For the past two summers, RBG has put on a summer art exhibition called Zim Sculpt, bringing in artists from Zimbabwe and their pieces into Hendrie Park Gardens. The artists were on site, chipping, carving and sculpting new pieces for visitors to purchase, and if you were lucky, you could try your hand at carving too.

Zim Sculpt was a huge success; however, this summer RBG wanted a change, and introduced a new art series and exhibition revolving around sound, sculpture and the Earth. Thus, Sound Art, Sculpt Art and Earth Art were born.

Sound Art saw Anne Karhu from Finland come in and record sounds in and around RBG gardens and properties that were later mixed in with pre-recorded sounds, giving the visitors a natural and surreal experience while walking through The Rock Garden.

Earth Art was the next exhibition to open to the public (July 18), and welcomed 10 world famous Earth artists from around the world to RBG. Working for approximately one month, these artists assessed the garden areas, meticulously gathered their materials and constructed one-of-a-kind pieces - some permanent fixtures - that are located in RBG garden areas, RBG Centre, as well as on RBG property.

The final of the three art series is Sculpt Art. Welcoming over 10 Canadian artists, Sculpt Art will take place in Hendrie Park Gardens, and will bring together art and nature. The sculptures will be set into the garden, and pieces from each of the artists will be available for purchase.

I am not writing this blog because I was asked to by my boss, but rather because I have seen the preparation for these exhibits, and I have even been part of the planning process. I feel like this is a part of me, especially Earth Art, since I created a photo blog of the pieces and artists in progress. I know many of you reading this are more than likely not from Ontario, but I would suggest this. If anyone is planning a trip or vacation, consider coming to Ontario and Royal Botanical Gardens to check out the art series. I can promise you will not be disappointed with these unique and one-of-a-kind art exhibitions.

If you would like to read up on the art exhibition, check out the Art in Paradise page on Royal Botanical Gardens’ official website.

Sound Art runs now until Labour Day; Earth Art Exhibition runs now until October 13, 2008; Sculpt Art runs from July 25 until October 5, 2008.

*Source: http://www.rbg.ca/pages/artinparadise.html
Pictured: Neville Gabie
Picture Source: Rachel Longo-Tosoian (that’s me!)

Musical performances include 2tone, Definitely Maybe, Oso Closo, Fishing for Comets, Southbound Texas 35, Jennifer J. Lee, The J.R. Byrd Band, and others. 

At least ten food vendors should be on hand as well. So if you're in the mood for some art-centric family fun, check out the festival at Cottonwood Park this Saturday and Sunday, May 3rd and 4th. 

Susan Crane, an art student at the University of Maine in Farmington put American flags on the floor of a museum as a way to “make a statement.” She said she did it to “spark conversation and thought about how we really feel about our flag.”  She went on to say that about 95-98% of the people who came to see her exhibit didn’t walk on the flags.

The president of  UMF, Theo Kalikow, defended the display and said in a statement, "Art in all its forms is important. The anger that was experienced today. Students push the boundary of what learning is. First Amendment rights, freedom of expression. We share in a state of expression."

However, I guess only a select few have First Amendment rights. When Charlie Bennett, commander of the American Legion 4th District and a Vietnam Vet, a man who fought and was prepared to lay down his life for the ideals that the flags stand for, started picking them up from the floor, college administrators warned him to stop or he’d be arrested.

In another story, Yale art major, Aliza Shvarts wanted to spark conversation about “the relationship between art and the human body” by documenting nine months of self-induced miscarriages. Ms. Shvarts told the college newspaper that she artificially inseminated herself with a turkey baster “as often as possible” with donations from guys she knew (she said she asked them to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases) and periodically took herbal drugs to force her body to abort. She then video recorded the results as well as preserved the collected blood from the process.

It was later found out that the whole project was a hoax. The student was never pregnant and the blood she exhibited was nothing more than regular menstrual flow. And what do you call it when an art exhibit premise is exposed as false? Performance art, of course.  In a released statement, Yale said that the exhibit was a work of "creative fiction.” "Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art," Yale spokeswoman, Helaine Klasky, said. "She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body." The spokeswoman went on to say that had the project been real, it would have “violated the basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns.”

