Let's Call it An Adventure

After five years of successfully showing my work at science meetings in various cities in the US, I decided to try showing at one in Europe. For the sake of vaguely plausible deniability, let’s call it the LENS conference, in Vienna. (To be perfectly clear, I have nothing bad to say about the “LENS” organization. They were friendly and professional and did just what they promised they would.) It was … an experience.

Before the conference, I spent months making new paintings and designing new scarves. I figured out what frame sizes were standard in Europe and found a source in let’s-call-it-Vienna that could cut mats and backing boards for me in those sizes, to be picked up the day I arrived. I spent weeks trying to figure out how to accept credit card payments in Europe without a Euro bank account. (Create an online shop account and then download an app that allows you to take cards at point-of-sale, as it turns out)

My old suitcase was too crushable for transporting art so I bought a new one. My scarf rack was too big to transport, so I got a European Amazon account and arranged to buy one that would be shipped to my hotel just in time. I was told my booth was “space only” so I figured out how to display my work without any walls. I rented an extra table for 3 days for 100 Euros. In short, I prepared, and prepared, and prepared. And although I was as careful as possible, I spent lots of money, which I figured was OK, because I expected to make lots of sales, as I had at similar conferences in the US.

And then I arrived, and things went downhill from there.

I was feeling pretty good on day one: I found my hotel right away, and though I was not able to check in, I was able to dump my bags and go off exploring. The art store people came through, and I picked up 400 Euros worth of mats and backing boards with no problem. I created a little mounting shop in my room and got all my paintings ready for sale.  Then I discovered that my scarf rack hadn’t arrived. No biggie, I still had a day before the conference started, and the concierge at the hotel helped me to contact the shipper to arrange re-delivery.

The next morning, I set off for the conference center to set up.  Exhibitor set-up started at 8 am. When I arrived around 10, I found that the furniture for the booths had not been delivered. Oh. Check back later this afternoon, they said.

I headed back to the hotel. Still no scarf rack. Shit. Amazon’s shipper claims that “the business was closed when they tried to deliver,” which is absurd because it is A HOTEL. I set off to the local shops to see what I could find as a substitute, and came up with something not too expensive.

Then I went back to the conference center, where I found hundreds of people milling around outside. The building had been evacuated because of a fire alarm. Oh. After 45 minutes or so, they reopened the building, and I went in and found my art exhibitor neighbors busy setting up. “Weren’t you evacuated?” “Evacuated? Huh?”

The exhibitor to my right, let’s call her Sophia, had a much more elaborate booth than the rest of the artists, with three complete walls. “Had I not received an email promising me a booth with three walls?” she asked. I had not. As noted, I was promised space only, so I was pretty delighted to get a back wall, the same as all the other art exhibitors. Oh well.

As we set up, I was amazed to discover that (let’s call her) Sophia had come from (let’s call it) New Zealand. She told me that her local arts council had paid for her booth. I thought “lucky her,” but figured that the cost of her plane ticket and expenses for coming from NZ would still have been enormous.

The next morning, I discovered otherwise. The art exhibitors had signed a contract to be in the exhibits hall from 9:30 to 5:30 for three days.  I guess I was the only one who actually read that, because around 10:30, I was pretty much alone when an irate woman with a “New Zealand” accent came up to my booth and asked me if I had seen Sophia. Not today, I said. “Well,” she said, “she’s my employee and I’m a bit salty because she’s supposed to be at her poster session right now. I paid for her plane ticket to come here and she never said a word to me about having an art booth.” 😮

When Sophia eventually turned up, I told her that the boss had come looking for her. She explained that she was staying with a friend in the suburbs and that the train service was interrupted. I mean, OK, things happen. But by now it looked like she had 1) extracted an extra-special booth from the conference organizers and 2) got someone else to pay for it, then 3) got someone else to pay for her expensive plane ticket without informing them that she would be spending most of the conference doing something else and then 4) blew ALL of it off, showing up hours late for both the art and the science.

At this point, I am just

 but I decide to ignore the whole Sophia situation. What could I do, anyway? 

I should probably mention here that I had personally urged the conference organizers to have art exhibitors, so I feel somewhat responsible for the whole thing being a success. I tweet photos of all the artists’ work. I show up at 9 and stay until 6. I don’t take lunch breaks because the lines for the food are enormous. But I cannot will success into being.

