On This Lost Highway
Mood
Amused
I've been updating Graphica recently. Fixed all the images to make them large enough for the layout and high quality besides, and fixed the comments to display properly. Out of curiosity I checked where I was getting hits from recently and found that this photo of our broken down car was at the time of this posting the number one hit on google for car broke down on highway pic. Looks like our little Honda Civic was briefly the stuff of legend.
Posted by Bitsy at 12:31 PM | Comments (0)
You're Just Another Priceless Work of Art
Mood
Angry
My husband works at an Art Gallery part time, part of the agreement with the hours he sits is that he gets to hang his work there and have it be seen at openings and sell at 100% comission. Pretty sweet deal. It's a new gallery and the first opening came and went without a hitch. The artist that hung in the first room left (he actually sold several of his pieces and was now moving to a different gallery to get different exposure). So the guy that was in the back room expanded to the front room.
He just kept bringing in more and more work and without asking anybody just started hanging stuff EVERYWHERE. The back room was pretty bad already, he obviously had never hung before and his stuff was horribly spaced, he hung stuff in front of windows to block the sunlight, and hung pieces that were too big for walls so they stuck out on either side. His labels were all wrong and badly placed as well. Now there was stuff all over the front room, just leaning against the walls in the archways between rooms (um, fire hazard?) sitting on easels (sometimes completely crookedly, one was on a broken easel that couldn't stay level) in the middle of the room and hanging from the ceiling in the middle of what little walking space is left. The place looked nice and professional before and now it looks cheap and poorly run.
He then TOOK DOWN my husbands work to hang more stuff there, and hung all around a glass art sculpture that was off in a corner by itself, totally ruining the beauty of it's shadows and making it impossible to appreciate the work out of context of the surrounding paintings. The other painter from the front room took his work and left and the glass sculpture artist took most of his stuff and left.
And now, in this little art gallery there are 56 pieces of art work! More then there had been when there were five artists hanging. To get an idea of the kind of space you should have my husband hangs art shows for the local college, he has hung 20+ shows and is really good at what he does, he recently did an art show for the college that had about 50 pieces total hung in a space about four times as large as the art gallery's and it looked GOOD.
The thing with this artist is, not only does he hang every single thing he's ever painted without even asking anyone, but most of it is CRAP. The canvas is showing through where he sloppily didn't bother to cover, he works really diligently on patterns and layers until a certain point on the canvas and then just gives up and sloppily fills in the rest, and you can clearly see where he paints over mistakes. Some of his stuff is really good and if he had stuck with his good pieces it would be great, but instead all of it is there, and most of it is more the miss then the hit if you know what I mean.
He was learning what his style was going to be, he was experimenting and really unfocused, like he didn't know what he wanted to say with his work. You shouldn't be showing that until the end of your career if you are interested in doing one of those retrospective art openings. In his older stuff he painted hearts like a elementary school kid would paint, and stars similarly, and one piece that just looked like, "I have a bunch of left over paint and there isn't enough left to be worth keeping let's just throw it all on here" complete with paint that clearly wasn't mixed or aired properly. It looks like a canvas he literaly used to wipe his brushes on when he was done with other pieces.
An art showing is supposed to be about themed recent work with a message or a meaning or that convey an emotion, most other artists keep it concisive and clear, less is more, you only have a limited amount of time to say what you are trying to say and you can't use words to do it. (And, by the way, artists that do tick me off. I do not understand the purpose of painting words on your pieces. I got it the first time without having you spell it out for me, thanks. Or, if the word wasn't there and I wouldn't have gotten it without it then perhaps you should have gone for something different that conveys things better. My personal opinion. That kind of stuff in an art gallery looks kiddie.)
So, in the end, all this guy is doing is throwing everything he's ever painted out there, run out a bunch of other artists and was really just whoring himself out to get as much sold as possible, that's all he cared about, not about the art but about using the gallery like some sort of flea market. His prices were outrageous, several thousand for a piece, and he had gaudy ads in the window (think supermarket ads) and balloons everywhere trying to get people to come when it was time for the opening. He even had "certificates of authenticity" made for his pieces to ensure that this was really his authentic work painted by him. To understand the hubris of something like this, normally that's only done by artists that sell in the hundereds of thousands.
