Sinterklaas: A Feast for the Eyes

Last night Sinterklaas came landed on the banks of the Hudson River. The night sky not far behind, the boat was draped in lights and guided by claus hat-wearing kayakers. The grumpus’ beat their drums and twirled their ritual dances in expectation. Hundreds paraded through the streets of Rhinecliff behind Sinterklaas on a prancing white horse. Next Saturday, the townspeople of Rhinebeck will host Sinterklaas and the grumpus' in a day-long celebration. A parade of lit stars and children will be an event not to be missed.

Blog-o-Meter Reading November 27, 2008

Search results for Molly Ahearn:
• Google: #1
• Yahoo: #1
• MSN: #1

Google Page Rank for my site: 2 (out of 10)

Number of page views to this blog: 4389

Number of page views to my site: 3784

Number of email subscribers: 17

Tag, You’re It!

Bloggers like to have loyal followers, but it’s easy to get lost among all the voices on the internet. One way to increase readership is to share your blog audience with other bloggers’ and vice versa. That’s just what Carol Lambert did when she tagged me. Carol paints found objects in her native Alaska and shares them on her blog. I met her some time ago through artscuttlebutt, a community for artists.

To follow the tagging procedure, I’m supposed to
1. put a link in my posting about the artist that tagged me
2. write 5 -7 unusual things about myself
3. tag 5 - 7 other bloggers and let them know.

Bloggers I Tagged
Sally Ahearn Nepotism is completely okay in cyberspace. My sister Sally is a writer and editor. Her blog offers helpful advice to writers from her own experience as well as many guest experts.

Donna Iona Drozda My cyber friend Donna is a very spiritual person and her paintings reflect a deep sense of thought and symbolism. She also inspires and guides others to reconnect with their own inner creativity. Her blog is always worth stopping by.

Cheryl McClure I also met Cheryl through the butt. A very successful professional artist, she uses color in a sensual way that draws me in every time.

Paul McCubbin I went to high school with Paul. When I first started my blog, he reentered my life by leaving me many helpful comments and suggestions for how to keep it going. He maintains several blogs, I like the Central Park Zoo blog best.

Deborah Mix Deborah is a talented illustrator and uses her skill to make all kinds of gift and craft items. Check out her needlepoint Santa!

Nadine Robbins Nadine’s portraits are so lifelike, many people mistake them for photographs. She’s halfway through her yearlong project to paint artistic couples, so look for a show announcement next year.

Unusual Things About Myself
1. I can still do a handstand.
2. I can whistle extremely loudly using my fingers.
3. I have been in every state in the country except Hawaii and Louisiana, two places I definitely plan to visit.
4. One weekend while my husband was out-of-town, I had a Home Depot employee sell me everything I needed and give me instruction on how to install tile in my bathroom shower. (My husband says I did a great job!)
5. Every year I get together with several girlfriends for Wild Women’s Weekend where we do secret things and laugh a lot.

Last Chance to Enter Photo Contest

Procrastinators, listen up! The deadline for my online photo contest is fast approaching. You need to email your images to me by midnight on November 30 to be eligible. Check my web site for complete instructions. Don't put it off any longer—send your image today!

Google Knows Who’s Talking About You

Google is as deep as you look. Recently, I signed up for Google Alerts which sends me an email every time my name is mentioned on the internet. You can set an alert to watch for anything—photography fellowships, portrait competitions, humpback whales, whatever. Try to target the search as narrowly as possible to avoid being inundated with alerts. It’s been interesting to see where my name pops up. There’s a high school swimmer named Molly Ahearn whose name pops up in the local papers occasionally. I’m quietly watching her career develop. I wonder if she’s watching mine…

Meet Moll Diavolo

In September’s Art Calendar, I caught a little side note about a blog dedicated to opportunities for artists in Second Life. For those of you unfamiliar with Second Life, it is a virtual 3-D illustrative world that mirrors the real world in every way—currency, home buying and building, shopping—except it is a complete fantasy. The first thing you do is create an ‘avatar’ to represent yourself. This is where the fantasy begins. You can be blonde, tall, muscled, sexy, tattooed, whatever you’ve most desired. My second life name is Moll Diavolo and she’s a vampy babe with a muscled butt (the view I see most frequently).

