Red Tape!!!! ARRRGGGGGGHHHHH!!!

Peace Y'all,

It's 5:56pm, and I just took a much needed rest, after going to the library, then to the art store to pick up a couple of items, and finally the store. I had planned to put some textures on a panel, but the weather became cool and windy. Texas weather is very unpredictable.

Today I was watching a video of rapper KRS-One speaking about the differences between rap today and the days of old. He spoke about the digital age and downloading music. Believe it or not visual artists kinda fit in that same mold.

Visual artists also suffer from the digital age as well. Right now anime and manga are two of the hottest visual art forms out there, and just like rap music, it is very accessible and easy to download and pop up on your computer in the form of screen savers for computer and cell phone, posters, t-shirts, you name it. And anybody can do it, there are books and other items teaching people how to draw manga.

It has its place in the art world no doubt, but it can also be very disposable too as a result of corporations shoving one particular product down the throats of people instead of offering diversity. Pretty soon people will get tiresome and the people will look for something else. And artists like me will still be here ready to receive the people with a smile on my face asking "Where ya been dog?"

Lesson learned: Never base you career on fulfilling the desires of people. Desires are infinite. Keep substance in your work.

I was reading a very interesting book called Taking the Leap awhile back, about ways to kick start your art career, and the author of the book mentioned the Internet and its effectiveness on selling art. She mentioned one of the problems of the internet is copyright infringement, and gave an example of how she posted one of her pieces on her site, only to find out awhile later, four other online galleries were showing her piece without permission. She has since taken care of the situation, but it gives me shivers to know somebody else may be profiting off my work. Not that money is the main concern for me, because it is not, but the principle of the matter of somebody advertising your work on their site, which means most likely they are printing your work on other forms of media and you are unaware of anything. That's the society we live in.

So getting copyrights and trademarks are necessary, although at times I still have to find ways to trick up the picture to prevent theft, like watermarks and taking the pictures at different angles to prevent this madness. I hate this because I want people to enjoy the full flavor of the work itself. And it can slow down the creative process......

But in the meantime, that's what I'm working with...

Take care y'all.....