He sold two pieces at silent auction for $150 a piece. That's it. And, now it's nearly a week after the art opening, his stuff is still everywhere and my husband's stuff is still stowed in a closet. What about his employment agreement? My husband's talked to the gallery owner but she is just bewildered and a little nervous about the guy and doesn't want to confront him since he did everything for the last art opening (advertising, music, food) and she feels she owes him now. It's just so frustrating.
She's in talks to get more artists to come hang their work, but I have no idea how she is going to do that until she gets more space for that to happen in. And, I have no idea how she's going to be successful after she so royally fucked over all of her current artists. Word gets around you know. I keep telling my husband to quit, that there are other galleries looking for artists but he won't hear of it, yet. He's entirely too good intentioned sometimes.
Well, maybe not entirely, I brought him lunch yesterday at the gallery (he doesn't get a lunch break) and two guys came in that claimed they were "friends of the artist". They laughed at some of the pieces, made the ones suspended from the ceiling swing back and forth to "see if it would spin" and kept messing with the easels and the pieces in them including shoving the pieces back and forth on them without loosening the clamp in an attempt "to straighten them". Normally my husband would stomp all over that kind of behavior and have kicked them out but he just sat back and smiled.
Posted by Bitsy at 02:15 PM | Comments (0)
The Love Bug Will Bite You
Mood
Sore
Bugs really like me. I didn't have bug spray when I was down in St. Louis in the height of summer and got 25 bug bites. Big ones too, caused one whole knee to become a huge bruise and it hurt to flex and others scarred all down my legs. Yesterday I went for a walk with my husband in the park and got bitten just under my eye and this morning it was all swollen, and it looked like I had a black eye, even dark like one.
We went out to have some McDonalds for lunch and people were staring at me and glaring at my husband! I'm used to getting funny looks when we're out together, especially if we hold hands or kiss in public because, even though I'm a few months shy of 24, I look 16, and my husband who is a few months younger then me looks about 28-29. I've had teachers, co-workers, bosses and clergy pull me aside and ask how old my husband was when they meet him and if I was doing okay! I'm not used to people glaring at him though and I was half worried about what either of us would say if confronted. "Oh, don't look at my husband like that, I'm the cradle robber here. And, it's just a bug bite, you can't see it for the swelling!" Like that's going to be believable, even if it's true.
I think I'm just going to lay low and keep dosed up on antihystamines and hydrocortozone cream until this goes away.
Posted by Bitsy at 12:03 PM | Comments (1)
Blue Flower
Mood
Tired
It's been months since I've posted any desktop wallpapers that I've made and yet I've still been churning them out. Seems silly not to share them, I just seem to enjoy the making of them more then the posting of them! These three wallpapers are all based on the same image.
The image was one that I took using the fancy schmancy Canon EOS 20D mentioned previously. I went to a nearby public garden and greenhouse and took this picture of a small blue flower found in the greenhouse.
I manipulated it three ways, one was a simple soft focus on the flower and blur on the background, one was a paint effect on the background, and the last one (my favorite, and the one I'm currently using) features a stained glass type look on the background. All three feature a box to hold your icons.
Blue Flower - Blur
+ 800 x 600
+ 1024 x 768
+ 1280 x 1024
Blue Flower - Paint
+ 800 x 600
+ 1024 x 768
+ 1280 x 1024
Blue Flower - Stained Glass
+ 800 x 600
+ 1024 x 768
+ 1280 x 1024
Now in three sizes since I'm currently using a 1280 x 1024 resolution due to the new monitor.
Posted by Bitsy at 02:03 AM | Comments (0)
We're Not a Threat
Mood
Nervous
So I decided to get back into blogging regularly again. While sitting and trying to think of something interesting that happened to me recently (nothing) or at least within the last few weeks (nothing) I decided to go back to nearly a month ago. Which was the last time something interesting went down.