Now, I’m not going to wade into the whole “Is this art?” debate. (Although if they were getting federal grant money to support them while they do their art, then I have some very strong opinions on that.) But notice the similar language between the two. They want to “create a dialogue”, or “make a statement”. This is when my bullshit meter goes off. I say they want fame. They want notoriety. And the only dialogue that really goes on when stories like this surface is how disgusting and reprehensible it is.     
I once heard a story about Eve Ensler, the writer of the play The Vagina Monologues. She has said in interviews how her play would help women everywhere and open a dialogue. The play came to a sleepy (what elitists would call “unsophisticated”) town. A local reporter breathlessly asked a woman, if she intended to see this empowering play. The woman replied, “No. I don’t see how having a bunch of women on a stage saying the word ‘vagina’ is going to help any body.”

It kinda puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?

Here are some my favorite American journalists who rarely fail to amaze me with their wit and erudition, powerful prose, and clarity of thought.

Peggy Noonan

She writes for the Wall Street Journal. Her Friday columns is a must reading for me. She used to be Ronald Reagan’s speechwriter. A devout Catholic and a committed Republican that I trust, despite the fact that I’m neither.

Her recent comments on Hillary Clinton’s turbulent candidacy should be enough to give you a sense of her depth and brilliance as a political commentator:

“She'll need more than four years to shake off the impression she made in 2008. And this is how you'll know she's making another bid for the presidency. She will wear skirts. Gone will be the pantsuits that made her look like a small blond man with breasts. It's the new me, I wear skirts! Her first impulse is to think cosmetically. A long and weary life in politics has left her thinking this is the way to think.”

Rex Reed

Friends, Rex Reed can write movie reviews like nobody's business. His New York Observer columns are honest and generous in dishing out both praise and punishment.

If you are in the receiving end of his accolades, you don’t need to die to go to Heaven.

Just makes sure you don’t get caught behind that red cape of excuses as his thousand pounds of linguistic fury is launched against your latest movie fiasco or acting shame.

REED HEAVEN: “Without a stick of makeup, in off-the-rack clothes and hair that needs a steam iron, Halle Berry is still the epitome of beauty and grace. But it is Benicio Del Toro who shocks and enthralls. This character actor with pasty skin, bags under the eyes the size of teacups, and a face like a map of the San Jacinto Valley is always deeply committed, astonishing to look at and full of surprises, but in Things We Lost in the Fire he is a total revelation.”

REED HELL: “Everything seems designed to please and fascinate 10-to-12-year-old girls without encouraging stress or premature hormones, and I see no reason why this harmless trend should end now. But nothing I have come across even begins to sink to the amateurish, rock-bottom, brain-dead bilge Warners has dusted off in the corny, boring and sleep-inducing 2007-style escapades of Nancy Drew redux, called, unimaginatively enough, Nancy Drew. I know this junk is marketed for pulsating pubescents, but why? That’s the only mystery in it worth solving.” [Review of Nancy Drew]

Warren Brown

Warren Brown is proof positive that you can write about ANYTHING you want and can still bring beauty and grace to our lives IF, that is, you actually know how to write well.

Mr. Brown continues to brighten my days with his Washington Post automobile reviews; not that I’m a car nut. Far from it.

But I can’t help enjoying the obvious affection with which he approaches all devices reaching a hundred miles on four wheels, and the social and cultural layers with which he qualifies his reviews. He is a master wordsmith at work, worth emulating.

A sample:

[Describing the control buttons on a BMW 325Ci]: “The entire choreography — for it is nothing short of that — takes place in less than 60 seconds. It is technology as haiku, drudgery transformed into ballet.”

Continues: “The 325Ci thus is the perfect guilt-free car for enjoying and living contradictions — pursuing clear skies and fresh air in a gasoline-powered chariot, enjoying the open spaces paved with concrete and asphalt, and obeying posted speed limits in a car, even with its smallish 184-horsepower engine, designed to shatter them in seconds.

Life is good.”

Frank Deford

My favorite sports writer, hailing from Sports Illustrated and NPR every week.

Usually Deford is so right, so to the point, that I end up wondering how come I couldn’t think of such an “obvious” point myself, on my own.

