Forming a new approach to my Twitter content with a touch more color and character for me.
As I am in the baby stages of learning about twitter I have found myself a little over-whelmed, over-worked and over-tweeted. What do we do with all these words out there floating about?
My suspicions about twitter were confirmed this week when I read in an article that it really does not matter what people tweet about, it is more how prolific and often they do it that makes it an effective marketing strategy. I also suspect that no one has time to read everyone else’s tweets once the number of followers you have starts rising above three figures. I am capable of only reading a page or two each time I tweet and that is on a good day.
Not being the kind that is able to tweet about each moment of my day and remain stimulated (my day is not that interesting), I wondered how I can come up with interesting content with each new tweet. Plus I find it difficult to stop/pause from making my art so I can tweet every couple of hours. Doing this I loose focus on the painting and precious work time. So why bother. I bother because I want to get my work out there to another audience, to people who would not ordinarily have access to my art. I want to try a different way of marketing my painting and prints that is separate from the gallery system.
I thought “Yeh, I could just keep saying stuff like ‘just had a great cup of coffee’, ‘made a great painting’ that is fine” but I can’t do that all the time. I need a greater reason d’être.
How do I remain stimulated by my own tweets, even when I cannot be sure that anyone beyond me is actually going to be reading them? Then I think well even if only one person does maybe I could make it good for them and me. So, how can I make this a worth while experience for all? Being a parent my other dilemma is that I am always pushed for my own reading time. I have bookshelves starting to groan and form gaps in their joins from books unopened but purchased in optimistic moments.
My tweet idea is starting to take form. Decided that I will tweet the books I have been wanting and needing to read for ever. This way I get to read them and any of my lovely followers who happens upon one of my tweets can learn something new, think that they might like to read that book or just be satisfied that I am a bit of nerd who has a pretty dull life and is pushed for time. Not that I am going to be completely abandoning any future reference to my daily goings on, I just want to kill two tweets with the one stone, so to speak.
The SmartArtFineArt Tweets take a new shape. Hopefully one with a bit more color, interest and veracity. Today I am going to start telling the ‘WAYS OF SEEING’ by John Berger. I have a little paperback version and read bits of this before but never really sunk my teeth into it. Now I face my first hurdle. Do I begin with the ‘Note to the reader’ or go straight to Chapter 1. I am reading in the ‘Note to the Reader’ that the book has come from television series of the same title. The copyright date is 1972. Mmmm this is either going to be totally hilarious or dry as chips. Either way it is a bit of an adventure and I know I will discover something new from it.
You can go to my tweets to see where we go from here.
http://twitter.com/smartartfineart
Busy with New paintings to finish and stretch up.
Had a great fake bake-off this morning. Stuck for play lunch ideas for Os and Holly. When no one was looking, I reached for a Packet of Basic Vanilla Cake Mix (I know, totally shameless). Idea went like this; I’ll balance out the rubbish ingredients with something good. So I mixed it up as instructed on the box then added one carrot and one apple, grated. I would have added something like currents or sultanas but small dark things in food would be pushing it too far in this house. Needed cooking for a couple minutes more than suggested then abracadabra we have a half healthy half junk food cake. Will ice with a cream cheese number or just plain lemon icing, depends if I remember to get cream cheese on the way back from the studio. Time to make Art now. Can go off to the studio and paint with a guilt free conscience. Maternal Kharmic points – way ahead for once. Hooray.
Most recent addition to Etsy Gallery: 
Just found this great quote “No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time. It is just that the others are behind the time”. Martha Graham. So when you are not selling paintings and it seems like no one wants to even see your art you can take comfort in the ‘fact’ that you may be a genius of the future. Thanks Martha, but a glass or two of wine has a similar effect.
The scene is becoming more ominous. Signs at the cliff warn ‘Sharks may be present in the waters of this area following a recent deceased blue whale washing ashore’ and of course there have never been sharks in these waters before? The Stink makes Werribee Sewerage plant smell like Chanel. Then there is our poor old blue whale’s deflated beige corpse. Stranded and beige a depressing situation for death and a dreary description. There is no doubt that at some point the sharks have had a nibble, there are distinct bites out of the tail and some chunks along the side but I am pretty sure those were there last week. The gnawing along the tail was definitely there at Easter. I am not too sure if the sharks would brave the shallow rock reefs at high tide for a bite. I think they would prefer to wait for easier game attracted by the deathly stench.
I met some surfers checking the waves from the cliff. They were not in a hurry to go in. Perhaps the warning signs in the car park? I quizzed them and was told that a paddle-boarder (guy on surf board with a long stick) had been ‘chased in’ by a ‘big shark’ during the week. Unfortunately they could not tell me what ‘BIG’ actually measured but suffice to say they were not eager for surf at this beach. They were heading to Kerrygreen a few points west of Cyril’s beach. Not quite enough points away for my liking.