During the first weekend of October my husband, my brother-in-law and myself headed downtown to check out the art museum. When you are married to an art major you normally find yourself in an art museum of some form on a distrubingly regular basis.
On that particular weekend I wasn't sure if I just hadn't walked the streets of Chicago in a long time or if the terror alert level got upped and I didn't know it. There were people from homeland security, cops and FBI agents everywhere. There wasn't a street corner we passed that didn't have someone official looking in the vicinity.
My husband (who is a photographer) stopped at one point on our way to the Art Institute to take a picture of a building that was reflecting another building in a really cool way.
Almost immediately a guy in a suit with some sort of tag on his lapel, though I didn't get a good look at it, was on us, my first thought was that he must be from some security detail, or maybe even homeland security. Homeland security's offices in chicago was only a few blocks away. He demanded that we tell him what he took a picture of, was it that building (he pointed), and why he took the picture, to which my husband guilessly replies, "Um...", "Uh-huh", and "Because it looks cool" respectively. I love him, but the boy is not that quick on the uptake sometimes.
The suit then looks at my husband (long hair, miss-matched clothes - we've only been married a year and I've already given up), my brother in law (dressed head to toe in black with a pagan symbol around his neck), and me (wearing quasi-professional clothes if you ignore the tennis shoes and the fact that I'm snapping gum).
Apparently we weren't a threat. So he ordered us to move along (like we were going to stick around in sixty degree weather) and left. Apparently we weren't terrorist material.
We also must look flat broke because after walking two and half miles in downtown chicago we didn't get hit up for money once. I'm not sure whether to be relieved or insulted.
My husband and bro-in-law were not convinced the guy was even legit. Which might also explain the cavalier replies. They just thought it was some random crazy guy getting upity for no reason. Though the last time I checked the crazies didn't wear suits with official looking tags clipped to their lapel.
By the way, I was not quite sure if the building we took a picture of was the building that the homeland security guy thought we were taking a picture of. The building he was pointing to was either the one on the right or further to the right then that. The one we took a picture of was pretty far away and wedged between two other buildings, and we only got a very small angle of it.
He seemed very busy and like he had more important things to do then talk to a bunch of twenty-somethings (which he probably did) so he left in too much of a hurry for us to know one way or the other. I'm not sure if he would have told us anything anyway, and might have preceived questions as threatening. Also, to let you know, the guy on the cell phone was not homeland security guy.
The camera itself was a pretty high quality camera, and I at least think it's intimidating. It was a Canon EOS 20D with a sticker price of roughly $1,000. It wasn't your run of the mill tourist camera. No, of course it wasn't ours! My husband signed it out at the college he goes to. We also took the picture from behind some trees in a little park area along the river. We didn't want to have to walk half a black out of our way to get a clear shot at the building. So, hey, maybe we were acting suspicious from an outsiders point of view. Even if the guy was some nut on security detail it was still a wake up call about the times we are now living in that you can't get from a news article or from a bert and ernie terror level rating.
Posted by Bitsy at 06:35 PM | Comments (0)
Dead Blog
Mood
Cranky
At the risk of sounding like I whine a lot, I'm going to whine.
This blog has been dead for entirely too long, as it is the main site and the place my domain links to I feel like I should do more with it. I really enjoy blogging when I can just chat about my day, or about the news, or whatever, but I just haven't felt any sort of urge to blog at all for simply months now.
So, I guess what I'm saying is I want to use this blog more but I don't know what to write about in it. (Aside from whining, that I can do easily and endlessly but I figure you lot wouldn't appreciate it.)
I haven't written anything at all either, story, poem or otherwise. Just the stuff for Somnium which I actually update on a regular basis. I also tend to get 50 hits a day with 100's of page views on that site, so that might have something to do with it.
I also would like to implement a link blog, but I'm not sure how I want to go about it. New tab on the main blog? I mainly want to do that because I want to learn about tags. (The same way I created a video blog to learn about embedded media, and a photo blog to learn about nested categories and sims 2 blog to learn about overlib pop-ups, and a book blog to learn about using amazon's xml feeds, yeah there's a pattern of abuse here.) Result? Five fantastic sites, well six, four of which haven't been updated since last year.