If clarity of thought was his only strength, Deford could’ve been a mathematician too. But the man has his artistic side as well, as evidenced by his many best-seller novels.

Deford is one of my favorite writers for generating prose like the following:

[About Beijing Olympics]: “The reflected heat from the torch uproar will also help expose what a humbug the International Olympic Committee can be. This is the organization that loves to call itself a "movement." Come on, would we accept it at face value if Commissioner Bud Selig stood up and crowed about the "Major League Baseball Movement"? Would we bow our heads if Mayor Oscar Goodman asked us to pay homage to the "Las Vegas Strip Movement"? Get serious.”

[On Mixed Martial Arts]: “Boxing is the only major sport where the object is to hurt your opponent. Surely there can be no place for such an exercise in a more enlightened 21st century. But what has happened? Boxing has indeed lost favor, not because it's too violent for the modern civilized world, but because it's not violent enough.

Boxing is being superseded by what is called the mixed martial arts — emphasis on martial — which apparently is especially attractive because it's like a video game, only featuring flesh-and-blood human beings. Emphasis on blood.”

Have you heard about the Justine Larbalestier Survey?

Justine Larbalestier, a novelist from Down Under, conducted his own informal survey and asked his 18 "fellow Aussies, folks from the UK, Canada and the US" how much they got for their first novel. Seven of those who responded are full-time writers.

Here are the results:

1962: $1,000

1965: $3,000

1970: $10,000

1976: $700

1982: $7,500

1984: $7,500

1985: $2,500, $8,000

1989: $3,000

1990: $15,000

1995: $4,000

1996: $4,000

1997: $7,500

1999: $2,500

2002: $6,500

2003: $13,500

2004: $350, $10,000

Average advance: $5,920

Note that a writer in 2004 earned the same amount of advance as he did back in 1970 ($10,000) !

Adjust that by inflation, and you'll realize the dire odds most novelists are battling against. Despite a handful of stellar novelists who make big bucks, overall, novel writing is a sure way to the poor house.

Here is Larbalestier's advice for those who are thinking to become novelists:

"So my sage pieces of advice to someone contemplating a career as a novelist who begins by trying to find out what the average advance is? First I'd like to congratulate you—if you're in this game for the money it's a good idea to find out as quick as you can that there's not a whole lot to be made writing novels. Find another way to make dosh. Personally I'd recommend plumbing."

You can read the full details of his revealing and candid report by clicking here.

*** Discussion Thread

To read more about the financial "bread crumbs" with which an average novelist needs to make her peace, please read this discussion thread.

*** BOTTOM LINE

If you are an unknown fiction writer like me, your chances of both getting published through traditional publishers AND making money at the same time is not that good.

From the time you start shopping around for a traditional literary agent to when you see your book in the bookstores it will be an average of TWO years. Think about that…

Keep writing your novel but try such non-traditional channels of marketing as self-publishing and print-on-demand solutions like Lulu.com or Amazon's BookSurge.

There are quite a few literary agents and traditional editors trolling such sites to discover new talent that did not cost them a penny. So if you're good, trust me, the world will be happy to beat a path to your door.

Write well and from the heart, frequently.

Get them printed whenever you can.

And let your readers and the market place separate the wheat from the chaff, not the top-heavy bloated publishing dinosaurs of yesteryear. Whether you're going to sink or swim, let it be on your own terms and not on somebody else's.

I’m a sucker for NYC photo blogs (PBs) because I love the Big Apple but I never had the chance to live there on a long-term basis.

So NYC photo blogs are how I try to get my regular fix of things-New-Yoark.

With every photo I remember once again how much I love this sultry, chaotic, and majestic Mother of All Cities.

Here is a short list of my top favorite NYC PBs, plus another which has nothing to do with NYC but one you should really support by visiting.

1) Lightning Field

The granddaddy of all NYC PBs as far as I’m concerned. I have no idea for how long David F. Gallagher is keeping up this site. He is a freelance journalist who is published in some serious outlets including New York Times.

From time to time he takes us to different parts of the world but he is mainly a New Yorker. Follow him and he’ll take you to the corners of NYC that you never knew existed.

2) Quarlo

Owned by Todd Gross. This blog unfortunately stopped back in December 2006. But his archive is still amazing.