The exhibit hall booths are very far apart, with a carpeted “highway” leading from one poster area to the next, encouraging conference-goers to march right past the exhibits without looking. There’s a trickle of customers. People keep asking me if my stuff is available online (yes but it’s RIGHT HERE NOW and if you buy it online you have to pay to have it shipped from the US). It turns out that nobody cares that my paintings are matted for standard frame sizes (it’s a big selling point in the US). Nobody even looks at my large paintings. I had painted 24 A4 size paintings. I sold 3. 

By day 5, I am despondent. Amazon continues to claim that they have tried to deliver my package over and over. I send them an all-caps email explaining that I managed to find the hotel in 5 minutes on the subway despite having never been to Let’s-call-it-Vienna before, and that there is always someone at the front desk. They refund my money.

I have not eaten in a restaurant the whole time I was in LCI Vienna, instead getting food from supermarkets. I was planning to treat myself to a nice restaurant meal once I got into the black after expenses. When it becomes clear that it will never happen, I decide to splash out anyway, and make plans to meet two internet friends who live in town for dinner. The day of the dinner, they both blow me off, one because the World Cup was on, one because she “needed a nap”. I leave town without ever having been in a restaurant, not having shared a meal with another person all week.

The day I fly out, it pours. The elevator in the subway stop is out of order, so I have to drag my bag (filled with all the unsold work) down the stairs in the rain. When I get to the station where the airport bus comes, there is no elevator at all, so I drag it back up the stairs, as four people having a cigarette break stare curiously.  I am very happy to leave.

The next day, I go on Twitter and Instagram and post pictures about my European adventure, which went great.

Variations Opens June 1 at Artists & Makers

June 1-27 at Artists & Makers 1 in Rockville, MD

Opening Reception: Friday, June 1, 6-9 pm 

In science, a variation is any difference between cells, individual organisms, or groups of organisms caused either by genetic differences or by the effect of environmental factors on the expression of genes. In music, a variation is the repetition of a theme or musical idea with changes or embellishments in harmony, rhythm, or key. In my art, these two definitions merge. Inspired by my stay in a science lab in Paris that studies evolution in fruit flies, this exhibit of watercolors and ink paintings brings together work that explores the idea of variation in all its senses.

Artists & Makers Studios 1
11810 Parklawn Dr., Suite 210
Rockville, MD 20852
More information here

Updated! Upcoming Art Events for Summer-Fall 2017

Looking to start or add to your collection of unique, science-inspired art? Here's where you'll find me over the next few months: 

July 12-16

Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts

State College, PA

August 26

17th Street Festival

Washington, DC

September 1 - November 1
Johns Hopkins University, Montgomery County Campus

Rockville, MD 

September 23

Hyattsville Arts & Ales Festival

Hyattsville, MD

October 7

Art on the Avenue

Alexandria, VA

October 16-18
Global Conference on Pharmaceutical Microbiology
Bethesda, MD

November 11-15

Society for Neuroscience 

Washington, DC

November 24-25
Bazaart at AVAM
Baltimore, MD 

December 3-5

ASCB-EMBO 2017

Philadelphia, PA

December 9
GRUMP
Crystal City, VA

And of course you can always find my work on etsy. 

Zone of Resistance

Apart from a few anti-Bush efforts way back at the beginning of my career, I've pretty much avoided making political art. But it was impossible for me, as an artist, an American, and a proud resident of Washington, DC, not to be affected by the political turmoil of the past year. I've been protesting my heart out, and eventually I channeled my anger, despair and hope into Zone of Resistance, a mixed-media piece (watercolor, plastic and resin), inspired by the pattern that forms when antibiotics meet pathogens in a petri dish. (i don't want to over-explain it, but that's pink power overcoming the harmful bacteria) I hope to show it at an exhibition in DC next month.

Update: Zone of Resistance will be on display at the DCCAH Eye Street Gallery from June 16-August 11, in the lobby at 200 I Street, SE in Washington, DC. 

Thank Me for Coming

Let me say this right up front: none of this is a big deal. I know that. And I also know that what I’m about to tell you has happened to many people before me and will happen to many after. But it’s been a few months and I still can’t shake the hurt, so I decided to write about it anyway.

