Rants and Raves -
A casual blog reporting on the life and times of Caroline C. Blaker
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Support an Artist While Spending Nothing
Many people feel that supporting an artist beyond compliments and verbal encouragement is out of their reach if they dont have money to buy artwork. While the best way to support an artist is to (buy art and) support their livelihood, here are a few things that are free, that make a huge difference to the artist you would like to support. Share their work ~ Do you have a Facebook account? Twitter? StumbleUpon? Guess what - if you said yes, you also have a network outside of the reach of the artist you would like to help, and chances are your network and you share a lot of common interests, so why not this artist? The options are endless here: share one piece, their portfolio, their blog, their events, their entire website, their facebook page - and the list goes on. Dont know quite what to share? Ask the Artist! Volunteer time or skills ~ If you live near an artist this is easy - hang a show with him or her. Help set up a studio open-house, or just go to the artists events, ...
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The logo: What you don’t know about it
Two-dimensional design is a notoriously difficult class for incoming freshmen at any art school, and here I found myself; second semester, under the tutelage of one of those "never gives an A" teachers, learning the basics of radial and symmetrical designs in black and white. Oh, and three days prior, I had been diagnosed with Mono(nucleosis) as every college student at some point is: first, you drink your neighbors water instead of your own, never mind that this person should not have been out in public let alone working at the phoneathon. Then, a month later, there's a brick wall that hits. You go into medical services and get a blood test. Then, when they call, they obey every paltry privacy rule (a practice on which your friends report conflicting adherence) in urging you to the third degree to show up at once so they can break the bad news to your face, as if you already did not know. If you're a sucker like me, you also gave blood a few days before; blood you really could use rig...
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I am a Native European
My contemporary struggle with cultural identity began with my husband and ended with my vacation to Europe. Over the span of nearly four years, I examined why my now-husbands proximity to his (Native American) culture evoked jealousy behind the gratitude I felt for his happiness and sense of identity with his tribes and with the earth. I wanted an identity with the earth. I wanted to be close to a rooted ancestry group. I wanted what he had - but not exactly what he had. No matter how much I wanted, pleaded or begged, I wouldnt be allowed in anyway. As I began to learn more about the paths and histories of the Native American tribes, the answer was clear: to fully respect them is to leave them alone. While pining after an adopted new identity additionally felt like both a callous waste of time and a dishonest path to the truth, I began to wonder where else to look. Of course, what Buddhism teaches, to look inside oneself for all answers, didnt seem obvious at the time, but it ca...
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What? This is a Twitterscape?
Yesterday I sent 9 of the preliminary "Twitterscapes" off for printing for the upcoming exhibit. My printer called me three times out of what he called "confusion," though I read in it disbelief. My art printer (one of the best fine art printers in New Mexico,) who spends days at a time immersed in fine art, could not fathom why I wanted to print these, nor could he tell if I had sent him the correct images, or if I had just gone crazy. He may have thought he got a set of images that were corrupted. Of course, the images I sent him don't look like Twitterscapes, or fine art. They look like mistakes. Explaining to him that these were the visual clues I had for developing Twitterscapes in-process seemed to clarify a bit, though he still appeared to think they were not worth printing, or at least not well suited for it. Hm. I guess he doesn't see a lot of conceptual art. They are a bit strange, but conceptually they are some of the richest images I have ever made. Moreover, the strong...