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Adventure Awaits!

One day you look up and you realize it’s been almost three years since you last updated your site. Time goes by so much faster when you have a kid! I keep thinking one of these days I’ll be able to get back to my creative endeavors. Not that raising a child isn’t a constant creative endeavor. I love doing Callithump! and exploring the world of vended art projects but I really haven’t had the time or energy for that.

The Callithump! project lives on in a way. What we learned by creating artist’s multiples and selling them helped us to realize that we could really do this in a bigger way. That evolved into a business venture called Adventure Awaits! Check it out.

The vending also lives on in our own home. Of course our daughter gets to have her own toy capsule vending machine!

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We were so on trend!

Trendhunter declared “Art Vending Machines” to be a trend in May, 2006, which was about the time the first Callithump! vending machine was deployed.

Implications – Art is increasingly being commodified and made available to not only the upper classes. Art is being sold in small, on-the-go formats that appeal to the busy, but culturally-inclined, consumer. This trend also shows the continued popularity of vintage and retro designs, especially in now-simple technologies like vending machines or juke boxes.

It’s probably good that I missed this back then. Knowing me, it’s likely I would have abandoned the whole idea.

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Adventure Awaits!

Callithump! has been our non-profit creative project for the past decade. Callithump! is where we first learned that we could forego traditional venues and still sell our creative products. Now we have embarked on a new venture: Adventure Awaits!

Adventure Awaits! is our (hopefully) for-profit venture. We’ve realized we’re happiest when we’re making things and when we’re working for ourselves. Our new mission is to be able to support ourselves through our own business making wonderful things.

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A glimpse at a few of our many quality products!

Adventure Awaits! is equal parts steam punk and fairy tales, with big handfuls of magic thrown in. It’s accessories for your fantasy lifestyle. Why stop with a version of your life that’s just slightly better than your own when you can be a hero on a quest, or a princess in disguise?

Callithump! will continue for when we need to make art for art’s sake, but the majority of our energies are going toward Adventure Awaits! (and raising our daughter, of course!)

Find out more at our new website: http://www.adventureawaitsme.com/

Please follow us on Facebook

Buy our fine products on Etsy

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Featured

Dear Anyone Who Cares

Somehow a large portion of the population believes that anyone can spontaneously become a graphic designer. Why? We wouldn’t assume that with no background in biochemistry, one would be able to walk into a biochem lab and run an experiment. We wouldn’t expect that one could manage a business without any experience in training or business management. And yet, every day, countless business people, scientists and others with no training in graphic design create and present horrible slide shows and posters that are boring, ugly and/or fail to communicate their intended information accurately.

A graphic designer with a modicum of experience understands that mediums are not neutral. They shape the content in ways that need to be compensated for in order to communicate clearly and accurately. Even still, this may not be possible. Information that makes a clear point in a paragraph may transform into something completely different when forced into a pie chart.

I created Dear Anyone Who Cares as a way of exploring how mediums shape information. The source material was a box of letters, photos, journals etc. left behind by a young woman in an apartment we moved into years ago. Taken together, the contents told a heart-breaking story of a girl who joined the military to escape an alcoholic mother and a dead-end life. She appeared to get her life together, was married and had a daughter. She was living on the west coast. Then, for reasons we’ve never been able to piece together she abandoned this to move across country to a crappy apartment with an abusive drug-dealing boyfriend back east.

I’d intended for this to be an ironic commentary on our need to force data through the filters of spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations on order for others to look at it. This was an actual human’s life here, not just facts and figures. Limiting what can be communicated to what can be put into a spreadsheet meant cutting away so much of this woman’s life. I also restricted myself to using just what was available within PowerPoint and existing templates. The final product was displayed at a Grad Expo at the University of Maine, along with many other unintentionally horrible PowerPoint posters.

