365 Day 302

a challenging day...but I do it to myself

Sigh. Since the new Moda Dea Wild yarn didn't arrive in the mail yet, I needed another project for today.

What to do? What have I been avoiding? Oh -- I know -- making the newest "cheat sheets" for the Arto-binders. Ack.

See...I do this to myself. I don't HAVE to make these "cheat sheets" or offer potential Art-o-mat customers a informational binder to look through. I do it because I do not have my own venues and I don't want the folks at LIFT or Northville Art House to constantly have to be explaining to people what "that machine" is all about...or "what's in that machine?"...you know? I make a separate page for each artist currently in the machine. I also have a page with the history of Art-o-mat and two pages of photos of some of the other Art-o-mat machines across the country so that people who aren't already familiar with the project will get a small sense of what it is about and maybe they will try it out and then maybe they will go and check out the Arto-website and connect with the artist whose artpack they got from the machine. In other words, I do it because I love Art-o-mat and I WANT to do it.

But getting there is a whole 'nother thing.

I really dislike writing. I really dislike trying to describe someone's art. I go to artist websites (or the info included with their artpack, or their Etsy store, Facebook page, etc.) and try to get a sense of something to say about them or their art. It is good when I can just quote an artist statement or description of their Arto-series. That helps a whole lot. All I need is a paragraph or two.

Also, a lot of the time there is a snapshot of an artist's artpack on the Art-o-mat website that I can use. Sometimes a series is changed or updated and doesn't look like that photo anymore. On those occasions I take it upon myself to try to take a photograph that will show potential buyers a little of what they will get when they pull the knob.


Normally when I take these photos, I use the available light from the skylight in the guest bathroom. Right now, however, I am getting ready for an artist-to-artist "trading excess stuff" kind of thing and the guest bathroom is crammed full of stuff.


(You can see the makeshift backdrop in between the enlarger and the reflection of the enlarger.)













So for today I moved into the kitchen under that skylight.

Today has been interesting weather-wise. Cloudy, dark, bright and sunny, rainy, hail-y, back to sunny, now just plain late in the day darker.











But you push ahead and work with what you've got, right? Right.



I have about 12 cheat sheets to make (or update). I am starting with some of the "easy" ones...where I mainly just need to change the photograph and I can use the older wording.

Okay...this is one of those times where I actually don't mind digital photography so much...because I blast through a TON of photos doing this...then I just delete what I am not going to use...LOL)






Okay, so here is an example. This is one of the photos I settled on for Woodie Anderson's "Hankie Pankie" series.

This is a really cool series of much LARGER-than-the-box-it-comes-in screen prints on pieces of cloth that you can do all sorts of things with.

I have customers who really love Hankie Pankies and I am sure these will sell out pretty quickly so I mainly just needed to show the new designs.





I took out the old photo and put in the new one.

Hmmm...but what if someone didn't know what I was trying to show them? HOW can I show in a simple way that you get something huge from that little box?






Geez...I don't feel like I did that great of a job, but the light was totally failing. Maybe I can try again in the morning or something.

In the meantime, this is what I came up with. The problem is I get it...I know what I'm looking at. How can I convey this to someone who isn't connecting with the concept of art in a box the size of a pack of cigarettes? (These are going to sell out quickly anyway...I'm not going to fret about it all night...but see...this is what I do...cuz it matters to me. I just need to let go...let go...LOL)




So this is the revised version of the new Hankie Pankies cheat sheet.


Ooph...only about 11 more pages to go!