BLOG

If I were a student right now, I think I’d have to pick data visualization as my major. Data visualization is the craft of presenting complex data in a comprehensible, visual format. Aaron Koblin’s work is both playful and stunning. (Check out The Johnny Cash Project for a hypnotic taste of a crowd-sourced animation.) Ben Fry’s static illustrations are also worth a peek as is Tableau Software, a data visualization tool for businesses.

If you’ve got any good data viz links up your sleeve, send them my way! I cannot get enough of this stuff.

I went to WordCamp the WordPress conference on Saturday. WordPress powers this blog. Though blogging and technology are slightly off topic for me, I thought some of you might find some of this stuff interesting.

COPYRIGHT NORMS ARE CHANGING
WordCamp panelist Dave Taylor claims ownership of all comments folks leave on his blog. Here’s the text he posts on his site.

“Please note that by submitting a question or comment you’re agreeing to my terms of service, which are: you relinquish any subsequent rights of ownership to your material by submitting it on this site.”

He is taking his lead from FaceBook, the behemoth that claims ownership of all the content people upload to its network. Yes, he says he’s consulted with a lawyer. I think he’s being bold and that this is a fluid, potentially contentious area. It’ll be interesting to see how this stuff pans out, especially if he ever pens (or edits, I should say) a book based on his blog.

DESIGNERS KNOW WHERE IT’S AT
The folks who sat on the Design Panel – Jim Turner, Kevin Conboy and Kevin Menzie – recommended the following sites for when you’re in the need of a hit of visual inspiration. Dribbble, CSSRemix and ZooTool.

COMMENTS DESERVE MODERATION
The first session I attended, Creating a Blog Community, evolved (or devolved depending on your point of view) into a discussion on comment moderation. Most panelists seemed in favor of comment moderation. Fortunately, this blog doesn’t require much moderation (all you who comment here are kind). But if it did, I’d do so without hesitating. I believe it’s up to a blog’s author to set its tone. So does Doyle Albee whose rant about the comments area of my local paper’s website is worth a read.

Ooh! This is fun… a collage machine!

Thanks to my dear friend Katia for the link.

My love affair with the The Sartorialist is over. I deleted photographer Scott Schuman’s blog from my blogroll for posting too many glamorized pictures of cigarettes being smoked and for aggressively moderating anti-smoking comments out of his conversation while allowing pro-”ciggy” voices to hold sway.

There are good arguments both for and against the use of destructive imagery in art (yes, I think glamorized images of smoking are destructive). John H. Richardson’s personal take in, “My History of Violence,” is great and though his focus is on violence his arguments apply to all images that depict self-harm or the harm of others. An excerpt:

When I was a cub reporter starting out at the Albuquerque Tribune, I found a report in the police blotter about a pair of 16-year-old lovers who gassed themselves in a car. I about choked on how great a story it was, did a little reporting, found out they did it in a closed garage and that their bodies were discovered by the very same parents who were trying to split them up. Then I pitched it to my editor. no way, he said. I said, “What? Are you crazy? It’s Romeo and fucking Juliet!” He gave me a sad look. “If I run this story, and give it big play and a nice layout, I guarantee you there will be a copycat suicide. Maybe a bunch of them. Do you want that on your conscience?”

I said, it’s not my responsibility what crazy people do. It’s the truth and that’s what I want to write, the truth. Would you tell Shakespeare to stick to comedies? Would you tell Tolstoy to write Peace and Peace?
…

Somehow, my editor managed to resist my blinding rhetorical onslaught. He didn’t run the piece. And I thought, this little burg is just too small-town for me, baby. These people don’t understand art. They don’t understand transgression. So I went to Hollywood. And just after I got there, some guy made a movie called The Program that had a scene where some kids lay down on a highway divider as a dare—and sure enough, there were copycats out in Pennsylvania who laid their dumb asses down on highway dividers and got squashed. And the studio said, hey, it’s not our responsibility what crazy people do. These people just don’t understand art…”

You can read the whole article on Paste.

Scott Macaulay of Filmmaker magazine has written a bit about film marketing that’s worth a read. His thoughts apply to all largish creative endeavors, not just films. Here are a few excerpts from his current Editor’s Note:

“We are all telling you that you must define your audience, aggregate them, get their email addresses, build a marketing plan and conform to a new orthodoxy that believes that it’s up to the filmmaker to drive the new model that will see a film arrive to audiences’ home screens, desktops and cell phones.

