The Art of Blogging

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Each day begins with a new challenge and no matter what we think or tell ourselves, no matter how well we have planned for the day’s events, there is always the unknown waiting around the corner, such that we cannot know how the day will end. Indeed, we annot even know what thoughts will come into our minds, what pictures we may draw,what music we may create or even what dreams we may have. Change happening within and around us is always bringing the unknown to the forefront of our lives. Storms may loom over the horizon. It may rain or there may be sunshine today. All may be well or there may be an accident requiring attention or a rush to the hospital. One may slip and fall or while browsing the Internet discover a new friend who will come into and change your life. Or someone from the past may come into your life and bring new joy or sadness. What each day will bring certainly is unknown, even to the best of planners. Though we may endeavor to build pyramids or skyscrapers, the dessert sands and blowing winds will bring them to crumble in time or some terrorist may fly and airplane into your Twin Towers, set it aflame and bring it falling to the ground in a cloud of dust and smoke.

The future is, indeed, unknown and the unknown presents a challenge. How we deal with and cope with the unknown determines to a large degree how successful will be our lives. Thus each day brings new opportunity for success or failure. Yet if each failure is viewed as a learning process and build upon, even failure may lead to tomorrow’s success.

This, then, is one of my philosophies of life, that one learns from experience,from experiment, and that through observation, trial and error, repeat of effort, and sheer determination, success always follows. It is only when one gives up that failure is the result. For example, if a design I create today does not make a profit, it does not mean it is not a good design. Likely as not the design simply was not marketed properly, was not put out into the public where enough people could see it or perhaps was not the right color, did not use the right type font, or even would have done better if a different combination of graphics, photography, art and/or slogan were used. Thus what works or does not work with respect to any design becomes a matter of experiment. A given design concept may have infinite variations and the challenge for the designer is to select a variation which will be most popular, should profit be one’s goals and a measure of success.

Of course profit is not always the singular goal. Quite often an artist produces work to promote an idea or a cause, to make people aware, say of breast cancer or heart disease, of the victims of a hurricane or tsunami. Also art may be created simply as a form of self expression, as a thing of beauty or emotional outpouring. Art may even be created without any intention other than to be involved in the process for this what one enjoys doing. In fact, I often find myself creating art, writing poetry, penning a song or muse, even composing a blog, as the creative process is a strong force which guides my life, that often I am compelled to paint, to draw, to write, to see a vision and reflect it in the form of art or poetry. At times it seems life art is life and life is art, which is why I adopted this
as the slogan for my domain, Byteland, at http://www.byteland.org.

Certainly the idea that Art is Life and Life is Art or vice versa that Life is Art and Art is Life, most appropriately expresses my view of the creative process and the fact that as a creative intellect all the thoughts and feelings within which make me the person that I am pour forth through the art I create. Thus profit is not the primary motive behind any art which I may produce; the primary motive is the creation of art itself, of poetry, of music, of dance or of any other form of artistic expression. The art which I produce is a reflection of my life experience. The fact any particular work of art may be marketed to make a profit is merely a necessary consequence of someone having to eat that I not be a starving artist.

With this said I would like to go on record as saying that any art works displayed or posted in this blog are NOT so posted with the primary motive of marketing my work but are posted to share my expression and life experience with others. After all, I am an artist, I am a poet, and it would be a form of exploitation and/or censorship for anyone to suggest that I can not exhibit the products of my mind in any particular media, for doing so would be to create a market place which would somehow dimenish the value or experience of that media for others. This is a preposterous proposition, given that in this day and age all most successful media do some form of advertising and marketing to be able to profit and generate an income that they may survive and be successful themselves. The rational for any media not wanting creative artists to publish their wares freely relates to the fact that those who own and produce media want to retain power and control, want to keep all the profits for themselves, through the sale of advertising, so believe this is best done by prohibiting users from doing any form of marketing.