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Surprisingly, while I’d intended for this to be a critique of PowerPoint etc., it did reveal something we hadn’t noticed before. In high school she’d had a boyfriend who clearly adored her and let her know with every letter he wrote to her. She went into the military and he went to college and they stopped communicating around this time. In the husband’s letters there’s a complete lack of creativity or emotional connection with her, but the loser drug dealing boyfriend’s language is actually very similar to the high-school sweetheart’s. Was this the reason she moved back? Was she just looking for a love that felt real?

You can see the full-quality piece here: Anyone Who Cares.

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A Nice Little Boost

I know the feeling is far from rare, but sometimes when you’ve put a lot of energy into a project, it’s nice to get noticed. I am not doing it for the attention. Not much anyway. I’ve got much loftier goals. But still, it’s really nice to get acknowledged at least once-in-a-while.

I missed it in 2009 when Narelle Hanratty of Melbourne, Australia mentioned me in this entry on art vending machines. Still, it’s really nice to discover it now! I probably need the boost now more than I did in 2009, so the timing is good.

I also recently received an email from Susanne Greiner of Germany. She tipped me off to the fact that art vending machines have been operating in Germany since 1979/80. This is a really exciting discovery and has helped me further flesh out my history of art vending machines. Hopefully I can expand it even further once I get help translating the German text! Google translate only gets you so far.

So thanks for the boost, Narelle and Susanne!

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Editorial

Etsy Loses its Magic

Etsy appears to be on a literal witch hunt, prohibiting the sale of magic items and shutting down stores that are in violation of this policy. At first it appeared to be just an attempt to eliminate the sale of services. This makes sense since Etsy is supposed to be all about the sale of hand crafted and vintage goods. However, Etsy has gone beyond this:

“Any metaphysical service that promises or suggests it will effect a physical change (e.g., weight loss) or other outcome (e.g., love, revenge) is not allowed, even if it delivers a tangible item.”

This is obviously problematic. What is a metaphysical object? There’s an incredible number of embroidered Christian prayers that promise blessings. Are these now banned? If these are permitted but a love spell is prohibited, does Etsy really want to be in the business of promoting religious intolerance? What of things that are clearly for entertainment purposes, like a kit of garlic and holy water to protect against vampires? By their terms, such a thing should not be allowed. The use of the word “suggests” is especially troublesome. It means that Etsy has grounds to remove an item even if you use the disclaimer, “for entertainment purposes only.” Of course everyone is going to put that on their items now, because of that rule, therefore you’re still “suggesting” that the product will effect a physical change.

Is there really a clear boundary between what is metaphysical and what isn’t? Richard Prince recently sold prints that he’d made by blatantly stealing work from other’s Instagram feeds for $90,000 a pop. These were prints that anyone could have made, but the Touch of Richard Prince endowed them with metaphysical properties that gave them value in the eyes of the art establishment. The cosmetic industry is based on the idea that it is possible to make yourself look more beautiful. However, beauty is a social construct, a metaphysical concept, so are all cosmetics now prohibited on Etsy as well?

Full disclosure: our Adventure Awaits store sells magic items on Etsy. They are based on fairy tales and folklore. We have magic beans that you can trade for a cow, or plant to climb a beanstalk to the giant’s castle in the clouds, inspired obviously by the fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk. We have protection spells and love potions that are from American folklore collected by Harry Middleton Hayatt in the 1930s. To me these are less about metaphysics and more about connecting with our cultural heritage. A fan art homage to our creative past. We’re just starting to grow our business and were planning on investing a lot of energy into making that happen on Etsy. However, I’m now wondering if pretty much everything we create isn’t in violation of Etsy’s policy. That’s a HUGE problem, Etsy! A rule needs to be clear and easy to follow. This one creates doubt and uncertainty and leads me to believe that Etsy isn’t really worth investing any time and effort into as a creator. If creators aren’t investing in Etsy, investors will follow suit now that Etsy is a publicly traded company.