Having created Moll, I was ready to navigate to Artropolis, the place Ann Aubree created for her virtual ethnography project. Trouble is I couldn’t figure out how to get there. The graphics load in slower than your navigational instructions, so I frequently found myself in a hole, or wall, or under the ocean. I gave up on Artropolis and did a search for art galleries. Bohemia—Home of True Creators & Artists—sounded intriguing. A collection of studios along a tree-lined walkway, I tried to find some art. One studio I entered showed promise. A pig was roasting over a fire and a mouse kept dashing by at my feet. Gray squares—presumably art—were hung on the walls. But as long as I stayed there waiting for the graphics to load, nothing appeared in the gray squares. Sigh.

I searched for photographers. The Google-like search feature turned up 493 results and a sidebar filled with paid classified ads(!) I checked the International Photographers Society, a club for real life photographers who want to promote and sell their real life work in this make-believe world. A window popped up with what looked like it could be a directory but I was unable to make it do anything. Is my computer too slow?

Then somehow I clicked something that landed me in Artropolis! Happy accident. It’s a cool place with virtual art! And, my ‘fly’ capability was activated. I took off and flew around the island. Now I see what people like about second life—flying. I had a little trouble landing, but what fun.

I never ran into another person which was kind of a relief. What would you say? What are their expectations? Will they be themselves, or a make-believe person? I can’t say that I’m a convert, or that I’ll return, or that I can see how it would help your art career. Have you been? What do you think?

No More Shelter

Sad news to report. Photoshelter, the stock photo company that was founded on the idea that artists should make the lion’s share of sales revenues, has had to admit defeat. Their business model apparently didn’t translate into a profit for themselves.

Though I’d yet to make a sale through Photoshelter, I’d had over 100 of my images selected by their staff to sell and was very excited about the longterm prospects of selling through them online. Maybe there are other good places. I’ll keep you posted if I find any.

Make Your Own Book—and Sell It!

If you’ve always dreamed of being published, the internet has made it a quick and easy-to-accomplish task. The first thing you need to do is decide what the purpose of the book is and whether you’re going to sell it. If you want a beautiful coffee table-style book of your photography or artwork, you will need high-resolution output, quality paper and a hardbound cover, then blurb.com is a good place to look. For really high-end books check out loxleycolour.com (leather covers!) or photobookpress.com. If it’s more important to keep the price low, consider lulu.com or winkflash.com. I recently used lulu to print programs for my True Cowgirls show. An 8-1/2 x 11, 44-page book with a color cover and b/w inside pages only cost me about $6/per book including shipping. The quality of the printing on the inside leaves something to be desired and I learned the hard way not to have images fill the full size of the page, but at a selling price of $12, many people bought a copy.

All of these sites offer templates that you can download and insert your own images and text. Some of the templates are more artful than others, but using their templates certainly makes the process fast and easy. Since I’m a graphic designer, I prefer to design my own layout using InDesign (layout software by Adobe) and upload a print-ready PDF file. This takes more time, but allows me to maintain a similar ‘look’ to all of my printed pieces.

The beauty of these online sites is that you can publish on demand. In other words, you’re not required to print more than one copy at a time. While this makes the books more expensive for small quantities, you’re only printing what you want to sell or give away. So, if you want to make a big impression at your next pitch to a new client, design a custom book especially for that meeting. You can also make the book available for the general public to buy (and make millions!). The top sellers at lulu are e-Start Your Web Store with Zen Cart, How to Become an Alpha Male, and You Can Beat Prostate Cancer.

With the holidays approaching, making a book is a personal and special gift. Consider a cookbook of family recipes, turn your blog into a book, share your antique car hobby, make an unforgettable record of last summer’s vacation, document your family’s geneology, write a songbook of your original music, or be brave and launch that novel.

Central Park Draped in Fall Color

Ryley and I spent the weekend with our dear friend Paula at her new place in New York City. We spent Saturday afternoon wandering in Central Park. The leaves were in brilliant Fall plumage and the city was busy preparing for Sunday’s marathon. You never know what you’re going to see there. A woman posing as a statue. Break dancers flipping like pancakes. Avid birdwatchers with scopes. A squirrel that stood on its hind legs and danced like the critter in Caddyshack. Unfortunately, the line was long and the minimum age was 16 to get into the Chanel Zaha Hadid building, so we didn’t see that.