Promptu, the sixth, is forcing me to learn about faceted categories and I am currently very upset with the site because I can't make it do what I want it to do. I want three main categories (projects, stories, photos), I want sub categories of bi-months for the first two and maybe weeks for the last, and I want it to display entries under that of the submissions only and I can't make it do it with the current set up, so I have to start from scratch. I am actually concerned that I might not be able to do it at all unless I create three seperate sites and then php include them into the layout. Bleh.
My back-end is already un-wieldy. Does it make sense that I offer spell checking and the ability to make things bold and italic and insert links really easily to you shmoes in the comments and I can't do it myself? Stupid MT non-standards-compliant perl interface.
No, I'm not leaving MT. That smacks too much of work. The only interface I would ever change to would be one I write myself.
Note to Self: Get the damn keywords/emoticon thing fixed. That was probably another reason I haven't updated.
Posted by Bitsy at 10:31 AM | Comments (1)
New Reason to Use CoinStar
Mood
Impressed
My mother has always touted the merits behind saving your loose change. Several times a year my brothers and I would sit at the kitchen table and help her roll her pennies and nickles, dimes and quarters which she would then cash in at the bank.
When Coinstar came out she frowned on it because it scraped 8.9 percent off of the total as a service fee. She would rather do all the work herself and get 100 percent of the profits.
Well, Amazon.com has just taken away one of mom's complaints. You can now turn in your loose change at a local CoinStar and get back 100 percent of the profits in the form of an online gift certificate for Amazon.com.
Hoping to scrounge market share from America's couch cushions, the world's biggest online retailer just launched a partnership to offer Amazon gift certificates at thousands of change-counting machines operated by Coinstar Inc.Chicago Tribune - Coinstar partnership turns loose change into gift certificates
The deal allows Coinstar customers to instantly receive an Amazon gift certificate for the amount of change they dump into a green Coinstar machine, eliminating the 8.9 percent service fee. It's available at 3,500 machines in the United States--including 235 in Chicago, mostly at Cub Foods, Jewel and Osco stores.
Amazon is aiming for the youth market and the market of adults that don't have credit cards with this venture. It allows anyone with loose change to make a purchase at Amazon.com, and that figure encompasses just about everybody.
Although Amazon accepts payment by check, the process can be cumbersome and time consuming. It does not accept cash, which makes it tougher for teens to buy at Amazon the way they can at the mall. Amazon's partnership with Coinstar gives the online retailer a way to reach into teens' pockets, but it may lack the instant gratification some seek.Chicago Tribune - Coinstar partnership turns loose change into gift certificates
The only other downer to this venture is that a purchase can incur shipping fees. You don't have to face this obstacle if you manage to find a machine that has offers from some of the other businesses Coinstar has struck a deal with.
Coinstar has struck similar arrangements with Starbucks Corp., Pier 1 Imports Inc., Hollywood Video and Linens 'n Things Inc., in which Coinstar customers exchange their change at certain machines for retailers' gift cards.Chicago Tribune - Coinstar partnership turns loose change into gift certificates
Though, I'm not sure if you get back 100 percent of your cash with those businesses. I also discovered that, along with pennies, nickles, dimes, and quarters, some machines are now accepting bills, which can really help things add up. Apparently my mom isn't the only one counting pennies:
Coinstar estimates the Chicago area has approximately $311 million in loose change sitting "idle" in homes.Chicago Tribune - Coinstar partnership turns loose change into gift certificates
"Americans are notorious coin hoarders," Rowan said.
Average household stash: $99, according to Coinstar.
"I'm not sure it moves the needle in terms of Amazon's income statement quarter to quarter, but it's a creative way to add new customers in what is a fairly mature market," said Scott Devitt, an analyst with Legg Mason.
This definitely makes Coinstar actually worth using, in my opinion.
Posted by Bitsy at 12:38 PM | Comments (1)