Meanwhile, Etsy has much bigger problems than metaphysics. There’s a huge flood of mass produced goods from China being passed off as handmade items. Flagrant copyright violations are going unpunished. These things are devaluing the Etsy brand far more than metaphysical objects are. Deal with your real problems, Etsy, before taking on your metaphysical ones!

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100 Cups of Coffee: 10th Anniversary

A decade ago I set out to push myself as a writer and photographer. I picked the most boring, mundane subject I could think about: myself, drinking coffee. I would photograph and write about every cup of coffee I drank for 100 consecutive cups of coffee. In the process, I would try to make it interesting for a general audience.

You can read the results here. 

At the time, writing for the Web as its own medium was fairly new, so this was an exercise working in a new medium for me. Facebook didn’t exist yet, and taking pictures of, posting and writing about the things you were eating was a pretty strange thing to do. It still is, when you think about it! We also divulge a lot more about our personal lives now. It was an uncomfortable experience doing it a decade ago.

I can see a real arc in the quality. I hit my stride around the 25th post. The writing is more articulate and interesting, and the photographic compositions are much better composed. Around the 75th post the enthusiasm starts to fade. Or maybe it was the depression was setting in.

It’s an interesting snapshot of life a decade ago. It’s remarkable how much has changed, and how some things haven’t changed at all, both in my life and the world at large.

Doing 100 Cups of Coffee really had a profound impact on all my creative work that followed. Doing something creative is one thing. Doing it repeatedly is a very different challenge. The majority of work that I’ve done since has been an artist’s multiple of some sort. You learn things in the repetition that you don’t when you just do one of something. All true art is a kind of science, and when you do multiples you add repeatable results and are doing research.

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Culture News

The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records, Volume 1

Over a decade ago, I looked up from my computer screen at all the media I’d taken for granted as being somehow necessary. Books, magazines, CDs (or tapes or records), DVD (or VHS tapes or films) and newspapers had all been the default method for storing, transporting and retrieving quantities of static information. This was no longer the case, even if not every publisher had come to realize this fact. Text, video and audio could be accessed more easily and more affordably on the Web. Existing solely in electric form was now the default. Content would need a reason to justify existing in physical form.

Since then, a number of creators have risen to the challenge, creating unique experiences that can only be appreciated through physical contact with the object, like Chris Ware’s Building Stories, or T-Post Magazine, or our own Callithump!, a magazine created as a set objects distributed in toy capsule vending machines.

Jack White’s Third Man Records, in collaboration with Revenant Records, has gone above and beyond meeting the challenge with The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records, Volume 1. At first the $399 price tag seems steep, but when you look at what is included, and the quality of the design and craftsmanship, it is amazing they’re able to offer it for so little:

  • 800 newly-remastered digital tracks, representing 172 artists
  • 200+ fully-restored original 1920s ads and images
  • 6x 180g vinyl LPs pressed on burled chestnut colored vinyl w/ hand-engraved, blind-embossed gold-leaf labels, housed in a laser-etched white birch LP folio
  • 250 page deluxe large-format clothbound hardcover art book
  • 360 page encyclopedia-style softcover field guide containing artist portraits and full Paramount discography
  • Handcrafted quarter-sawn oak cabinet with lush sage velvet upholstery and custom-forged metal hardware
  • First-of-its-kind music and image player app, allowing user mgmt of all tracks and ads, housed on custom-designed USB drive

 Go to their website to really get an appreciation for the care and attention they put into this. Be sure to watch their video.

They are taking some of the earliest commercially available recorded music and giving it new life and a new audience by rethinking the medium and its relevance as a physical object.

The whole package is a bold move on their part. Most “packaged” music falls in the “fetish object” category. The casual listener will be content with just a digital download, but true fans will pay the extra for physical objects because we feel more of a connection to the artists. It’s why vinyl is making a comeback while CD sales are declining, and why I’m willing to spend $53 for the Newspaper Edition of Radiohead’s King of Limbs when I won’t buy it on CD. But Paramount Records doesn’t have the huge fan base that contemporary artists can appeal to. Jack White could have made this box all about himself and it would have sold orders of magnitude more copies. Instead, he chose to create a thing of beauty as well as an archive of one of the most important labels in American music history and an important work of music scholarship.

