Baren Digest Friday, 31 August 2001 Volume 16 : Number 1541 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Bill H Ritchie Jr" Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 07:34:27 -0700 Subject: [Baren 15584] our work Barbara Mason, awhile back you wrote about being more business-like and concluded, "It could happen," (a line from a movie, I remember, about monkeys) and "I am going about it much more seriously!" Not TOO seriously, Barbara, I hope! Not without some good simple-to-monitor software (I use QuickBooks Pro) and constant absenting yourself at the right times. This business stuff can lead to dis-ease regarding the free fine artistry in printmaking. Another Barener said, "Art is Business," and I thought about that a long time, too. I recall a discussion I had with a relation of mine who feeds and keeps a stray pit bull. I warned him about this breed, and of course he knows all about the dangers they can pose to children, especially, and the grief that can be traced back to born-and-people-train-to-kill types of animals. With visions of the worst in mind, with his grandchidren living next door, I recommended he get help and control this dog and he said, "No. I can't. To me, dogs are people." It's embarrassing to meet someone--supposedly highly educated (a Doctor's degree in Education) being unable to tell the difference between a dog and a human being. Maybe he's in the early stages of Mad Cow Disease. "Art is business" is not embarrasing in the same way, but I was reminded of it, by analogy. I wrote the book on the Art of Selling Art, a kind of tongue in cheek title based on things like, "The Art of Truck Driving". I'm not embarrassed, and I'd do it again. In fact, I AM doing it again! No, art is not business, and dogs are not people, but I get the drift of these statements. The drift is, of course, social and economic. The drift is to go along with conventions that work, sometimes. That's fine. Selling art, and buying art, is business, that's for sure. Art is not business. That idea came up about 500 years ago when improvements in text-based printing and double entry bookkeeping were introduced in Europe at almost the same time. Before that, even signing something of art, craft and good design was almost unheard of. The cleverness of combining text-based and image printing with a new kind of bookkeeping which opened the gates to clever accounting systems (like risk management and transfer) is manifest in phrases like, Art is business. Today, of course, it's multimedia and the Internet. Funny thing is, I think the new technologies will result in a return to what I call Triple-entry Bookkeeping that predates double-entry. Yes, Barbara Mason, it pays to be mindful of the business of selling art, and taxes and all the other double-entry bookkeeping techniques that can help artists be free. The "bottom line" of triple entry bookkeeping is freedom. I'm working on a sequel to my book, Art of Selling Art now, and creating a place in my museum for the original book. The new book will be titled something like "Beyond the Art of Selling Art" and I hope it's actually an interactive book and will describe how the 21st Century gives artists a new kind of asset management and legacy transfer. I look to the printmaking community for the best ideas as I contemplate the new era we may be in, because printmakers share an important discovery--the late 15th C. printing inventions I mentioned--and because the Internet and WWW offer a new instrument we can manage (the Web's a process art, too, IMHO). BTW, I didn't overlook the nice invitation to be in Portland. If I have not already acknowledged it, I do now. Thank you. - - Bill Bill H. Ritchie, Jr 500 Aloha #105 Seattle WA 98109 (206) 285-0658 Professional: www.seanet.com/~ritchie E-Store: www.myartpatron.com General: www.emeraldaworks.com First Game Portal: www.artsport.com ------------------------------ From: "bemason" Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 08:04:11 -0700 Subject: [Baren 15585] Baren Mall READ THIS ONE....... Our faithful and hard working mall manager, Maria Arango, is so busy selling and making and promoting her work successfully that the mall managers job is just too much for her. So at this point, Maria is taking a much needed sabatical, she would probably call it jumping ship, but we call it a much needed break. We appreciate what she has done for baren so much, HOORAY FOR MARIA!!!!! HUGE THANKS!!!!! So friends, the mall will close for transfer to the new mall manager, myself, and will be up and running in a week or two. If there are any complaints (hope not) or questions, email me at bemason@concentric.net and I will deal with them all as soon as we are back in business here. Shouldn't be too long, but involves a lot of html stuff and behind the scenes wringing of hands and many emails back and forth to the land of the rising sun. Best to all, Barbara Mason soon to be mall manager ------------------------------ From: "JEANNE N CHASE" Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 16:22:24 -0400 Subject: [Baren 15586] Re: Publicity! Wanda Great article on your show at the University. Congratulations to you and your friend Susan. You really got the word out on block printmaking! We need to educate the public about the art of Printmaking. I still have people who say "Where is the original"? Humph Jeanne N. ------------------------------ From: "Bill H Ritchie Jr" Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 14:06:28 -0700 Subject: [Baren 15587] Printmaking prof seeks historian Bill Ritchie is seeking a qualified, affiliated art historian to join in writing a grant application to the Getty Foundation (November deadline). The requirement is that a team of two apply, and one must be an art historian, and the other may be a scholar in another discipline. Ritchie wants to continue research to develop an online course titled "Multimedia Art History in the Pacific Northwest Since 1935" -- a project he started in 1985 and continues today. Printmaking is the ancestral form of multimedia, and numerous localized resources exist to develop a robust online course, he believes. See the Getty announcment itself at http://www.getty.edu/grants/funding/research/scholars/nonresidential/collabo rative.html Send comments and interest response offline to Ritchie, not to the Baren list, please. Ritchie's email is ritchie@seanet.com, and you may telephone him at (206) 285-0658. ------------------------------ From: "Jean Eger" Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 21:36:03 -0700 Subject: [Baren 15588] Marco's show I hope we can all get together again in San Francisco, Carol and Marco. Jean Eger Womack http://www.jeaneger.com ------------------------------ End of Baren Digest V16 #1541 *****************************