As a creative artist I run into this obstacle all the time. If a newspaper or magazine does a story about my art work which will help sale advertising and copies of their publication, often it is their “policy” not to mention where people can contact me to purchase the art that I create. The media wants the benefit from my story, but not to enable me to share in the profits. Somehow the perception is that the artist would not then buy advertising or that people would not purchase publications as they would be spending all their money buying art. Yet this assumption is not backed up by facts. It is perhaps more likely that any publication would make a greater profit by a concerted effort to help artist market their wares, as then they would be providing a greater service to the community and more people would benefit from the publication.

This applied not only to traditional media like newspapers and magazines, but to publishers of blogs. A service like BlogSpot.com is providing a great benefit by publishing blogs, as this stimulates the creative process. There should be no prohibitions in this regard to permitting such creative persons from marketing their art, be it graphics, poetry, music or some other form of artistic expression. Artists should be permitted to link to their on-line art galleries, emporiums or stores without any prohibition from blog publishers. Otherwise artists end up being starving artist and cannot surviv to produce creative expressions which benefit blog publishers through other marketing their may do
of their services.

This topic has come to mind given the fact that I am an artist and my life is ART. I cannot reflect my life experience without exhibiting my art. And because I market my art it would be a lie to exhibit my art and say it is not for sale. Of course the fact that I exhibit my art does not mean people buy it. In fact many of my works of art have never found a buyer. This is especially true of abstract designs and morphic art. I believe the reason for this is that I am ahead of the times -- two or three hundred years from now people will buy my abstract and morphic art creations like they do a Vincint van Gogh or Picasso. But because I am a relatively unknown artist living in a world of over six billion people, with an exploding population, the majority of which is economically depressed, those who are rich enough to purchase my art do not even know I exist. Therefore that work for which I will be most famous after my death is unknown and goes without a buyer. This is the irony of all great artists, they are not famous until after they die and therefore they live lives of deprivation, often starving in the process, their work often suffering as a result.

How can the problem of the starving artist be solved? What is the solution? One solution is to make art work available through mass marketing to more people at a lower cost. This process really began with the invention of the mold, such that items like coins could be mass produced, coins being a form of art as well as a form of monetary exchange. When governments realized that they could use art in the form of minted coins made from molds to make a profit, they took control of the process and made it illegal for artist to mint money of the same form that the governments establish as their media of exchange. This tradition continues until this day. It is illegal for artists to print state money, as this would be considered counterfeit. But you can create your own coin or your own money and market it as a work of art. Quite often this is done and is certainly a way artists can extend their markets and profit from the masses.

There are many ways art may be mass marketed. Production of jewelry is certainly a good market, as is any form of art that can be printed and mass produced. The invention of the printing process, through the making of woodcuts and lithography, enabled the artist to make his work available to a larger number of people than could be done through the production of singular items. One of the oldest forms of printing, screen printing, certainly is a way art can be produced and made available to the masses. The Chinese discovered this long before printing presses were invented in western Europe. The benefit of using such printing processes to market art certainly continues today. With the advent of photography and computers, artist may now easily mass produce their creative expressions upon a host of items which may be marketed to the masses, that artists everywhere may more easily profit from their work.

Yet just because a technology exists does not make it easy to market a design. I’ve created over 2,000 designs since joining Cafepress.com and posted these in the Byteland Art Gallery at http://www.cafepress.com/bytelandart.

Yet the majority of consumers do not frequent on-line shops and stores as their primary method of shopping. People buy most of their wares in traditional market places such as shops, stores and malls. Certainly Wal-mart sales more T-shirts in a day than do I using Cafepress.com. Therefore if I could get my designs items in a big chain of stores like Wal-mart, it would boost my sales tremendously. Should anyone become aware of my work and want to help me in this regard, it would certainly be appreciated!

