Miyazaki’s Spirited Away
June 9, 2007
Just saw one of the most wonderful animated films I’ve ever seen, the English version of Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki. If you get a chance, definitely see it.
(Probably necessary segue: Yes, it’s an animated children’s feature. I dig animation. ‘Nuf said.)
The Japanese version is the highest grossing animated film in Japan, and it’s taken all kinds of international awards. John Lasseter, the Disney animator that bossed Toy Story, managed the localized (English) conversion and did an excellent job. He made it so American, though, that I’d love to see the Japanese version just in comparison–it’s unnerving to see what’s clearly Miyazaki’s animation style with recognizably US actors’ voices.
Briefly, this is the story of a 10-year old girl named Chihiro, who’s moving to a new place with her parents. On the way they take a shortcut and get lost in an abandoned amusement park that turns out to be a bathhouse for harried spirits. Her parents are turned into pigs, and Chihiro (renamed Sen) gets a job in the bathhouse to save them.
What makes this film great is the wide-ranging imagination of Miyazaki. The characters who populate this film range from living sootballs and “stink spirits” to Phyllis Diller-like witches that become fat vultures during the day. It’s old-fashioned animation, economical but visually rich.
Definitely recommended. And right now I’m thinking how handy it would be to have a friend who turned into a high-flying dragon you could ride. Think of the airfare you’d save! 
What does Dad want for Father’s Day?
June 9, 2007
When Father’s Day rolls around I usually wind up wishing I were five years old again. That’s because as a five year old I ALWAYS knew what Dad wanted for Father’s Day: a macaroni-covered picture of a house, decorated with red yarn.
I don’t know exactly when I stopped being so sure of that, but that was the point at which Father’s Day got a lot harder. My dad’s a very direct kinda guy–if he wants something, he buys it. And if he refrains from buying it so you can buy it for him, well, that kinda eliminates the surprise and turns the giver into an order fulfillment center.
I (and my sisters) fall back on prior successes quite a bit, which means Dad probably has every DVD and book on WWII and the Korean War in the known world, having already reached capacity for ties, socks, tie pins and Big Band-era CDs.
As I often do, I turned to the Web for answers. There’s eHow’s “How to buy a Father’s Day gift,” which suggests that you should figure out if he has a hobby and buy whatever he doesn’t have. Failing that, get him a gadget, candy or golf balls.
Not much help. On Buzzle.com (Intelligent Life on the Web) they list the top 10 Father’s Day gifts. The winners? Hobby stuff, gadgets, food or…a tie.
This is not helping.
Make Magazine suggests you MAKE him hobby stuff, gadgets, food…or a tie. (Or a subscription to Make Magazine, of course)
OK. So this is possibly something that the Web can’t solve. I’m going to do some navel-diving and figure this one out on my own.
Google the world
June 2, 2007
I guess having all the money in the world makes a difference: Google’s continuing its buying spree, and the list of acquired companies strongly resembles my list of people who do cool Web stuff. Hmmmm.
First, Google buys DoubleClick (well, more like “Ninth, Google buys DoubleClick..” because that wasn’t the first foray of the buying spree). DoubleClick is arguably one of the more effective online ad companies around. Now they’ve bought FeedBurner, which is absolutely my favorite way to deliver RSS and help companies make extra money and recognition.
Hood River post-mortem
June 2, 2007
Boy, was that fun.
Drove up to Hood River yesterday to participate in the “Art Walk,” this time as artist, not tourist, and I had a blast. I now see why people do these things, even if they don’t get rich.
Meg, Scott and Ramona, who run At Home on Oak Street, were understanding, helpful and terrific, in turns. They’d set aside the best table in the store for my work, spruced things up with a great tablecloth from their stock and added a blue-green lamp for extra lighting (a lamp I’m still thinking I need for the master bedroom….never mind).
What was cool about the lamp was that I’d chosen pieces to fit the cool tones of the store, mostly Tuscan greens, and that lamp was the exact color of the sky blue and spring green glass I’d used in one of my bigger pieces:
Looked like we planned it. How cool is that?
Anyway, after a despairing beginning (left an hour early so I could look around before the show started, then got caught in a horrific traffic jam on I84 and wound up almost an hour late), Ramona and Scott and I unwrapped my glass, arranged it on the lucite pedestals I’d bought, and things started hopping.
As a market research tool, it was fantastic. Crystals, Sand, Shards encompasses frit-and-cuts compositions (crystals), textured powder pieces (sand) and recycled tempered glass (shards), and I had samples of each on the table. The store was in a great location with lots of traffic (and the fact that they were serving white wine and had a great guitarist probably helped), so in a two-hour period I had a bit more than 100 people come to the table and see my glass.
Crystals, Sand, Shards Collection, by Cynthia Morgan
I learned a lot by watching which pieces people were automatically drawn to, which ones they lingered longest over, and which seemed to be completely ignored. I got a first-hand look at placement/proximity (all the things I check when doing customer research), and came away with all kinds of information that would help if I wanted to set up a booth in an art fair.
Was kinda hard to stay on track with the market research, though, because I just had so much darn fun talking to people about glass. They were intrigued by the thought of using recycled tempered glass (the Shards), stroked and stroked the textures of the Crystals and were somewhat disappointed that it, too, wasn’t recycled glass, and expressed the most interest in the Sand works, which was interesting.
But mostly, we talked about how the glass was made, what kinds of experiments I’d had to do to get the glass to hold together, whether it was possible to do different colors, sizes, forms. I’d expected a lot of “is this glass?” and “my daughter has a pottery kiln, so she could make one of these for me, right,” remarks, but this was a very knowledgeable crowd. Most knew the basics of kilnforming and knew that this stuff was reasonably unique, so we jettisoned the preliminaries and got right into the good stuff.