It has also been rumored that the cause of death may have been a large ship in the Bass Straight area and that the ship needed to be docked for repairs. Not sure how realistic the repairs element is as a whale is pretty soft and fleshy, a ship hard pointy metal, I know which one would come off second best. Do not think the ship would suffer much. However it does typify the important aspect of increased ship activity and its effect on our environment. There is a greater need to consider the safety of these vulnerable rare species. It is not the first time this has happened in this busy shipping stretch of water. Whales as ship route kill, not good. What is being done to prevent this happening?
Not quite sure what will happen to our whale now. Is it destined to rot where it is? Will the tide eventually wash it to another shore, then another and another again?
After my visit to the MOMA at Heide exhibition on Australian Art and Cubism I have been thinking about my own art. How has this movement influenced my artwork and painting? ‘Influence’ seems such a powerful authoritarian kind of term. I feel like I have had more of an ongoing conversation with the Cubists as well as just about every possible art movement. If cubism had not occurred then Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, Futurism, Color field Painting, Abstract Expressionism, Pop, Op and every other art movement beyond post-modernism would not have occurred in the manner that they did.
Direct connections to cubism in my own painting journey exists as I sailed the artists rights of passage through cubist figure drawing, then breaking down volume and form into a series of interconnected picture plains and sticking train tickets and everyday objects into drawing to break the space and content. My artistic travels around the mysteries of 3D space on a 2D plane are a continual chat with Uncle Cubism (I refer to the cubists as Uncle not because I am sexist, but because the Cubists that we hear about were chiefly men).
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Like all starry eyed artists as I continue my journey and dialogue with the ancestors of art, the influence of one movement over another becomes less coherent. As fickle as it sounds, the discussions I choose to have with the past are based on what is needed for my own journey of creation.
Actually I conduct regular tête-à-têtes with Cubists and their off spring. But my conversations divert from Uncle Cubism when it comes to content. The content in my paintings is never about just one thing. Don’t get me wrong I am not positioning myself above the ancestors. I do not think Uncle Cubists work was one dimensional but there was a predominate interested in the challenge of space in the picture plane. This was of the time and necessary. We have seen much since and I am still interested in this challenge however I am also interested in other visual issues and subjects. But that being said whenever I go about organizing and beginning an artwork, there is at all times Uncle Cubist looking over my shoulder.
You can look at my artwork on Etsy by clicking on any of the paintings on the left that you see.
Feel free to make a comment on your experience of art and life.
Had a great day yesterday something for everyone. Started at Science works for Oscar and Holly. Bustling with the holiday crowd but still terrific fun. My guys spent ages building the brick wall with about twenty other children who had never met before but just started working together in total cooperation. Amazing, if only this would occur naturally at about 6pm each evening instead of the social stand off that so often occurs. I was quite surprised that Oscar at 8 was still so into this activity. We then went on to race Cathy Freeman. Play goalie in 3D for Australia defending against Scotland or England, we were undecided about which team the opposition actually was. Score the gymnastic skills of child acrobats and tried to solve the mysterious design of key bridges and pulleys. Intellectually challenged (me that is) and starving we ventured to the promised Horrid Hungry Jacks for lunch (eventually at 3pm after getting lost getting off the Eastern Freeway). This was all part of the bargain as I selfishly wanted to catch the ‘Cubism & Australian Art’ Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art at Heide. Gorgeous show well worth a look but as usual I got there on the second last day so you won’t have much time.
The curator responsible for putting the show together would have had a difficult task because it is hard to imagine many Australian Artists who have not been influenced or had some kind of relationship to cubism in their painting and artworks.
I was quite astonished as the kids really enjoyed the exhibit too. Even without the activity sheets for children Heide had organized which they eventually took to. Thank you Heide the sheet was well worth it. It was fantastic as I was able to see most of the show before my children idle and bored had the chance to design other forms of entertainment like running into sculptures and discovering what happens when actually do touch a painting. Hiding from Mum in the sculpture garden was a pretty healthy way to finish off the day. Sensational day. Oscar gave it 8/10, Holly 9/10. I gave it 10/10.
And as a catch up on the Whale watch. I am heading back to Flinders today/tomorrow and if I can brave the stench will check up on the poor old beached whale. Apparently forensics have been in and to my great excitement signs have been placed warning surfers and divers about the increased number of sharks in the vicinity due to the rotting carcass. Apparently great whites like a nibble of dead blue whale carcass when it’s in season. Yum. I find it hard to imagine the surfers etc., not being put off by the stink or the whale flesh floating by, but hey I don’t surf.
Look what we found today at Cyril’s beach at Flinders, Australia. It is huge. Much bigger than the photos show.
We think it could be an Albino Blue Whale but that is to be verified. STINKS like Satan. My son nearly vomited. We are now busy wondering how the poor thing died.
May not have much to so with art right now but a pretty amazing find and bound to be a source of inspiration at some point soon.
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