a few words from our Sponsor? - Tuesday, February 2, 2010
I have been at it in the studio for a while now, some ideas have progressed while others are being added to or whittled away. Working on ideas and Art after a long hiatus takes some doing, some exploration to remind yourself what you’re about. Scripts are in progress as well as a few story outlines and even a concept piece that will probably become more of a non-narrative/non-doc film.
(I NEVER use the description of “experimental” for a film or any work. It implies the potential for failure which says both, that I’m mostly concerned with my own success through the work and that learning is not present under any circumstance.)
There aren’t really any experiments. Anything can happen at any time. That may seem like an emotional response, a sentiment, but it’s really a very practical framework for me. When you keep it in your field of vision that anything can happen, it reminds you that may mean for the better or worse…the situation may improve or devolve. It keeps you honest. It keeps you from lying to yourself. It gives you a reason to concentrate on being present in this moment and not hung up on what isn’t working from your past or what you hope to achieve in the future.
Anyone aiming to earn their living as a working creative will wonder what I’m doing for a living.
The past 5-6 years were about freelance web development. Mostly, that meant providing small businesses with their first web sites. I was doing this work out of necessity. Life had given me some lemons and I took the ones I had and made something with them. It wasn’t something I chose to do, but you often learn what you need at times like these. What I’ve learned on a personal level from this experience is that none of us can solve another’s perceptual errors and each of us should be doing what we’re MOST interested in and passionate about.
(As artists and creatives, most of us are aware of the need to get beyond what our brains tell us the scene looks like and focus on the what’s really in front of us, the colors, the positive and negative space, to render it properly. Working for clients is a lot of the same problem. A client doesn’t know about technical problems or often even have a sense of design. Some don’t even know what their own business is or what’s important to market it. They often never get beyond what their preconceptions tell them a web site is and will do for them. They may not have done any research and they’re not always particularly interested in doing any. They rarely get to a participatory understanding that their customers and real people are using the internet and actually on the other side of their site.)
So, taking my own advice on the second realization and aiming to avoid the frustration of the first, I transitioned my Charm FX business domain into something more consultive. I changed the aim of Charm FX to offer other “Creatives” some insights into the technical and strategic side of marketing and promoting themselves on the internet. I decided I wasn’t going to build web sites for people, but show them how and talk to them about why they should do this and not that. Small decisions can have large impacts. It’s important to begin to learn and understand why and how things work.
The past few months have been mostly about developing that content which will become apparent soon.
SO, the big reason I haven’t put anything up here yet is there are quite a few people who seem to be genuinely interested in a few topics related to getting themselves going on the internet. This seems perfectly reasonable to me.
My hope is these efforts will be of use to many, as well as widen my circle of interesting and creative folks who genuinely want to get themselves and their stuff out there and in front of those who genuinely have an interest in it.
To answer the query above about earning a living with nothing showing of my own work yet, I still have a few web clients I maintain through this transition…all of whom are creative folks. These are the people I’ve learned the most from in terms of what I’m passing on…how to do it, what to do, what not to do and why.
…more soon.
Art begins… - Thursday, January 14, 2010
in your own space, in your own head, with your own choices
Blizzard, lock down, scrounge - Monday, December 21, 2009
So there was this big blizzard and it dumped 2’+ of snow on my area. There was food and necessities in the house so there wasn’t much to be concerned with, or so I thought.
Are we just soft or has it just become more difficult to find things to do when you can’t leave your home? At first, it seemed like this would be a good opportunity to make some new studio work, but the computer’s call has become very strong. While experimenting and messing around with tools and paper and paint is something I do pretty regularly in the studio, these last few days have reminded me I need to clean up, organize and work out some better strategies for scrounging odds and ends of source materials.
Art and media production often require more than what many assume to be the necessities of light, video tape or film or paper. They make the best of us collectors of the odd bits and pieces others might throw out. They stretch our abilities to store these materials as well as more conventional materials in an organized manner where we can lay our hands on them when we want them.
Being locked up with your stuff has the therapeutic benefit of making you realize it’s time to give materials some serious thought.