I was surprised–although I probably shouldn’t have been–at the number of questions about my background, where I lived, what I thought of the Hood River arts scene (and since it was only my second time up there I got a LOT of suggestions of other galleries and studios to visit). I spoke with an engineer torn between a lucrative job and the conviction that she was, at heart, an artist. “Thank you,” she said, “Everyone else tells me I’m crazy but your example confirms what I’ve been thinking–I need to just go ahead and follow my bliss.”
I mentioned that 90% of my income still comes from my day job, and that it probably wasn’t a great idea to abandon engineering all at once. Not sure she heard that part…
Anyway, went through about half the flyers I’d made (and several of the gift cards, which was odd), and many people read the flyer on the spot, then asked for further info. Kinda felt like a quiz. Gary, since you asked, I’ve uploaded a PDF of the flyer and a PDF of the signage minus some contact info since this is, after all, the Web.
Afterwards, a bunch of us gathered at the local Mexican restaurant for dinner and discussion. They were all experienced crafts fair vendors, got a lot of tips about selling glass retail. Also learned a LOT about running a BBQ smoker for catering, and about Oregon’s sustainable agriculture, which was fun. Mostly just had all kinds of fun decompressing with some very nice people. Thanks again, Linda, for setting this up!
Didn’t sell much, but the glass will be there in the store window all month and I’ve got a couple of commissions from it as well as an appetite to do this again. Not only is it fun, but there’s a certain amount of ego gratification when you hear the word “exquisite” applied to your glass a gazillion times in two hours. Even discounting 60% for the blarney factor, it’s still an indication that–at least in production work–I’m on the right track.
Grin.
The next big step in glassmaking (for me)
June 1, 2007
Crystals, Sand, Shards Collection, by Cynthia Morgan
So this afternoon I’m heading north of glassland, up into the Columbia Gorge, to take part in my first glass show, Hood River Art Walk.
Glass artist Linda Steider, who lives up that way, has worked with galleries, shops and hotels in that area to declare June as “Glass Art Month.” Merchants have set aside areas for artists to display (and possibly sell) their glass and thanks to Linda, I’m one of those artists. I’ll be in the At Home on Oak Street gift shop, very nice place, for the first time displaying my wares in a retail venue. Meg (the owner) and I met in her shop, went over logistics and put together a display plan based on samples I showed her, and I went home to start pulling together an inventory.
Now, I’ve sold or given away hundreds of glassworks over the years, but I’ve marketed, if you can call it that, strictly by word of mouth. This year I’m making a conscious effort to treat this as a business, which means marketing, and making concerted sales efforts instead of falling into sales by chance…so I’m trying this out with my “Crystals, Sand, Shards” collection, some of which are reproduced here.
I’m a marketeer by trade. I’ve helped the Fortune 500 market products worth billions of dollars and several points on the NYSE, so this stuff should be old hat, right? Wrong–I’m discovering it’s VERY different when it’s your own artwork that’s on the block. The last time I was this butterflies-in-stomach nervous was when I sang at my first concert (and since you’ve never heard me sing at concert since you can probably get an idea of just how nervous that was).
Tonight opens the Gorge event, with a reception and “Art Walk” for potential customers, so I’m heading up with a load of glass and wondering what else could possibly go wrong.
I’ve done the flyers describing my work (and discovered that the lucite holder I bought for them doesn’t fit). I couldn’t find gift tags so I went to a scrapbook place to make them, and overbought materials (something that’s gotta stop or the balance sheet will bleed to death). I found out it’s harder to buy white, shippable boxes than I thought, so the boxes are brown and they’re a bit too big.
I’m using individual boxes because my original transport method broke 80% of the samples I took up to Meg. I dropped three more I was moving to the studio to photograph–reminding me why we only carry one piece, carefully, at a time. This necessitated a bit of a rush making new in time for the show.
I’m normally content to let the kiln do its thing without me, only making periodic checks. But I’ve had to school myself–given the rush–to follow that rule this time. On this last batch, which I’m rather excited about, I forced myself to not even look at the kiln during firing.
Serious mistake. Went out this morning expecting to find five completed pieces, allowing me to select my favorite dozen from a field of 18, and found an error message on the controller. Something happened, the kiln never fired, and for the last two days it’s been sitting there (dammit). So I’ve started it up now, and will watch it, but that means my five favorite pieces for this show won’t be ready in time for the reception tonight. Dammit again.
Obviously, I’ve got a lot to learn about actively making and selling work as an artist. How discouraging.
But here are the positives:
I’ve met, and will meet tonight, some great people and potential new friends. Meg is extremely nice, Linda has the makings of a kindred spirit, and she’s assembled artists whose work I already know and admire. Glass people are some of the nicest and quirkiest I’ve come across, so this is a real plus.
I’d vowed never to get into any kind of production work, fearing that making XX of something would turn it from fun into, well, a job. Instead, I discovered that I really enjoy the chance to produce multiples. It gives me a chance to perfect a technique, and the tight constraints of making something that’s recognizably the same but different has been a lot of fun. I doubt I’ll ever enjoy making 200 of something, but I’m not quite as edition-of-one as I thought.
This is a nice, no-pressure way to see if I’d like something I vowed never to do, i.e., sit in a booth someplace selling my work like a corndog. I’m still not entirely sure about that, but I’m more willing to try it than I thought I’d ever be.
So…wish me luck. –jitter–