Good Gracious

[EDIT - 09/24/09: I received an email from Bob Guthridge, the photographer of the photo from which I drew inspiration for these pieces. He's asked that I credit him and supply his email address: bob@bobguthridge.com]

This is for the Mississippi Valley Blues Society. They asked me for a piece after they saw my donations to the Alabama Blues Project. Apparently the recent flooding in the region severely limited their fundraising and forced them to put on more events to make enough money to then put on their big annual festival supporting the music. My piece will be available at their upcoming concert and silent auction on Nov. 7th.

I'm trying to use my work to do good. I like the idea that my work can help support our music, our culture. I need your help in this too.

My pieces for the School of Rock are all still available. I also extended the opportunity to have 25% of the proceeds from any commission placed before Oct. 15th go to the school if you want.

Also, all the pieces in this series are still available. They are painted on a specific collection of records I received in trade and I will give $100 of the $175 directly to a charity of your choice. All you'll do is send me two checks, one to me and one to the charity. I'll even suggest organizations if you're interested. I will also be painting more in the series soon.

If you have a way my art might be able to help human creativity and culture, please let me know. It's all part of my plan to lead us to

Peace.

DONATED - B.B. King 10/08/08

A Break In The Story

I've got this link above so that people who find my site and blog after buying a piece of my art can connect with me.

The only thing I don't like about selling my work on consignment is that I don't get to connect with the buyer. I don't know anything about them or what their plan is with my work. I don't mind, it's just that part of what I really enjoy with selling my work is knowing who wants it and why.

I was doing my state sales tax and realized that I've sold 5 paintings of this image of B.B. King, all through consignment. It's great that people are responding to my work strongly enough in the context of a retail shop to plunk down a chunk of change to take a piece home. Very gratifying. But I would love to know the story behind the purchase.

Maybe someday I'll find out.

Peace.

ON CONSIGNMENT - B.B. King 08/20/08

Actually Giving

[EDIT - 09/24/09: I received an email from Bob Guthridge, the photographer of the photo from which I drew inspiration for these pieces. He's asked that I credit him and supply his email address: bob@bobguthridge.com]

Getting involved feels good. Getting asked to get involved feels even better!

For the Alabama Blues Project silent auction: B.B. King.

I wish more charitable organizations would follow this approach of getting people involved. People like stories. "I actually got to help build a house for a homeless family in New Orleans!" They like connecting with those they're helping in a more meaningful way than just sending in an annual check. "I actually bought a goat for a family and get correspondence from the little one taking care of the new source of food!" My wife and I were thrilled to get to pick out a book to go into a new library for kids supported by a charity. Thrilled because instead of getting to the register at Borders to be fed a line like, "Would you like to add a $1 to your cost to donate to ..." we were entreated to pick any book from the store to buy and have set aside to actually get put on a shelf for kids to read. "Some kids are going to get to read 'The Giving Tree' because we bought the actual book for them!"

We ended up spending way more on the book for the kids than the one we were getting for ourselves.

Actually.

Peace.

DONATED - B.B. King 06/16/08

Singin' The Blues

I've been doing a lot of that lately. But today, I'm getting back on track. I've got exciting things in the works, a new deal to promote, and I've already sold 3 at a show that hasn't even officially opened! Business is rolling!

B.B. King is the first of a new batch for Primitive Kool. They've almost sold out of the ones I had in their Newport Nights show back in October '07. (You can read more about Primitive Kool in these posts.)

So, I'm off. With a bit of a forced smile, "It's getting better all the ti---ime."

Peace.

The More Exposure, The More Exposed

I'm so excited about the exposure my work is getting online! I don't know what the consensus is on creating a list of links to blog posts about oneself, but Neatorama and Makezine are two recent additions to the list! It's certainly good for my Technorati Authority in any event since these two have rankings up in the 4000s and I'm in the 10s. I honestly don't know what the impact will be on the success of my artwork of all these social networking efforts, but the number of visitors to my gallery site has increased dramatically. I've had one person use the PayPal Buy Now buttons and two people follow through with commissions.

That said, the galleries where I've consigned my work are the steady sources of sales I have now. So BB King and Led Zeppelin are heading off to Wild About Music, and I'm painting a few this week for Primitive Kool. I'm trying hard to find a gallery/shop in the London area as I've gotten good feedback online from people in the UK. If you're one of those people, please let me know if you are aware of any locations I should contact about showing my work on consignment!

One post out there, http://cdnav.com/, was critical of my gallery site's front page (the blurb is 5 paragraphs down in the Jan 28th section). I'm glad to get feedback on it finally. They thought the graphical navigation was confusing with the OPEN sign not linking anywhere. From my website logs, though, it seems people aren't having a problem getting to the page where you can buy the pieces. So I don't know. Please,

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: http://www.vinylart.info/

and let me know if you have any site design suggestions! Peace.