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Culture News

An Art Museum Designed for Taking Selfies

An Art Museum Designed for Taking Selfies.

Art in Island has a brilliant solution to the problem of selfies in museums: create work that is intended for selfies. I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with museums and galleries. It can be a truly wondrous experience to see the actual hand of the creator in a work instead of a reproduction. You can see things that are never reproduced and feel a direct connection to someone separated from you by centuries and half a world. On the other hand, the exclusivity and the enforced viewer/object separation reinforces the “Art is something someone else does,” attitude I despise. The trend of selfies in a museum makes this even worse, making the museum experience not about connecting with the art but turning it into Something to be Seen With. Museums are right to ban them, and anyone who takes a selfie in a museum should be ashamed of themselves.
However, Art in Island is a completely different story. The art becomes complete only in the selfie. Instead of diminishing the art, the selfie taker becomes a collaborator in the creative process. Instead of distancing the viewer from the art, the viewer is forced to think about the original intent of the artwork and if they are going to enhance or subvert that message. What a great way to break down the boundaries between creator and viewer!

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Education

A Blog for Learning Part 2

Thinking some more about it, I still say yes, a blog is the best way to start incorporating technology into one’s teaching.

There are other options that can obtain similar results, learning management systems such as Moodle, Canvas or Blackboard. These have their place, but I recommend using more open alternatives unless there are specific functions you need from an LMS. One of my goals as a teacher is to make everything I ask my students to learn have a value beyond the class. Any new technology you introduce into your classroom requires a learning curve. Learning the interface of an LMS only has value inside that LMS. Chances are students will never touch one outside of class. Students can have blogs of their own. Many businesses run entirely off blogs. A WordPress blog offers a starting point for learning to create content for, and communicate on, the Web. The student (and teacher) can start with basic posts on the blog after five minutes of instruction on using a blog, without needing to know any code or have anything but the most essential computer skills. When you get into customizing the blog a platform like WordPress can provide a context for taking one’s learning all the way to hard coding. WordPress is powerful, popular and easy for an individual to obtain, so there is value for the student in learning it specifically. At the same time many of the skills required for using it are generalizable to other Web content creation.

A new professor has another concern: intellectual property. This varies from college to college, but UMaine, professors own the content they create. If this is true at your school and you’re not tenured faculty, this could put you in the awkward position of not having access to content you legally own. Learning management systems are closed, hosted environments. Blackboard is especially closed, requiring large annual fees paid by the institution for continued use. What happens to all the content you created there if you go teach at another institution? My personal solution is to use WordPress and the open-source LMS Moodle, hosted on my own server, for my online content. That way my bags are always packed and IP is not an issue.

There are still many more ways that a blog can be useful. PowerPoint is the default method for delivering a presentation. For reasons I’ll get into in another post, PowerPoint is rarely a good choice. What PowerPoint is used for most of the time is to present a set of images in specific sequence, with added text. There are a number of options that will let you do this in WordPress. One advantage here is that since it’s delivered online in a browser, you can present from any computer with an Internet connection. It’s not locked onto the computer it was created on. Since it’s on the web, students can refer back to it, comment and ask questions outside of class.

A blog can turn checks-for-understanding into knowledge building in ways that would be more challenging, if not impossible, without technology. A time-tested activity is to write a paper on a subject. Online there are new ways to approach writing. Instead of individual papers, students can all work on the same document. The blog post would pose a question, and give a set of rules, such as: Research and post a response to the question. Include link to your sources. Each response must include new information and advance the discussion and must have unique links. Respond to at least two other responses. This way students benefit from each other’s research. It may lack depth, but it is great for establishing a wide view of the topic that can then be focused and built-on. It can lead to discussions on what constitutes good research on the Web and how to evaluate information. It also is a body of research that can be used for future classes.

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