hour days mowing lawns, digging ditches and hauling huge rocks around. (“That boulder is too large, I could lift a smaller one.”) It doesn’t leave me with much time to create art, sell it, or do much else in that arena. Meanwhile, the summer is coming to a close pretty quickly, and the landscaping will end soon. Soon after that, the lawn mowing will cease, and I’ll need to find another job. This paycheck to paycheck shit sucks, let me tell you. Yeah, Missoula’s been called “The Paris of the West” before, apparently by John Updike, but I’ve been unable to corroborate this claim. Yet, there have been other “Paris of the West” towns, most notably, San Francisco. The Missoula artists that are recognizable are the same ones over and over. Dudly Dana, Monte Dolack, Jonathan Qualben, David James Duncan and William Kittredge. That there is name recognition for these artists does not diminish their work by any means. I’m suggesting that if indeed Missoula is “the Paris of the West”, the whole story has not been presented. Artists who are struggling to produce original work, struggling to say something with their art, struggling to make it as artists who have’t sold out to marketing and tourism, who haven’t sold themselves short, and I say that because I think many of the well-known artists have great talent, but have chosen to make the art that they make because it is marketable. The executive who comes to Missoula from Chicago, pays beau-coup bucks to stay at Paws Up, pays and exorbitant amount of money for Orvis gear he will never use again, pays a fishing guide a ridiculous sum, then, as a memento of his Montana trip, makes a stop at Monte Dolack’s place has no real idea about the artists in Missoula who are struggling to make a difference. And he doesn’t care. Why should he? What about the unknown artists? The ones who haven’t “made it”? The performance artists about whom I have written before, the singers who quit their jobs to focus on their singing careers or quit school to pursue a living as a musician? The unknown visual artists who are struggling against obscurity and managing to make a go of it? Why were people like these omitted from the over-hyped article in Missoula.com Magazine? Like Paris, Missoula has its share of street kids, its share of bohemians and starving artists. But that segment of the arts community allegedly doesn’t bring dollars into the local economy. We know that isn’t true, so why are they ignored in a feature story such as this one? So why do we stay here, us artists who sometimes can’t afford to make our art, or, other times, rely on the kindness of friends in order to have a meal and share a beer or two? We stay here because we love Missoula, Montana. We love the country, the community, and we want to make a difference right here right now, in a town that is being torn in many different directions by many different factions, be they builders, Californicators, tourists, with whom we have a love-hate relationship, or a variety of other factors. We care, we have something to say, we want to create and share beauty while pointing out the truths we see among us. Which are sometimes beautiful, but sometimes are painful to look at, examine and admit. Some of us, though, can’t stay. About a month ago, I managed to drag myself out of bed fairly early before work and make it to The Good Food Store for a breakfast burrito and some coffee before heading to load up the truck with mowers and gasoline. While I sat eating my breakfast, a friend, a dancer, sat down with me for a few minutes. She had just returned from a stint away from town before, she informed me, preparing to move to Helena. If it is the Paris of the West, Missoula is, lacking the amazing architecture, the history and the world renowned art, an amazing place to visit, a great place to live. Yes, it’s difficult to eek out a living here for many, and because of that, some of us find ourselves working two, three jobs, rarely finding time to get out and explore the beauty for which we moved here, or, for those who are natives, the beauty for which they stayed. Still, Missoula’s a great town, and I am proud to be a part of it. I wish, though, that the marketing folks would acknowledge the unknown, no-name artists once in a while. Or that we unknowns could figure out a better way to make ourselves known. And that the arts community in this town was more supportive of each other, that the well-knowns did more to help the underdogs become more exposed, more appreciated, more MORE. Everything I’m saying, of course, isn’t related to Missoula being the Paris of the West. Nawp. The article was merely a jumping off point for me to ramble about some of the things that have been trampling my brain recently and relentlessly. Donate and Support the Artist |