On December 10, 2016, midway between the national body blows of Hillary Clinton’s electoral loss and Donald Trump’s inauguration, I had a small, personal one of my own. That evening, a reception was held for my first solo gallery show in more than 10 years, and nobody came. Not one single person.

None of my hundreds of facebook friends. None of my thousands of twitter followers. Most painfully, though, not a single one of the hundreds of people whose openings I have attended in my 15 plus years of making art in DC. Not one.

I know there were some good reasons. It was a busy weekend. Several other art spaces were having events. Holiday festivities were no doubt underway. But all the same, not one single person decided that mine was the event that they would put first. And that hurts like kneeling on gravel.

I immediately decided never to go to anyone’s opening again. And then I decided to go to everyone’s, so it would never happen to any of my friends. But even with all of the time and the alcohol and the yoga that have passed since that night, I still feel a little bitter every time I show up to a bustling opening and am greeted by all the usual people. The people who didn’t show up for me.

Now I find myself seriously considering whether I should ever try again. I had already applied for a show out in the suburbs in Virginia, but hey! I got rejected, so I no longer had to worry whether anyone would come or not. A show at AU? Chances are a little better that some people might come to a show in DC, but hey! I got rejected, so I’ll never have to find out.

For every exhibition opportunity I have considered since that day, I’m adding an extra layer of dread on top of the usual likelihood of getting rejected. What if I am selected, and I work on a show for months, and once again nobody comes? There is so much effort and expense involved in putting together a solo exhibition, I just don’t know whether I can, or should, even bother.

For now, I’m sticking to festivals, where it’s someone else’s job to draw the crowd, and to the internet, where people seem to like the cartoon version of me. Who knows, maybe in three weeks, or three months, or another ten years, an amazing opportunity for a show will come up, and I’ll do it and it will be great. Or maybe it won’t.

In the meantime, if you should see me at your opening, thank me for coming. 

The Arctic Bride

Michele Banks, The Arctic Bride, Mixed Media, 2017 

With Arctic sea ice at its lowest-ever recorded levels, and the administration poised to roll back environmental protections, spring of 2017 seemed like a good time for a wedding. For my seventh appearance at Artomatic, I decided to show this piece, The Arctic Bride, instead of my usual paintings. This mixed-media piece (yes, that's a real wedding dress that I bought on eBay) considers the marriage of Ice and Carbon. I first had the idea for this piece when I was working with Jessica Beels and Ellyn Weiss on Voyage of Discovery, our climate-inspired show at the AAAS in 2014. Looking at pictures ice and snow in the Arctic, I was reminded of the thick, glossy, pristine white draping of a wedding dress, and all the concepts of purity tied up in that image. 

For that show, we ended up making a larger, much more abstract piece called Waning Albedo.

Waning Albedo, Jessica Beels, Michele Banks and Ellyn Weiss, Mixed Media, 2014

I decided to revisit the idea in this piece. I'll leave it for others to tease out the layers of meaning here, but I think we can all agree that this marriage will be dangerous and damaging for the beautiful bride. 

Artomatic, which features the work of 600+ artists, runs through May 6 at 1800 South Bell Street in Arlington. 

Pay, Pay, Pay to Play

I don’t like to fight on twitter, but when somebody told me that, unlike scientists, artists and writers never publish their work for free, I had no choice.  Ahem. 

YES THEY DO, YOU IDIOT. ALL THE TIME.

I’ve been a professional artist for over 15 years. Here’s how I make money: I put my work in gallery shows and art festivals and I sell it online. The first two, and to some extent all three, are emphatically pay-to-play.

With very rare exceptions, an artist who shows in any type of gallery gets no pay for actually making the work. She buys all the supplies, paints or sculpts, frames and mounts, and delivers ready-to-display work to the gallery. In many cases, the artist also pays for photography of her work, postcards to advertise the show, and even the food and wine for the opening.  In return, the gallery provides display space, hanging, publicity, back-office functions and, ideally, buyers, in exchange for a commission (usually 50%) on sold works. But of course, there is no guarantee that any work will sell, so many artists end up thousands of dollars in the hole for gallery shows.

Artists who show at festivals also pay upfront in hopes of making money. Most shows charge application fees ranging from $25-50, and booth fees ranging from $100-1,000, depending on the size and prestige of the show. Artists generally have to provide a display system, a payment system, and a bunch of finished work (not to mention tools, bags, business cards and usually a tent). If you don’t earn back your booth fee, do you get your money back? Hahahahahahahaha.