As the Labs progressed throughout the week, I found myself resisting a ‘one size fits all’ pattern of advice, urging each filmmaker to discover what might make their film stand-out in the marketplace and hone a strategy that was unique to them. There was one film, a beautifully executed, small relationship drama, that probably shouldn’t be hyping themselves through endless email blasts; the film will get into a great festival and audiences should feel like they’ve discovered it on their own… On the other hand, there was a powerful social-issue film that needs to target and reach out to audiences who will debate the movie’s topical concerns after the credits roll. Each of these filmmakers shouldn’t try to shoehorn their film into some new conventional wisdom. In other words, nobody knows anything – except, if he or she is very lucky, the filmmaker…”

You can read the whole thing here.

There’s a nice little community of encaustic painters forming on twitter. I joined back in January, totally skeptical, and am now totally hooked. You can find me there @LauraLovesLux & if you’re a painter or a beekeeper or just plain interesting, I’d be delighted to follow you. I like using it as a search engine (smarter, wittier than Google). It’s part oracle, part entertainment broadcast. The term “micro-blogging” doesn’t do it justice. You’ve got to invest some time, a few hours spread over a week or two, before the magic unfolds.

Lisa Sisley-Blinn has done the encaustic world a kindness by compiling a list of artists who tweet. (Thank you, Lisa!) Her blog’s worth checking out too. As is Lorraine Glessner’s who also tweets.

P.S. Bee people to follow… @AFBR (Florida beekeeper, posts photos of bee removals) and @bug_girl (cool links plus entomological snark).

Is Google Earth emerging as a new medium for artists? I think so. Evidence here.

Photo by JR

Surf, encaustic & ink on panel, 5″ x 4″

It’s been a computery few weeks! I’ve been hard at work updating my website. The most exciting addition, I think, is a new gallery labeled “current” at left with 21 new paintings for you to peruse. You’re also invited to check out my new homepage (the image changes whenever you reload) and info about workshops. Phew!

Thanks to my pixel partner, amstec, for so gracefully keeping me in the 21st Century.

Here’s something I thought you might find helpful. It’s a blog assessment flow chart courtesy of the U.S. Air Force. It outlines a simple protocol for handling feedback – both positive and negative – comin’ atcha from the web. I love how it turns a project rife with emotion & complication (managing the online reputation of a business or idea) into a set of clear, tidy actions.

Here’s something fun and cool for those of you into personality quizzes and such. It’s a blog-type analyzer! Insert a URL and it spits out a type. It took about seven seconds to pop this out about mine:

ESTP – The Doers

The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.

Hmm…

My blogging hero, Andrew Sullivan (who blogs faster than the speed of reading), has a great article about why he blogs in this month’s Atlantic.

My favorite quote:

The key to understanding a blog is to realize that it’s a broadcast,
not a publication. If it stops moving, it dies. If it stops paddling,
it sinks.

This is great advice. I’ll never blog at the pace Andrew does but love the inspiration to write more, rougher, faster, stronger.

One of my favorite art blogs is actually a politics blog. It’s Andrew Sullivan’s The Daily Dish published by the Atlantic. He has an eye for the striking & offbeat and regularly posts art-related stuff under the heading “mental health break.”

Today’s treasure is about grass art.

Enjoy!

Wow. Great article about the new Flickr aesthetic in today’s NYTimes.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.

I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.

I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

- Richard Brautigan

Back to Radiohead… There’s a good story about “In Rainbows” in the NYTimes this morning. It includes interviews with the band (including this uncharacteristically exuberant bit about bootlegging from Thom Yorke).

“The first time we ever did ‘All I Need,’ boom! It was up on YouTube,” Mr. Yorke said. “I think it’s fantastic. The instant you finish something, you’re really excited about it, you’re really proud of it, you hope someone’s heard it, and then, by God, they have. It’s O.K. because it’s on a phone or a video recorder. It’s a bogus recording, but the spirit of the song is there, and that’s good. At that stage that’s all you need to worry about.”

Hmm… I love the enthusiasm here. But do the pieces add up? At the risk of sounding change averse I can’t help but ask… Where’s the money? What’s happening to copyright norms? And who benefits from the shift? Established record companies? No. Not much sympathy there. But how about YouTube? Google? Any of the new content distributors with zero invested in creation? You bet.

It’s easy to see why artists love the internet. The ability to self-publish, maintain full control over a creative project and have a direct relationship with one’s readers/viewers/listeners is seductive. But, as money and power accumulate in the the hands of online distributors. As copyright norms shift in a direction that favors their interests over ours…

Well, we’ll see.