SOLD - B.B. King 01/28/08

Stephen Covey Would Be Proud

Painting Robert Plant is hard! Wild About Music sold two Zeppelins last month, though. It seems to be my most popular there, as one sells about every month. I guess people in Austin really love Zeppelin. Well, who doesn't! Primitive Kool also sold the Johnny Cash they had. I'm going to paint several blues-related musicians for them again now.

Speaking of Johnny Cash, I received a comment on my post about the YouTube clip: http://vinylart.blogspot.com/2007/10/man-in-black-on-his-ring-of-fire.html. I responded there but I thought I'd elaborate (read: ramble) a bit more here. It seems fitting because this post is also about the selling of art already. The gist of the comment was that art isn't free to create, so it shouldn't be free at all. I really appreciate the sentiment. The more money I make, the more I can paint, and I could reach a wider audience if I could afford marketing. So, money is definitely a means to an end. My purpose in creating Vinyl Art is to express my passion for music and art, and to show it with the world, connecting and building relationships with others who share my passions. So, yes, as the post at Brain Pickings, suggests, selling my pieces does support and spread my idea.

However, the money is just a means. In saying this, I don't intend to imply I don't want to sell them. The ultimate point is to sell them so people have them to share with others. That can also be directly achieved though, on occasion, by giving them away for an event, Free Art Seattle, or contest, http://vinylart.blogspot.com/2008/01/using-competition-to-create-community.html. (I need help with that, by the way, or it may move to the back burner). The return for giving may not be instantly monetary, but you get what you give, and giving builds relationships. Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" discusses how important creating and maintaining relationships is to success in life. Indirectly it does help business too. In my opinion, giving doesn't devalue the artwork. Quite the opposite, it adds value to the artwork as a symbol of the connection made. The recipient can look at it and remember how they got it, a plus. People can ask them how they got it, and they'll share the great story as well as their passion for music, another plus. And from a business perspective, the resulting cross-marketing that can happen benefits everybody, a win-win!

This is a great issue to discuss, so after you've looked at my idea for my contest, let me know also your thoughts on this issue. I've only stated my perspective which isn't the only one, and there is no "right" one. I like creative dialogue, so please share!

Meanwhile, I'm off to paint B.B. King! To see a couple previous B.B. Kings, you can read this post: http://vinylart.blogspot.com/2007/09/creative-repetition-top-8-musical.html, or you can:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: http://www.vinylart.info/

Peace.

SOLD - Led Zeppelin 01/25/08

Give And Take

My goodness! Primitive Kool already sold all five I sent them!

http://primitivekoolart.com/pages/DANIEL.html

How... well, "kool"! I hope they want more! If you haven't seen what Vinyl Art's all about, you can also:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: WWW.VINYLART.INFO

and give koolart@pacbell.net a hooray!

Creative Repetition - Top 8 Musical Examples

One thing I really admire is consistency. Luke Chueh is a lowbrow artist who's got it down. At it's base, consistency is sophisticated repetition, I think. Warhol. You know. It's what I strive for, especially when I do more than one of the same image. These are handpainted, but I try to get them as close as possible. They always have their own character, but they do stand up to the side-by-side test.

In music, same thing. I like looping and repeated melodies. Philip Glass and Steve Reich are pioneers in modern classical music (gotta love that oxymoron). The Beatles were one of the first bands to use loops in popular music. During my teen years, at one point I got into electronica and sampling at the same time. Here are some albums that defined those genres for me:

"Le Parc" by Tangerine Dream
"Endtroducing" by DJ Shadow
"Lifeforms" by Future Sound of London
"Dig Your Own Hole" by The Chemical Brothers
"The Grassy Knoll" by The Grassy Knoll
"Maxinquaye" by Tricky
"Incunabula" by Autechre
"I Was Young and I Needed the Money!" by Clifford Gilberto

Looking through my collection, I found a whole bunch more, but these are the standouts for me. At some point I'll tell you how some of these, along with a bit of teen angst led me into industrial and heavy metal. Fun stuff. Now I listen to funk and blues while I paint legends like B.B. King. My online gallery now has PayPal Buy it Now buttons for some immediately available pieces, so:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: WWW.VINYLART.INFO

and see if one you want is already for sale!

Best 3 Things About Austin, TX

1. My brother-in-law Jason lives near there.

2. http://www.keepaustinweird.com/

3. Wild About Music, the first gallery to show my work, has sold yet another Led Zeppelin! They took a chance on me and sold a Johnny Cash, Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong, Willie Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, B.B. King, and a bunch of Zeppelins. So if you're in the Austin area checking out 6th Street, drop in and say hello!

And, if you want to see more examples of pieces like Page and Plant:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT WWW.VINYLART.INFO

Now I can buy more records and frames!