Even Etsy, where I make most of my money, requires upfront investment by the artist in terms of making, photographing and listing work for sale. Their fees are pretty low, but again, if your stuff doesn’t sell, you’ll be out some time, money and listing fees.

Now let’s do writers. Hey, maybe you wrote a great short story and you want to publish it. Say you’re already well-known and The New Yorker wants to publish your story. Sure, they’ll pay. But if you’re not an established writer, chances are you’ll be publishing that story in a literary journal for nothing.

I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point.

Just a note on the science side. Most scientists in academia who are publishing in journals are getting paid to do science. They get a salary or at least a grad-school stipend. Most science research is funded by grants. Part of the grant money is usually set aside for the publishing fees. Are the economics of scientific journal publishing profoundly tilted to the benefit of the publishers vis-à-vis the scientists? Probably! Does this mean that scientists who publish are working for free? Not really. 

Holiday Sciart Events

It's beginning to look a lot like....SCIENCE! Geek it up this holiday season with sciency gifts and art that will make you look super smart. You can find me at the following events over the next few weeks:

November 19 - January 8  
Glen Echo Park, Maryland

I have a solo show, Hidden Worlds, in the Park View Gallery, featuring larger watercolors based on brains, microbes and cells.  I also have smaller works in the Popcorn Gallery as part of Glen Echo's annual Holiday Art Show. If you come on December 10 for Winter's Eve, there's a reception from 6-8pm for my show as well as many other festivities and open studios.

December 3 - 6  
Artists' Row at ASCB, San Francisco

I'm showing for the first time at the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology. I'll be bringing lots of new cell-inspired art and scarves.

December 17 
Grump, Crystal City, Virginia

GRUMP is an awesome local holiday show featuring 50 top-quality art and craft vendors.
And a Yeti.

Where You'll Find Me

I have lots of art events coming up, including some old favorites: the always-amazing Artscape, Alexandria's big, fun, friendly Art on the Avenue, and the gorgeous MPA Artfest.  This year I'm adding some new shows to the mix, including the Mt. Gretna Outdoor Art Fair in Pennsylvania and the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology in December in San Francisco. As always, I'm painting up a storm so I have new work for every show.


July 15-17
Artscape
Baltimore, MD

August 20-21
Mt. Gretna Outdoor Art Festival
Mt. Gretna, PA

October 1
Art on the Avenue
Alexandria, VA

October 2
McLean Project for the Arts Artfest
McLean, VA

December 3-7
Cell Biology 2016
San Francisco, CA

Upcoming Events: Spring-Summer 2016

I'm delighted to announce that I'll be taking part in three new events this spring: two completely new and one "new to me."

First, I'll be showing at the first-ever Makers Mart at the National Museum of Women in the Arts from April 10-12. This unique event showcases the work of many women artists and crafters from around the DC area, and allows visitors to check out the great collections of the NMWA at the same time as shopping for unique pieces. Lots more information here.

On May 7 and 8, I'll be at A-RTS (Arts Rockville Town Square) for the first time. The outdoor festival gathers 175 selected artists to the streets around Rockville's town square.

Next up, in June, I'll be taking my art on the road to show at the first ever Art Walk at ASM Microbe 2016! From June 16-20, thousands of microbiologists gather for the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, and for the first time, they will be able to see and shop for microbe-inspired art from me, the Vexed Muddler, and other artists.

I'm designing some new microbe and virus-themed scarves just for this event! More details to come.

Some Thoughts on Sciart and Blogging

I’ve been making science-inspired art as my primary job since 2010, and been writing about science-inspired art (sciart, as we call it on twitter) as an unpaid side gig all along, first for Guru Magazine and then for the Finch & Pea. I’m going to keep making my art, but I’m giving up the writing, maybe temporarily, maybe permanently. We’ll see.

Why? Because nobody cares. I’ve been trying for more than five years to build an audience for sciart, and, frankly, failing. If I don’t flog my posts endlessly on social media, nobody reads them. I’ve written about hundreds of artists, and probably 5 or 6 of them have even noticed. So I guess it’s time to admit defeat.

Somebody on twitter the other day said he couldn’t quite see the point of “sciart” – why is it not just considered as art? That’s a very good question. I would love for it to just be art. For me, sciart is a hook, a way to get people who don’t like art, or think they don’t understand art, to look at some art and think about it. I think that’s worthwhile.