Probably the most self-aware stylist of them all, Quarlo managed to come up with the exact burnt color-palette with stinging greens and harsh yellows that to me conveys the daily struggle of life in NYC. Yet a lot of his photos reflects his own sense of visual humor as well.

I’ve sent him an e-mail to see what’s going on with the site but he didn’t answer. Worth a bookmark.

3) Satan’s Laundromat

A unique photo site specializing in the signs, graffiti and symbolic oddities of NYC. Also stopped in December 2006, unfortunately.

Most of these blogs are works of love and hard to keep them up when nobody’s paying you for your time, equipment and the overhead. You start with a camera and start roaming the streets like a drunk person; an artist drunk with the lust of life. Then, eventually, "life intervenes" and you find yourself a day-job with a steady paycheck, I guess… Goodbye camera.

4) Slower

Another once-great PB that is now over. By Eliot Shepard.

You can however now enjoy Shepard’s photos over at http://eliotshepard.com/ Check out his HORIZONTAL scrolling photo-bar. Fancy, eh?

5) Blue Jake

Still going strong, thanks god. A rich collection of amazing snapshots from Brooklyn, and other fine boroughs of New York.

6) Laura Holder

Gone! What a pity. It’s a silly directory now… What a waste of cyber space… There should be a law against such jarring domain transformations.

7) Joe’s NYC

Still fresh and live. Go Joe!

Mecca Pixel

What? Now it's a laptop computer store ??!! Sad and outrageous. It used to be a great photo blog.

9) NYC Photobloggers

A mega directory of all NYC photo bloggers. If there is anyone taking pictures of NY for over a year he or she is probably listed here.

10) Overshadowed

For those who like their photos large, unadorned, with no text. A site for the visual purists. A museum of fine arts, of sorts.

11) Rion

By Rion Nakaya. The only web site I know with a NU domain extension.

She is reporting from Paris for the last 2 years but gave us great panoramas of NYC in the past.

12) Infrangible

by Khoi Uong. Yes. Laudable.

Plus this:

13) Ziboy

A distinguished Chinese photo blog by Wen Ling. He is a guy who lives with his finger glued to the shutter release button of his digital.

I’ve seen photos on this blog over the last couple of years that made me wonder how the “Chinese authorities” allowed this blog to continue since Ling never hid his identity.

An honest photo appraisal of daily life in China (I think). Recently he published tons of photos from his USA visit (including NYC) but most of his archive is still about China.

Let's continue our empirical investigation into novelists' income with the League of Utah Writers (LUW) 2004 Survey.

The results of a survey that the League of Utah Writers conducted in 2004 with 234 writers re-confirm the plight of non-technical writers.

The survey found that the average income received from writing over 12 months for all writer members was a pitiful $2,705.

The writers who participated in the survey wrote in the following genres: Magazine and newspaper articles (33%), Editing and consulting (11%), Novels and books (32%), Short stories (6%), and Other (18%).

"The average income from writing received over the past 12 months for all writer members who actually reported any writing-related income [is] $5,213.28 ," LUW reported.

So how can a writer write full-time when she earns such an unrealistically low income?

The answer is – she doesn't.

Only 5.24% reported writing as their "main source of income."

44.1 % said writing was their "hobby." No wonder.

And 14.41% said writing "supplemented" their main income derived from another source.

Even those who said writing was their main source of income reported earning only $29,291 a year.

In 2004, the median household income in Utah was $45,726 – a figure above the national average of $41,994.

This means that, even by local standards, full-time authors made 36% less than what an average Utah resident made that year.

Those LUW members who said they wrote to "supplement" their main income reported earning $4,831 a year, or 89% lower than average Utah income.

The "hobbyists" reported earning $351 a year (99% lower).

*** Author's Guild (AG) Survey

Science Fiction author Tara K. Harper, reporting on the Internet about the results of an Author's Guild survey, does not mince her words: "A novelist generally is writing on spec. A first time novelist may actually wind up owing money to their publisher if sales are not sufficient."

What a frustrating and sad realization it must be to work day and night for years to write and publish a novel only to find that YOU owe the publisher money, and not the other way around!?

Harper reports that, according to the AG study she mentions, "the average author earns about $10,000 a year."