I would also like for my designs to be featured upon fabric and used to make clothes. I believe this represents a tremendous profit potential for a company. In fact I have calculated that a company could make hundreds of millions of dollars marking design items I have produced which are already available. You figure I’ve produced over 2,000 designs that can be marketed upon any number of products. Through Cafepress.com I am marketing designs upon about 70 products. Thus 70 x 2000 = 140,000 design items. If each item sales for an average of only 10.00, this is a potential of 10 x 140,000 = $1,400,000. However, if each item were made available in traditional shops and stores where people do the majority of their shopping, then it is reasonable predict that any singular item would sale at least 100 to 1,000 items, easily. This would yield a potential profit of $140,000,000 to $1,400,000,000 over a period of time! Thus investment in my existing line of designs would certainly represent a great potential profit for any large company that has the means to mass produce and market my design items. In such a deal I’d be happy with 20% to 30% of the profits. Should anyone wish to help me in these regard, please feel free to contact me as this represents a great income opportunity for the right company.

The fact that what I say is true is born out by the profits that Cafepress.com is making. This company is making over a billion dollars a year off the work of other artists. Artists associated with Cafepress.com are making only a small percentage of profits. Certainly each artist would be better off by having their own production factories or extending their outlets to a greater number of companies to produce and distribute their wares. That is exactly what I wish to do with my most popular design items. If fact, I would welcome the opportunity to establish relationships with companies which would like to market my designs upon products, or who would like me to develop custom designs for potential markets.

As a creative artist I enjoy producing art and designs and invest much of my energy in that direction. I would love to have a staff of sales representatives to market my wares. Then I would not be blogging about this issue. I have made some progress in these regards. In fact I am currently seeking sales representatives to help market sponsorship of City/State designs. See the following sites:

I (Heart) Designs at http://www.byteland.org/iheartdesigns.html

TAL Graphic Services and Design at http://www.talgsd.com

I Love California at http://www.byteland.org/california/index.html

My most recent creations may be of particular interest to bloggers. I have created a line of I (Heart) Blogging designs. You may find these posted at http://www.cafepress.com/bytelandart/919915.

If you are a blogger and like my blogging designs, then please by all means support this effort. I have even made an I Love Cyber Sojourn design to promote this current blog! These are posted below or you may see them at:

Cyber Sojourn Pink at http://www.cafepress.com/bytelandart/919985

Cyber Sojourn Blue at http://www.cafepress.com/bytelandart/919974

I created two forms, one with a pink boarder most preferred by women, and another with a blue boarder, most preferred by men, that there is a version of this design to satisfy everyone.




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One problem I am having relates to models. I would like to get photographs of people displaying or wearing my design items. Should you happen to purchase a design item that I have created, I’d love to see a pic, with the understanding that I may display it here or upon other emporium and store sites where I market my design items. It does not matter whether you are a professional model or not; I’d like to see pictures of normal people wearing T-shirts, sweatshirts, jerseys or other apparel which features designs that I have created. Although I cannot pay money for such photographs, I would certainly give you credit for the pictures by posting them upon one of my sites and/or linking to your blog or other site, should you so desire and be able to provide me with the URL of your blog or home page. This would be an interesting way to do a link exchange so I hope to hear from anyone who may like to collaborate in this effort.

With this entry I have completed another day’s work. It is 5:00 PM and the bell has rung, so to speak. However, I will continue working late into the night. At 8:00 PM my darling Nicole will come over for dinner. She is a delightful and most charming woman. Our plans are to spend the evening eating dinner, sipping wine and making mad, passionate love. Perhaps I will share more of this amorous adventure in future posts. It is enough that I merely mention Nicole for now, as she is rather shy and may not want me undressing her to the world through this muse. I will, however say that Nicole is a great inspiration. Many of my heart and love designs are inspired by Nicole. She is truly beautiful woman and just thinking about her love makes hearts pour forth from my soul. So should anyone
be wondering where my inspirations comes from, it is from Nicole, my soul mate and the love of my life.