Also, it’s a marketing hook to help me sell my work. I would dearly love to make art that is much more abstract, but unless I include recognizable cells or microbes, it doesn’t sell. I would love to be covered in the media as an artist and not as a scicomm sideshow, but that has never happened, and given my lack of art-world cred (no MFA, no gallery), it probably never will.

When I complained about people not reading what I wrote, several people told me that I should just blog for my own enjoyment, not for clicks. So I’m not going to link this on twitter or Facebook or anywhere. It’s just for me, and maybe for a few people who happen to stumble across it.

I’m really sad about this, and I’ve shed a lot of tears, but I guess I’m done. 

Panda Tweetup! Panda Tweetup! Panda Tweetup!

Hey DC twitter friends! Two of the best things about our city have converged recently – the arrival of a panda cub and the arrival of no-tourists season. So I propose a panda tweetup to be held on Thursday, February 25, at the National Zoo.

Here’s the plan: we meet between 10 and 10:30 am at the tables across from the entrance to the panda habitat (“Panda Plaza” on the zoo map, not to be confused with the Panda Overlook Café). I’ll make a bunch of delicious cookies and get one of those boxes of coffee. We will eat cookies and drink coffee and look at pandas and talk and tweet. If there's a line for the pandas we can take turns. Or something. We'll figure it out. 

I fully realize that 10 on a Thursday is tough for some people, but I tried to choose a time that would maximize our chances of seeing Bei Bei and minimize our chances of being overwhelmed by tourists. According to the zoo, this is the time of day he is most likely to be up and active.

So, please come. Invite your friends. This is not any kind of official or zoo-sanctioned activity, just a chance to hang out. If about 20 people come, we all get cookies and coffee on me. If hundreds come, we may have to go to Starbucks (not on me).

To summarize: Thursday, February 25, starting at 10am, National Zoo, Panda Plaza. Bei there! 

Let's Do Some (Art Show) Things Better This Year

Heyyy, just kicked off 2016 with a rejection on New Year's Eve and an invitation to pay $40 to apply for a (small, local) show that last year didn't bother to ever let me know my work wasn't selected. I'm not really terribly bummed about either of these, but it seemed like a good excuse to suggest some best practices (or at least better practices) for people organizing art shows this year.

1. Let everyone know the status of their application. AT THE SAME TIME. Really, all this requires is two mass emails (or three if you have a wait list). If you don't know how to BCC, please ask a friend, or do not run an art show.

2. Let people know if the work in the show is for sale and if so, how they can buy it. I can't count how many shows I've been to where there was virtually no information on how to purchase the art. Make a brief announcement at the reception. Explain it across the top of the art info sheet. Make it as easy as possible. Think prices on the wall (small, not on red stickers) and a person at a desk with a Square terminal.

3. Please don't invite people individually to apply for a show and then reject them. I know that an invitation to apply is not a guarantee of acceptance, but why do this? It makes everybody feel bad.

I'm sure there are others. Comment away!

I can haz three shops?

Yes, yes I can. I now have three shops. 

So now you can PETRI ALL THE THINGS. 

Click the pic to take you there.

For original artwork, scarves and petri dish ornaments, go to my etsy shop

For coffee mugs, phone cases, leggings 

and other accessories, there's my Redbubble shop

And for fabric and wrapping paper, 

I now have a Spoonflower shop

Enjoy! 

News and Upcoming Events - UPDATED

New scarf designs for Art of Neuroscience

Important updates! Because of predicted heavy rain and high winds, both of this weekend's shows have been postponed. 

Art on the Avenue in Alexandria will take place on Saturday, October 10.

MPA Artfest in McLean will be held on Monday, October 12 (Columbus Day) 


Other than Artscape, it's been a pretty quiet summer, but that's about to change. Lots of events are coming up:

September 12

17th Street Festival

Washington, DC

September 26

Barracks Row Fall Festival

Washington, DC

October 3

Art on the Avenue

Alexandria, VA

October 4

McLean Project for the Arts, Artfest

McLean, VA

October 17-21

Art of Neuroscience at SfN15

Chicago, IL

October 22

Personal Patterns, Group Show

Cafritz Gallery, Montgomery College

In addition, I was recently interviewed by Dr. Vincent Racaniello for This Week in Virology. Dr. Racaniello is a great supporter of science art and science communication. You can see the interview here. 