"However, because author incomes vary so wildly, you'll get a better picture if you look at averages within categories. From the various stats I've seen, a beginning, low-end, or one-off (one or two books only) author makes $4k to $10k a year – before taxes, before agent commissions, and before the costs of doing business."

"Experienced, well-established midlist authors who write a book only once every year or two seem to fall into the $20k to $40k a year range — again, before taxes, agent commissions, and the costs of doing business. For prolific authors who publish several books a year, and who have been publishing for 15 years or more, the gross income is closer to $60k to $100k."

We'll continue…

Novelists are among the worst paid writers.

Yes, the Steven Kings, Dan Browns, and JK Rowlings of this world get paid extremely well.

Actually, Rowling is said to be on her way up to become the first writer in human history poised to earn $1 billion over her career.

But the average novelist is practically hungry and driving that same old rust-bucket god knows since when.

It takes years to write a decent novel.

Then it takes equally long to find an agent.

And when years later, the book finally gets published, the advance is usually around $5,000.

That's all most novelists will ever see since royalties are not guaranteed. And even when they earn any royalties, the checks take months or sometimes even a whole year to arrive.

*** Sad and Astonishing but True

Since the federal minimum wage in the United States as of July 24, 2007 is $5.85 an hour, translating to $11,700 a year, most novelists and story writers would make more money if they worked full-time at McDonald's. And let me prove that to you…

*** Bucknell Survey

Author Tobias Bucknell (Source: http://www.tobiasbuckell.com ) conducted a survey of 108 fantasy and science-fiction novelists.

His finding: "the median First Novel Advance for a novelist is $5,000. The number is the same for both hardcover and soft cover releases."

If you do have an agent, the advance goes up to $6,000. For those without an agent, it drops to $3,500.

Since on the average it takes at least two years to write and publish a novel, a writer on the average makes a whopping $2,500 a year per novel!

Considering the immense talent, knowledge and creativity it takes to write a novel, it's a miracle that anybody actually takes the time to write one.

If a novelist has a couple of novels under her belt, then the median advance goes up to $12,500 for those who have an agent. If they don't, the advance shrinks to $7,500.

So how many novels an author needs to write a year, every year, to pay her bills, buy a home, send her kids to college, and save for her retirement, etc.?

I'll leave the answer of that depressing question to you.

Frank Gehry has arguably been the most controversial architect of the late 20^th and early 21^st century. Just one look at his Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain is enough to give an idea about his unusual approach to architecture.

A Gehry building is like nothing else you've seen before. It's outrageously creative, unique, and flamboyant. It's a classic head-turner.

As far as I'm concerned, Gehry is the unacknowledged founder of the "Why Not? School of Architecture."

Here are some of his other spectacular designs:

• Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA
• Dancing House in Prag
• The Experience Music Project at the Seattle Center
• Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University

I admit I used to be in awe of the incredible liberties Gehry has taken with FORM.

He has pushed the boundaries of our imagination and crash-landed on our urban landscape with the very same irreverence that Picasso has obliterated the classical form in the early 1900s and ushered in the age of Cubism.

I marveled at Gehry's buildings thinking if Picasso were alive today and did buildings, he'd probably end up with Gehry's creations.

However, gradually, other ideas began to take hold over the last six months.

More and more Gehry's buildings started to look to me like architectural ego statements which sacrificed function and ecological balance on the altar of Novelty.

Gehry's buildings do not fit in with their surroundings at all, for one thing. His "signature" usually stands out like a sore thumb in the midst of urban congestion (recommended: the DVD documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry by Sydney Pollack (2005)).

We should've been inoculated by now against such in-your-face bravado thanks to Anton Gaudi but here we are, in an age of continuing population increase, global warming, and limited public resources.

Asking that architectural forms serve some kind of public function is now even a more urgent request than before. And that's where Gehry's paradigm lets us down.

His Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, for example, created hot spots on the surrounding pavement that at times climb up to 140 F, creating a health hazard for the pedestrians.

Why? Because his "wonderful" free-form panels modeled after crumbled sheets of paper acted like parabolic mirrors. The eternal laws of optics turned around and bit the New Form in the rear.

