Seeing the Music

"If only we could pull out our brain and use only our eyes." - Pablo Picasso

The way I conceive it, art only happens when we do what Picasso is talking about. When we flow in the moment without our brain filtering and simply allow whatever is supposed to come out to do so.

When you lose track of time, you've found your art. When you find what enables that loss, you've found your connection to your art.

For me, music is my connection. It's sort of like meditation, not thinking about each dab of the brush, simply seeing the light and dark. Seeing the music.

Peace.

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creating art on the artifacts of creativity

http://danieledlen.com

No Light Without Shadow

I was standing next to my John Coltrane portrait at the Open Studios event at http://santamonicaartstudios.com last weekend and a thought struck me. Following that show I sold the above Freddie Mercury, which reminded me of that thought.

Both pieces have black on the label because they're white. It's a challenge to paint pieces like that with just white on the record and black on the label. I have to make sure the light on the record is balanced by the shadows on the label, otherwise the portrait is broken.

I've been sharing Zen and Taoist quotes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/dedlen recently. A lot of them are about recognizing the yin and yang of life, the two sides of things when distinction is made. I don't particularly like adjectives because they require and create categorization and differentiation, but they exist in our lives. So one has to find balance between the two sides, between the light and the dark.

Like I do when I paint shadows on the label and the light on the record.

Peace.

____________________________

creating art on the artifacts of creativity

http://danieledlen.com

Underwater Basket Weaving

Underwater basket weaving is an idiom which refers to classes at university generally thought of as filler and not valuable in education. A lot of activity in online marketing feels like that. But it's not. It's a useful skill with cumulative results.

Years ago I connected with Robert Benson through this very blog. A wonderful fellow with a huge heart, he continues to this day to share news about my Vinyl Art.

Back then he wrote http://collectingvinylrecords.blogspot.com/2008/01/vinyl-art-new-canvas.html and published it in a way that sees it spread even still. Its content, and links, stand up today.

Robert told me marketing on the Internet is like weaving a basket. Since then I've tried to spread awareness of my handpainted portraits on records far and wide to all different audiences, interconnecting and interlacing strands of the web to build a network of support of my art. With the explosion of social media and mobile interaction I've embraced Twitter, Facebook and the like. It is definitely challenging to do this on my own without representation, but it is very rewarding to connect with customers directly, getting to follow the stories of my pieces.

I've got a couple very cool stories coming up to share, but in the meantime I've gotten to weave a couple more strong strands into my basket.

First is http://inhabitat.com/daniel-edlen-upcycles-records-into-detailed-portraits-of-rock-n-rolls-greatest/ on Inhabitat written by Lori Zimmer. I shared a couple double album pieces that hadn't seen much exposure before and Lori pulled great text from http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/daniel-edlen-famous-musician-portraits-vinyl written by Alice Yoo.

Second is http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/14/artist-daniel-edlen-paint_n_1885577.html on the Huffington Post. Kathleen Massara asked some great questions and included the Coltrane that will be one of those cool stories.

I list such posts on my http://vinylart.info/where.htm with active links to those still live, pliable strands of soaked willow rods to make my basket. I'm proud of that list and hopefully it's strong and able to support my art. I'll certainly continue to weave it with content on this blog and a myriad of other places online.

Not easy and not worthless.

Peace.

____________________________

creating art on the artifacts of creativity

http://danieledlen.com

Help Save Music Education, Really!

 Our goal of $25,000 will help launch our newest program, Online Instrument Drives, which is an easy to use donation platform that helps thousands of youth receive the instruments they need to participate in music education!  Music teachers request the instruments their students need, instrument donors choose the requests they want to fulfill, financial donors contribute to the cost of shipping and repair, and students get instruments!

Nate Anderson and his Ear Candy Charity are brilliant. They're creating an adoption agency for musical instruments, for kids. It's a 'win' on so many levels it's crazy. The campaign is half over, but isn't halfway to its goal yet. So please check out the link below, give if you can and spread the word far and wide!

http://www.indiegogo.com/EarCandy

Peace.

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creating art on the artifacts of 

http://danieledlen.com

Calling (Collect)ors

Once a month I send out an email newsletter with Vinyl Art updates that you can sign up for on this blog or at http://vinylart.info/why.htm for free. http://vinylart.info/press.htm has some old excerpts.

Some people automatically send such info to previous customers, potential collectors. I don't. I figure that if someone is interested in following me after buying a piece that they'll get to it somehow. I just publicly share when I'm sending it out.

I mean, when you call collect, who pays? Who really pays?

Peace.