The first paragraph……

Controversial art

A giant penis spray-painted on a bridge has won an art prize.

By Sergey Chernov

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: April 13, 2011 (Issue # 1651)

The controversial “Dick Taken Prisoner by the FSB” — a 65-meter penis painted on Liteiny bridge to face the FSB (former KGB) headquarters in St. Petersburg when the bridge was raised — won the Culture Ministry-backed Innovation prize at a glitzy ceremony in Moscow on Thursday…….
http://www.times.spb.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=33851

So rather than throw up your hands at the money spent, and wonder what you were thinking, re-think what to do and how to view it!

http://www.usatodayeducate.com/staging/index.php/blog/7-ways-to-put-your-useless-degree-to-use

We can’t wait! We take the failure out of art marketing and put positive results within reach of the artist!

Listen closely to these YouTube videos-The art is computerized but listen to the words carefully and you’ll laugh out loud! They deal with the Art Fair application, Art Fair Neighbor and the Potter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7fXoPl5b58&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8kaYg3XjVQ&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEAnG3nWqcI&feature=related

Steve just delivered my portrait to our client in Virginia. He hung the 30 x 40 oil high above her shelving unit (moved out to accomplish this) to hang side by side with a portrait I created of her 5 years ago. We had no problem  offering to help her with this task even though she had not asked us.  Over the years she had invested not only her money but her trust in our abilities and we rank our clients among our friends and acquaintances!

When we create art for a client, we offer everything from recommendations for the framing to delivering it and to installing it!  Simple courtesy goes a long way in customer/client loyalty!   And every business that sells anything to the public knows this and makes every effort to make sure their client is satisfied with every aspect of the sale!  Artists have a tendency to think that clients owe them when it is, in fact, it is the other way around!  Don’t confuse today’s art client with art clients from the past who were taken in (with the help from art galleries and their agents) with the arrogance and actions of a few of the artists of the twentieth century. Today’s consumer is savvy, knowledgeable and rarely needs her hand held. Unlike her teenager, she does not need to put up with an artist with an attitude!

So do you, your art and your reputation a favor and add a little customer service in with your art sale. Courtesy goes a very long way!  And don’t worry, the teens eventually figure this out!

All done and loving it!

It also  means a heightened activity in the studio, with art classes, plenty of commissioned artwork and the general “getting ready for winter” feeling. I love it!

The dogs are a little confused. DaVinci, the Rottweiler, has an insatiable appetite and the dark afternoon has confused him into thinking that  3:30 means dinnertime. I ignore him. So he sits with his big head in my lap while I try to type, slopping a wet kiss on my hand if I put it near his mouth and his big eyes say “Feed me.”

An artist’s life in regards to hours and paychecks is not a real predictable affair.  We work when other do not and do not work when others are at work. We get paid sporadically and in terms of income, it can be far more or far less than what someone who is not an artist may make.

It’s a good life in its unpredictability.

Looking Good the First Time

Posted By Eilis Flynn on September 2, 2010

Author Eilis Flynn: The Reality Beyond

If you don’t bother to sepll-cehck, nobody’s going to take you seriously

by Eilis Flynn
1st Turning Point Crew Columnist
Copyright © 2010 Eilis Flynn

As a copy editor, the one thing I’ve noticed over the years is that everybody thinks that their spelling and grammar and punctuation are just fine.  “Oh, you don’t have to do anything to my work,” they always say, sometimes with a smirk.  “My mom’s always said that my writing was so good!”

Well, guess what?  Your mom lied.  Your work needs editing.  It needs to have the spelling double-checked (and no, if you’re an American, you can’t use British spelling, and no, you can’t just randomly capitalize words because you think it looks neat), the grammar double-checked (and since grammar is no longer being taught in schools, double-double-checked), and if you can’t figure out when to use a semicolon and when to use a colon, why would you think they’re interchangeable and everyone else is wrong when they say they’re not?

Anyway, as you might have gathered, I think it’s fair to say that everyone, and I mean everyone, needs to have their work proofed and read by someone else.  This needs to happen simply because your work—your writing—is the face by which you want to be known.  And if your work is littered with misspellings, poor grammar choices, and illiterate attempts at punctuation, your work doesn’t come off so good.  Spell-check, while it is a wonderful stopgap measure, can’t do it all.  First of all, remember that the feature was designed by engineers, and engineers are notoriously poor in their spelling, grammar, and punctuation choices.  And second, spell-check was designed to make sure that the words being used in the document are real.  Whether the words are appropriate in the document, again, that’s not spell-check’s job; it’s yours.

Haven’t you ever looked at a website that’s littered with typos and grammatical errors and winced?  Of course you have.  Everyone has. And if that website’s a retail site, trying to entice you to buy something, haven’t you had second thoughts about buying?  After all, if the website owner can’t be bothered to check for spelling and grammatical mistakes, who knows what else they aren’t bothering to do?  That goes for your writing, too.

So do yourself a favor.  Read and proofread your work.  Learn the grammatical rules and apply them to your own work.  Punctuation isn’t just a suggestion, it’s a given.  Make your writing the best it can be by making it the easiest to read.  Or I’ll hunt you down and I will use my red pen on your work.  Don’t think I won’t.