Again, the slanting roof of his Weatherhead School of Management building became a source of potential hazard when sheets of ice and snow started to slide off without warning in winter months. The same surfaces acted as gigantic sun tan foils in summer.

Did you know that in November, 2007, MIT filed a law suit against Gehry for the $300 million Stata Center ? "Negligent design" was cited as the reason. That's a heavy charge directed at the brainiest architect alive from the brainiest institution in America.

As a dedicated humanist, I believe architecture should exist for and serve humans, not the other way around.

Gehry's audacious experiment in releasing forms from their function and urban context proves this:

An iconoclast idea which can be revolutionary in one medium (painting) could well turn out to be a functional disappointment in another (urban architecture) at its best, and a breathtaking fetishism of form at worst.

With a career spanning over 40 years, Chabrol gave us many fascinating films; some with thought-provoking innovations that reshaped my understanding of the 3-Act Structure.

Here I'd like to mention two of them that I especially like: the emergent antagonist, and multiple culprits.

1) By "emergent antagonist" I refer to a major non-Protagonist character who is absent until almost the mid-point. But once he or she is introduced, the rest of the film pivots on this character's actions.

This is contrary to everything I've been taught in the screenwriting classes I took and the screenwriting books I've read in the past. All important characters are supposed to be introduced within the first 15 minutes of a film and developed steadily for the rest of story. But Chabrol does not mind introducing some of his most important characters a full hour into the story.

Take Detective Goemond in Nada (1974), for example, played by Michel Aumont. Until almost mid-point of the film Goemond is absent. But after the first half, he emerges as the chief semi-Antagonist (not a bad guy but not a sympathetic character either) driving the main plot line for the rest of the film.

Again, take the Paul Thomas character in La Rupture (1970) played by Jean-Pierre Cassel. Thomas is a depraved character, a hired hand, ready to the dirty bidding of his master. But we do not see him until we are almost an hour into the story. And once he steps into the camera's view, he is in almost every frame until the end.

Such late introduction of the antagonistic characters throws the story into a spin that we are not used to in the classic Hollywood productions.

2) "Multiple culprits" is what Chabrol uses in his great crime thriller The Color of Lies (1999) (Au coeur du mensonge).

Watch this film to realize how much we are conditioned by Hollywood's often repeated "serial killer" formula. I have watched so many American films built on that premise that I didn't realize the extent to which I'm accustomed to looking for a single killer that commits all the murders in a crime thriller.

Chabrol's freedom in breaking away from that rigid formula all of a sudden opens wide the doors of imagination and all kinds of different possibilities.

Through such freedom, art again becomes a true reflection of the richness of life; of the way things happen "out there" in infinitely complex permutations. It suddenly gets "real" and we feel refreshed and alive.

What is it about his art that makes me pause to enjoy? It's the way all definite shape and hard edges are lost in fog. You have to perceive what is there because the fog plays with the light and causes color to spread in a very realistic way. In his painting of the train, for instance, I am reminded of the truly human response that comes from staring straight into the foggy mix and desperately trying to pick out the hazy shapes coming closer. 

Fog is one of the most romantic and intimate weather anomalies. It brings with it a sense of closeness, as though the sky had condensed and formed a roof just over your head. Sound changes, giving off the deceptive appearance of walls nearby. You can have a very private conversation amidst the fog.  

Of course, Turner's work doesn't encompass human interaction but rather architecture, nature, industry, and war. His works definitely have a distant, cold feel to them. My ramblings about the appeal and nature of fog just stem from my appreciation and overactive imagination.

Turner's works will be on display at the Dallas Museum of Art beginning this weekend. You can observe it in person and form your own opinions any time between now and May when the exhibit closes. Any Turner fanatics out there? Let me hear from you.  

After a profoundly enjoyable evening with a local writer's group, I walked away with a newfound sense of appreciation for artists. I am an artist, though you couldn't tell by my daily production. Duty calls for marketing messages that compel readers to act. But at my center, I am a poet and creative writer. 

And while the tips from Copyblogger, Problogger and dozens of blogging, branding, and marketing experts are invaluable for corporate blogs, the same principles are stifling and unnatural for many strictly creative types. I call all creative types "artists", because anything creative can be art: words, paint, dance, sculpture, song, design, etc. 

