Forecasted Shower

Nicole bought us some seriously cute, soft stuff for Abbey through my baby barter deal. And she wanted Peter Gabriel. Very cool.

Speaking of Abbey Grace, my wife's baby shower is coming up this Saturday. We're so excited because of the guest list. Far flung family are flying in, all spending at least one evening with us. Those that are also staying the night are planning a second round, late night party too! I get to be here for that part.

It'll be so fun to get to show off our nursery. We'd bought a whole bunch of the Carter's John Lennon Collection when it was available. Clothes, basinet, blankets, bouncer, playard, crib sheets, frames, bookends, stuffed animals - my wife stashed it away. Then once we were pregnant, we color matched the main colors and I painted the nursery. The sun is on the ceiling circling the ceiling fan with the ceiling and walls a soft sky blue. I painted John Lennon animals and flowers around on the grassy hills, with birds perched above the door and closet. Here's a shot of the crib and some of the painting taken from the rocking chair:

There are more shots in the baby barter deal post. Once Abbey's born, I can tell I'm not going to want to leave her room.

Peace.

SOLD - Peter Gabriel 11/10/09

Impishness On Fire

Last Friday was John T. Unger's birthday. I got this from him that same day, the piece he traded with me for an unframed Robert Johnson. This is Fire Imp #12 in raw steel, cut from scrap metal left over from his firebowls which are in turn made from scrap propane tanks.

I talked about John and the legal battle in which he's engaged. Since then, he's founded Defend Art, an organization designed to help artists nationwide with legal issues both financially and informationally. How cool. Good coming out of a really messed up situation.

If you haven't checked out this post of his, I strongly suggest you do now.

Now.

Peace.

'Tis The Season

As we near my wife's due date, time is getting wacky. It's almost my birthday! Then all the holidays. Man.

Imagine throwing a wedding into the mix?

The fellow up in Canada who has commissioned these pieces is getting married early December. My wife and I got married late December, but we did it in Vegas, baby! He's apparently doing the whole deal as these four are for his groomsmen. How cool! What a neat idea. All get basically the same thing, but personal for them. It adds that edge of thoughtfulness.

I am finding that my Vinyl Art makes for a great gift, for any occasion. People seem to feel much better about splurging on art if it's for a loved one.

I certainly know I'm thinking pretty much only about things to give Abbey once she's born!

Peace.

SOLD - 11/05/09

Show And Tell

http://thegoodfoot.com/gallery/exhibit/43/daniel-edlen

This past weekend, Vinyl Killers 7 was open and is now online. My 5 pieces are still available and can be bought online.

The show looked HUGE! Every year it keeps getting bigger. This year, Jason used my Tom Waits from last year for the poster. Very cool.

The nice thing about these group shows is the new audience that gets exposed to the concept. Recently it's become apparent how helpful taking advantage of every opportunity for exposure can be, online and off. Profiles with online galleries I created long ago have brought new customers while the new video has done the same.

All it takes is one person at a time. I've said that before, but it deserves to be mentioned again. I really don't pay much attention to the ups and downs of the numbers of people following me on various sites. That doesn't have any impact on my business. I sell work to one person at a time. Heck if someone sees my work online somewhere, gets the concept, and moves on, that's great! If they bookmark it, share it, or contact me, even better. But I don't expect people to follow all that I do. That'd take, well, as much time as I take doing it!

So I show you what I do, as I do it, and tell you about what's going on that's relevant. If you get hooked, cool! If you say to yourself, "Hey that's neat!" and think about it months later when figuring out a birthday present, awesome! If you go, "Wow!" and then tell all your friends right then, beautiful!

That's how the ripples spread, and that's how that one person connects. That's how I get to do what I do, that I love SO much. So thank you for what you do that helps. You, one person.

Peace.

THIS Is What It's All About

Here is Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam on "Vs.", received in trade, painted for Nate Anderson of Ear Candy Charity, inspired by a photo by Paul Martin with his blessing. So cool.

Peace.

SOLD - Eddie Vedder 10/30/09

On The Wall

Jon was kind enough to send me a shot of the 4 pieces he commissioned as they hang on his wall. This is a cool layout! It's a nice alternative to the square. Even though it was really hard to sell these, I'm so glad they've found a good home.

I love getting to catch up on the story of my pieces, following them where they go. I've talked about this before, missing out when I consign pieces because I don't know who buys them, or when pieces get bought at charity auctions. But I have been lucky enough to have several owners send me pictures of their Vinyl Art.

If you own one or gave one to someone, I'd love to know what people think, and a picture would be awesome. If you can send one, just email it to me!

Peace.

How Twitter Can Help An Art Business

This video wouldn't have happened without Twitter. Plain and simple.

I've been participating on Twitter for some time now. It's been hit and miss as far as usefulness in the moment. But when it hits, it hits. And the hits are much more fulfilling than a straightforward sale. This post is about some examples of those hits I've had with my Vinyl Art.

For me, my art is largely about the connections I get to make. That's what Twitter is about. Yes, there is the noise in the room there, but if you get good at tuning your twitterstream, you can make some great connections.

I've had several. Some that have ended up with transactions financial, others with transactions social. I've developed a relationship with one of my favorite musicians, Bob Green (@thegrassyknoll), whose music I'd discovered years ago during my lazy college days spent listening to random used CDs. Brilliant stuff. I've communicated friendly-like with Prince Campbell III (@chartreuseb), whose blog blew me away, and he even entered my last Vinyl Art contest. Also, brilliant stuff. I respect these creative people enormously. To have produced the content they have and put it out there, and then to interact with people on a very real level is wonderful.