Why Amish businesses don’t fail
By Geoff Williams, contributing writer  May 4, 2010: 10:57 AM ET
(CNNMoney.com) — Want to find America’s most successful entrepreneurs? Skip Silicon Valley and Manhattan; head to the rural Amish enclaves.
It’s a statistic he backs up with a variety of academic surveys, drawing particularly on 2009 report by Elizabethtown College sociology professor Donald Kraybill. Studying several Amish settlements, Kraybill found failure rates ranging from 2.6% and 4.2%; interviews with loan officers, accountants and industry professions in other Amish regions yielded additional anecdotal evidence of closure rates significantly south of 10%.
Compare that to the average five-year survival rate for new businesses across the United States, which hovers just under 50%. So what’s the secret?
Wesner, who worked in business management and sales before immersing himself in all things Amish, thinks it lies in the culture, which emphasizes “qualities like hard work and cooperation.” Networking through Facebook doesn’t exactly have the same community-building pull as teaming up with neighbors to build a barn, and few Americans these days can point to a childhood where they awoke regularly at dawn to milk the cows.
Another key advantage is that Amish business owners tend to stick with what they know.
“Everything about the Amish says things like ‘rustic,’ ‘traditional,’ ‘handmade,’ so they tend to play to those strengths,” Wesner says. “Would consumers trust an Amish cell-phone dealer or an Amish computer repair guy to know what he’s doing? It’d be a pretty big mental and marketing hurdle to get over.”
If you ask an Amish entrepreneur why they’re successful, don’t expect a lot of soul-searching or reflection on what they do right. A group known for being unfailingly polite and modest, the Amish will likely pin the praise on anyone else but themselves.
Certainly, Myron Miller, an Amish businessman in Millersburg, Ohio, near Akron, would be a good role model for other entrepreneurs, although he would never tell you that. “I run my business according to God’s way and plan,” Miller says.
The Almighty has been a good business coach for Miller, a 40-year-old father of six. He started his company 15 years ago and now has two separate entities: Four Corners Furniture, a retail furniture-making operation open to the public, and Miller Bedroom Wholesale, which sells directly to distributors. Miller employs 12 full-time workers and two part-timers.
Not bad for someone with an eighth grade education, which is where the Amish routinely end their formal schooling.
Miller thought about starting a farm when he was just beginning his career, but farmland was scarce and expensive. “They were all being used,” he says. “So my thing is, I saw all the tourism coming in — we’re blessed to be the number one-tourism attraction in Ohio — and so I thought I’d try to go into that, selling furniture to the tourists. Then I realized that was just the tip of the iceberg. I thought I’d spread my wings and market the furniture elsewhere.”
Miller now works with 75 dealers, who sell his wares across the country. He banded together with other Amish owners to create a hardwood furniture guild, which helps market their products — an important publicity channel since Miller’s businesses have no website. He uses terms like “out of the box,” routinely reads business books (especially those with a religious business bent), and has attended seminars by motivational and performance training guru Zig Ziglar.
Even if most people’s idea of an Amish businessman is someone selling homemade cheese transported by horse and buggy, Miller isn’t an anomaly, according to Kraybill, who has become one of the nation’s leading academic experts on the Amish. He estimates that there are at least 9,000 Amish business owners across the U.S, which he divides into two groups: “caretakers” and “entrepreneurs.”
“Caretakers generally have smaller, at-home or near-home businesses with five or fewer employees, and they don’t want to grow, but simply sustain income for themselves and a small number of employees,” Kraybill says. “The entrepreneurs are a different breed. They have larger businesses and somewhat want to grow, and they are more aggressive in marketing, trying new ideas, and are willing to take risks.”
Risks like buying a failing business and trying to turn it around. Two years ago, in Glen Rock, Penn., Ben Riehl purchased a flagging food stand at Markets at Shrewsbury, a gathering spot for Amish vendors. He turned to entrepreneurship as a way out of what he calls “somewhat of a dead-end job,” working in the metalworking and machine shop at a plastics company.
Riehl renamed the shop the Country Style Deli and enlisted his wife, Mary, and their two sons to help him work the stand, which sells local and imported cheeses, homemade breads, and subs and sandwiches. They also employ four other people part-time.
But Riehl launched just as the Great Recession went into full swing. Customers that once spent $25 on a visit to the stand cut their purchases in half. Country Style Deli is managing to turn a small profit, Riehl says, but it’s not enough yet to allow him to leave his full-time job.
But he sounds like any other entrepreneur with a plan and dream when he talks about his startup. “We work hard to give customers quality product at a reasonable price, and we strive to give courteous and competent service,” says Riehl. “We want the customers to have an experience that is different than pulling things out of a self-serve case and using the self checkout. We try to make it interactive and personal.”
Clinging to values
Amish business owners face more restrictions than your typical entrepreneur.
Wesner says that while the Amish have made allowances and will, for instance, make products that they don’t use themselves — like designer-label leather clothing or high-priced toys — they won’t touch any business “that may be seen as morally questionable.” Don’t hold your breath waiting for an Amish-owned casino, liquor store or debt collection service.
But modern touches are creeping into the business scene. Some Amish retailers use electricity in their shops, more as a nod to customers who expect air-conditioning and credit-card machines. They’re often fueled with alternative energy sources, like solar and wind power.
In his field research, Wesner found some Amish entrepreneurs conducting business using cell phones, fax machines and even e-mail. It’s still a sensitive topic — not because the Amish believe it’s unethical to use these devices, but because they can have a subtle, adverse impact on the entrepreneur. Miller struggles with it himself, in ways that will sound familiar to any CrackBerry addict battling for a word-life balance.
“The smarter you get, and the more technology you use for your business, the more impact it has on families,” he says. “For instance, there was a time the farmer would be in the parlor milking cows, and everyone was there, singing songs, and it was work, but it was also family time. Now, an Amish farmer is likely to be milking forty cows, and the children are at school. That’s practical living, and you’ve got to keep up. But at the same time, it takes away from that balance, and you have to ask yourself, ‘How far do you let technology affect your business?’”
Miller answers his own question in the next breath: “I guess you just have to stay true to your convictions and draw your own lines and not overdo it where you lose the values and your way of life.”

It cannot be understated that the key factors are hard work, perseverance and attitude!