I've spent the lion's share of this site's existence on marketing principles recommended by the experts. The danger there is missing the forest for the trees. CultureFeast will be two years old in November. Prior to this, the only writing I showed anyone outside the office was poetry, prose, or journal entries that I felt were worth sharing. 

You have to be careful not to suffocate your art with marketing. It happens all the time. You have something worth sharing, but in order to get the public's attention, you have to walk a fine line balancing marketing and artistic sincerity. 

My advice: read the tips and study effective marketing strategies, but realize that they must not overtake the art. Balance. It's not a fun word. It's not a sexy word. Balance is not a popular concept, because it's one of those responsibilities people don't want to take the time to mess with.

Be true to your art. Look for ways to hone your craft that can make it more successful without losing power. Whether you post words, photos, or video, there are sure-fire ways to improve your presentation without sacrificing content. There are also plenty of opportunities to focus on results rather than the message.

There are enough self-improvement gurus already. Guard your art with your life! If you don't, you'll discover that the purpose of your art has declined from the pleasure of creation to that of recognition. Recognition is wonderful, but it's fickle and fleeting. The first and foremost active ingredient in successful artistry is quality product. Preserve quality at all cost.  

I am a huge fan of his, both personally and professionally. My wife and I met Tyler and Charlotte Huntzinger on a Caribbean cruise. They are quality people. In the short time we spent together, my wife and I grew to be quite fond of them. Perhaps someday I’ll be able to talk him into flying down to Dallas and painting a mural for our home. Hats off to Tyler Huntzinger and best wishes to his wife, Charlotte!

I haven’t written anything here in quite some time. There’s not enough time in the day to get everything done and have the accompanying panic attacks. Today being what it is - Valentine’s Day - I thought I should at least attempt to write something thematic.

The painting to the right is of Trinity Valentine at age 18. Who is that? I have no idea. Her last name’s Valentine… that’s thematic enough. The painter is Fred Burkhart. The surrounding blues are so startlingly blue in comparison to the black outline of her face and the lighter tones of her hair and face. I don’t know… something about it captivated me. You can see more paintings by this artist at www.burkhartstudios.com.

As for Valentine’s Day proper, I am reminded of Valentine’s Day 2004. Heather and I had been married a whopping 18 days, and I was on a mission: to find the perfect kitty that Heather has been wanting for more than ten years. I was one of those Valentine’s Day haters. It was and still is my firm belief that a man who loves his wife finds special ways to show his love throughout the year, not just on some day that someone randomly chose as a day of romance. I personally resent it, though less now than I used to.

The point of it is to make men feel so guilty at the thought of not buying something for their wife or girlfriend that they end up feeling obligated to go spend money so that she won’t be the only woman at work or at church who didn’t get some token of how special she is to her man.

I so totally lucked out! The first place I stopped, PetSmart, had one little Siamese Snowshoe with piercing blue eyes. I was transfixed. Doubt crept in. What if Heather gets mad that I adopted a cat without even consulting with her? It was risky. It’s the kind of thing careless married couples fight about all the time.

I was going to drive around and think about it, when this couple walked up and started cooing over the same kitten. Panic. What if someone else chooses him while I’m still thinking? Can I take that chance? No. I cannot. He’s too beautiful. He’s too perfect. It’s him or nothing.

He was so tiny. So precious. He cried all the way home. I sang to him to calm him down. When we got home, my wife was taking a shower, probably getting ready for a possible Valentine’s Day dinner. I carried the kitty into the bedroom, opened the bathroom door just a crack, and gently nudged him on. I closed the door and listened carefully.

Five seconds later, I hear Heather gasp. I hear the shower door open and she says, “Where did you come from, kitty?” in the sweetest voice I’ve ever heard her use. The rest was history. She fell in love with our new cat, and he has been an irreplaceable member of the family ever since. Now, whenever a gift-giving holiday comes around, she always tells me, “Just give me Mr. Kitty again. Wrap a bow around him and give him to me as a present!”

I haven’t tried it yet. Somehow, I think the idea of it might be a little cuter than how it might play out for real. Still, Mr. Kitty earns me bonus points on every holiday when my wife remembers how wonderful it was to receive the perfect kitty on a day I had never previously celebrated.