Then there are those connections that have resulted in both a friendship and a sale. First to mind is the one with Ryan Barton (@RyanBarton). He's the fellow who made this video for me. I won't tell you all the particulars about his generosity, but basically he bought 3 pieces from me after I'd jumped in on Twitter seeing he had bought a print from Hugh MacLeod (@gapingvoid) and was thinking about buying my art next. That's the beauty of Twitter, the evesdropping on relevant conversations that persist as tweets but occur as real-time exchanges.

It is the strange hybrid structure of communication, both asynchronous and synchronous, that allows for more connections and more development and expansion of those connections. It happened with Brian Clark (@Copyblogger) as well. He and I conversed first about @chartreuseb and his blog and the crazy comments they'd gone back a forth with long ago. Then he took a liking to my art, eventually buying 4 pieces, sharing my work with his followers and even writing a blog post suggesting how I could improve my business. It is that building of relationships and the ripples which spread uniquely on Twitter that have added a marvelous dimension to my art business.

I was able to give back to a hero of mine too. After finding David Lynch on Twitter, I was then made aware of his foundation (@DLFTV). They enjoyed my work enough to have me paint Mr. Lynch and then have him autograph the piece for a future auction benefitting the foundation. I then painted Mike Love of the Beach Boys for the same purpose, Love signing the piece at one of the foundation's charity concert.

This connection to reality with Twitter relates to local action as well. I will be having a solo show locally at Bookmans (@bookmans) this winter. This is because of Twitter, as Scott Henderson (@espressojunky) found me there and offered me the idea of a show, and then bought a piece for himself. Further, I was able to learn about Nate Anderson and Ear Candy Charity (@earcandycharity) on Twitter. Nate and I have struck up a relationship and $50 from every piece sold or commissioned at the Bookmans show will go to the charity and their efforts to provide musical instruments to kids music programs.

So I get to give back in a very real way to people not even involved with Twitter due to relationships formed on Twitter. I'd say that's a hit.

Peace.

Yay! I CAN Paint!

I'm still adding more pieces to my redone online gallery, but I'm back to painting too. I've gotten some really cool commissions, and I'm excited to get to them!

I feel so lucky that I CAN paint. Not that I have the skill, but I have the opportunity and wherewithall. This is thanks to my support system, primarily my wife, now in her 3rd trimester (http://tinyurl.com/VAbaby). To have such support is incredible.

This piece is Robert Johnson. I'm trading it to my friend John T. Unger. He has a place in my "Online Motivation" list to your right in the sidebar. If you haven't checked out his article about life and death, do. It's insanely inspiring.

I'm trading this piece to John because, 1) I like him and want him to have at least one of my pieces and 2) he needs financial and moral support. A used car salesman has ripped off his designs and then had the gall to sue HIM to overturn his copyrights for his Artisanal Firebowls. The legal fees could bankrupt John, but his attitude is so amazing (see the article he wrote, really) that he's fighting back with creativity. He's taking the scrap metal from the already scrap metal he uses for his firebowls to make whimsical small sculptures he's calling Fire Imps.

Here's the one I'm getting: http://www.flickr.com/photos/johntunger/3948843548/in/set-72157622441515552/

This afternoon, he's finally released the info about the lawsuit, having been advised by his lawyer heretofore to stay mum.

Here's his article about the situation along with how you can help: http://www.johntunger.com/legal-defense-fund.html

I hope you'll take a moment to check out his work and see if you might like a piece of his, or if you'll be moved enough to share the story with others. I know I was.

Peace.

Traded - Robert Johnson 10/26/09

Can I Paint Again Yet?

Whew! What a week!

I got it done though. My new gallery!

http://www.vinylart.info/why.htm

This is just in time, because that video I talked about a little bit ago is done too! It turned out amazingly! I'm so proud of it. Ryan at http://rhynomarketing.com did such a good job.

I've embedded it on my "About Me/An Introduction" page. If you want to see it in high quality, you can go straight to YouTube. Then if it doesn't start in HQ, you can click the HQ button in the bottom right of the video box. It'll take a bit longer to load, but the paintings look way better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjagBX3VFug

I also sent out my email newsletter this morning. Baby and Bookmans news were the main topics. Good stuff. If you'd like to be included in my mailing list, just email me and let me know!

http://www.vinylart.info/press.htm

Have a good weekend! I'll be back to painting next week. Some cool commissions.

Peace.

Under Construction; No Dust

The nice thing about having a virtual gallery, instead of one made of brick and mortar, is redoing it doesn't require closing up shop during construction. Handy.

In my last post, I introduced new genre labels for my blog posts. This week I'm going to revamp my main site gallery to be more user-friendly. Each piece is going to have its own page, bookmarkable and shareable. The pieces are going to be the actual pieces, instead of representative images. And they are going to be organized both alphabetically and by genre. Cool.

I realized after creating the blog post genre labels that I have enough pieces to do this now. The gallery will have the pieces listed for sale with PayPal "Buy Now" buttons, or will show the pieces as on consignment or sold. This'll make it much easier to tell people which pieces are on your wish list. Nice.

I'll be letting my newsletter subscribers know first when the change goes live, along with some other cool personal and art-related news. If you're not on my list, you can simply email me at the address above and let me know! Easy.

Peace.

Nina Simone 10/19/09