In other news, I created a shop on Redbubble with mugs, notebooks, leggings and other cool things printed with my artwork. You can find it here. 

Banks' Theorem of Stupid Rules

Not a stupid rule at all

Long before I started selling my art online, I sold it at festivals, art markets and gallery shows. Early on, I was seriously puzzled, and often annoyed, by the ridiculous rules of many art shows and festivals. No paintings that are still wet? No getting juried into a show and then subletting your space to someone who didn’t? Who would do that? Why would anyone have to even mention these things?

Then, after a few years of selling, I began to get involved with organizing some shows, and I found out. The very first festival I organized, an artist told me weeks before the show that she couldn’t make it, but that she had arranged for a friend to use her booth space. My jaw hit the floor. Absolutely not! She seemed amazed that I wouldn’t allow it, although I can’t imagine any half-decently run art show that would.

Another fairly common trick was to have a friend help in the booth, in exchange for which the “official” artist showed some of their work in the space. That’s why you see that rule everywhere that all the work has to be made by the artist who applied. Maybe you think that’s not a big deal, but to all the artists who applied and were rejected, it is!

Later, I coordinated a show of about 30 artists at a gallery space. I kept the written rules to a minimum – and a guy showed up with gigantic pieces with very recently applied globs of still-wet acrylic paint. When we hung the work, the paint came off all over my hands and clothing. 

One very basic rule for gallery shows is that artwork must be ready to hang. Ever wonder why some shows are so freaking fussy about pieces having “a single wire across the back, no nails, screw eyes, or sawtooth hangers”? Number one, because while some of those things work OK for hanging, they tend to scratch up gallery walls, which will have to be repaired. But number two, and far more to the point, is that every single time, someone will bring in work that has absolutely no hanging hardware, and expect someone else to deal with it. Every. Single. Time.

Two years after wet-paint guy, a woman at the same show presented us with paintings in mats, no frames. When we said we couldn’t accept them because there was no way to hang them, she went away and came back with the work still in mats, with pieces of string taped across the back.

All of these examples, and many more, led me to develop Banks’ theorem, which is:

EVERY STUPID RULE CAN BE TRACED BACK TO SOME JOKER 

TRYING TO GET AWAY WITH SOME SHIT

Broadly extrapolated, Banks’ theorem explains why we can’t have nice things. It applies in many other contexts than art shows, of course. Why do you have to go to such lengths to prove to banks or government agencies that you are who you say you are? Because assholes are out there stealing people’s identities. Why are there so very many silly rules on what you can claim as business expenses? Because jerks keep trying to claim their vacations and shoes and haircuts. Why do we have to take off our shoes at the airport? Because that one idiot that one time tried to ignite a bomb in his shoe. 

All of this is deeply unfair to the vast majority of people who would never dream of doing any of this stuff.

Even though people constantly try to get away with shit, I still think we should strive to avoid making rules based on worst-case scenarios. I struggle with it all the time, though. I do commissioned paintings, for example. People almost always love them and pay happily. Then somebody will come along, commission something, and, after I let them know it’s ready, cut off all contact. Does this mean I always have to get payment in advance? I probably should, but I still don’t. Why punish the majority of nice people for the actions of a few jerks?

A few weeks ago, somebody asked me to use one of my images for a non-commercial project. I said yes and even found and sent her a better-quality image than the one I had online. And she never said a single word. Not even “thx”. I decided that was the last time I was letting someone use one of my images for free. So when someone asked me last week if they could use another image, I hesitated. I talked myself through basically all the points in this post, and then I said yes. And, of course, she said thank you, and we were both happy.

So Banks’ theorem is explanatory, not prescriptive. I understand why rules exist, even very stupid rules. We all, especially those of us who run our own businesses, have to decide on a set of rules we can live by, and with. But maybe if we focus on the 98% percent of people who are honest, and kind, and not pains in the butt, (OK, maybe it’s more like 80%), we could end up with fewer - and fairer - rules altogether. 

If you want to sell on the internet, you have to be on the internet

A neighbor recently opened an etsy shop to sell her paintings. She asked me a bunch of questions about the process, which I was happy to answer. Then she asked me the essential question: "How do you get people to find you on the internet?"

Getting people to find me on the internet is the central struggle of my career. It’s a constant battle that I’ve been fighting every single day, with some success, for the past five years. But of course I didn’t tell my neighbor this, because I didn’t want to scare her off. So I suggested she start by posting her new shop on her Facebook page. “Well, that’s the thing, I don’t do Facebook.” Twitter? Nope. Instagram? What? We didn’t even get to the idea of submitting work to blogs.

I had a sudden flashback to a conversation with another artist a few years earlier, who complained that twitter wasn’t working well for promoting her work. “I tweet a lot,” she explained, “But I don’t actually READ tweets.” Dear fellow artist,

This is not to say that twitter is the only way to go, or that artists have to spend as many hours a day on the internet as I do. They probably shouldn’t!

But really, selling online has a lot in common with selling offline. You need to put in some time. You have to get out there and forge relationships. You need to know who the players are. I’m going to call this Banks’ second theorem:*

If you want to sell on the internet, you have to be on the internet.

If you had a brick-and-mortar shop, you would know the other shopkeepers in your neighborhood, wouldn’t you? Well, if you have an online shop, the internet is your neighborhood. Get out there, take a walk every day, and say hello. Read some blogs. Read some tweets. Make some intelligent comments. Then say, "here, have a look at what I'm working on." Repeat. 

*I’ll get to the first theorem later. My blog, my rules. 

Ohaiiiii - Upcoming Events

Oh my God, has it really been 6 months since I posted? I apologize to all 5 of you : ) Anyway, I've got some events coming up, so I updated the calendar. You can find me at

July 17-19
Artscape, Baltimore

October 3
Art on the Avenue
Alexandria, VA

October 4
McLean Project for the Arts, Artfest
McLean, VA

I'm also in a group show called "Personal Patterns" opening in October at Montgomery College. I'll post about that when there's something to link to.

In the meantime, there's always new stuff in the shop, including new petri dish and diatom scarves.

Out With the Old, In With the New

I've made a few changes for the new year. Most notably, I just emptied out my old Artmonger etsy shop, where I sold coffee cup collages and other cute stuff. I'm not making those any more, but I did decide to keep my recycled collage line, which I love and which give me something to do with all those practice paintings. So I've set up a new Recycled Collage section in my Artologica shop - you can find it here.

In other news, 12 of my paintings are now on view at the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health (aka Building 10) until early March. There's no reception, and I can't really suggest you try to get past all that security to look at my paintings, but if you happen to be there in the next 8 weeks, please take a look. The paintings are in the lobby, near the main doors. 

Artsy Alternatives to Black Friday

Do you reeeeallly want to stand in line at Best Buy? Here are a few great alternatives that let you get your holiday shop on this weekend without waking up at dawn or fighting anyone for the last talking Olaf. Even better, all offer unique, handmade products to delight your friends and family. 

DC’s Downtown Holiday Market kicks off its 10^th year, opening on Friday at noon and running daily 12-8 until December 23^rd.  Located in front of the National Portrait Gallery, the market features more than 150 regional artisans, crafters and boutique businesses.  A rotating group of 60 exhibitors a day offers hundreds of diverse gift items, such as jewelry, pottery, paintings, and textiles.  Check the exhibitor schedule to see who will be there on the day you plan to visit. 

Glen Echo Park’s Holiday Gift Sale begins Friday at 10am in the Popcorn Gallery and The Stone Tower Gallery. The sale features work from Glen Echo’s resident artists and other invited artists (including me). Among the offerings are glass, ceramics, jewelry, scarves, ornaments, cards and more. The show runs Thursday-Sunday through December 20.  

Bazaart at Baltimore’s American Visionary Art Museum opens Friday at 6pm for a special preview party (tickets required). The event continues Saturday from 10-5  with 50 local and regional artists (including, yes, me again) offering painting, sculpture, paper crafts, metalwork, jewelry, textiles, mixed media, and “other work that simply defies categorization.”

Brentwood Arts Exchange in the Gateway Arts Center is offering a Black Friday Sale from 10-7 with 20% off all fine art and crafts. 

The Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, VA has a Black Friday Holiday Celebration from 10-7 featuring over 100 open artist studios, Doughnuts with Santa, fine-art projects for children while you shop, an outdoor fire pit for roasting marshmallows, holiday music and theatrical performances throughout the day.