As a pop artist, I have created most of my art for the benefit of a certain facebook site, which has given me somewhat of a reputation as a Quaker pop artist. But basically, for the purposes of advertising a Cloud Quaker meeting once a week, I have taken a number of interesting pictures, let the "kandinsky" function of lunapic make them impressionist, and used them as advertising. Some people are mad at me for basically just stealing pictures I find on the web. To me, nobody really owns a view of a place, and the doctoring of it makes it legal, or so I believe, though I realize I'm walking onthe edge of copyright theft. I'm not making money off of them; that's probably my saving grace. They could sue me, but for what? Me and Andy Warhol, we just are interested in the image and people's reaction to it.
Now I have a new topic and I'm slowly warming up to it. That is, I want to market my books in about 80 sites, and really give Facebook marketing a try. To do this I'm heavily leaning on pop art. And the more I can make every site different, the better I can do. I'm not sure I have eighty separate images for any given book, but with e pluribus haiku I have almost that many, and so I find myself digging into the archives for old pop, bringing it up to the surface, and using it.
For example, in a recent campaign I was doing Do Unto, which has Barbie as a theme. I only had about ten images with Barbie but a few more were similar, and the cover images were good too. I tried to hit all eighty or so sites but in the end probably only got about sixty or seventy. Some people who are on multiple sites were surprised, I think, to find different pictures on different sites. I had one where Barbie was in the sand and it's in general best when someone has "done into" a barbie clearly. I had some Barbie pictures with no clear "do unto" idea and I ended up using them more sparingly. I only have eighty slots, might as well put the best pic possible in each one!
I cruise around the different sites, and if they let me, I drop my version fo the ad with a piece of pop art - no words on it, just a picture. These had a lot of deer bones along with the Barbies as if they'd been thrown in a pile with all the deer carcasses. My version of a twisted Georgia O'Keefe/Andy Warhol collage, and for those it's clear that someone has "done unto" both the dolls and the deer.
I am beginning to fall asleep, as I write this. The whole thing, making pop art, dropping it on FB, taking in the chats from marketers, on top of writing and door-dashing and other marketing, is wearing me out. I need to get more sleep. Warhol I'm sure would agree with me.
Monday, April 29, 2024
Monday, January 1, 2024
Pop resolutions
I'm actually a fairly prolific pop artist, though I don't talk about it much, as evidenced by the fact that this blog is somewhat sleepy asd poorly linked to most of my work. I'm most active on my Cloud Quakers site, but that's not the only place I post. I consider myself an impressionist, and a kandinskyist, since I almost exclusively use the kandinsky function on the lunapic app to create impressionist art for various sites and book covers.
I don't plan on changing any of this any time soon, though you never know when another app will come along that will make ordinary photos into impressionist masterpieces. One thing I like to remember is that it's the book covers that will survive, as most of the stuff I put on these blogs or facebook is really somewhat temporary and in any case not easy to find. What is the cover of the book, though, is in an entirely different arena. Those will still be looked at years from now, and will serve as a kind of record of my ability to get words on a piece of pop art and still have it do its job. Of my thirty books, almost all are pop works of some kind or the other, and three I'm itching to delete, I'm saving now for the pop alone. It's occurred to me to change the covers regularly and have a revolving door of covers such that all the books of a single series (e pluribus haiku) are spread out and quite random in terms of their pop covers. They are, as it is, a kind of record of my pop journey. But that is a kind of abuse of the zon's liberal policy of letting artists change their covers easily, which I don't want to upset really.
I've noticed lately an explosion of good artists, many of them impressionist, who have good Facebook pages and aggressive marketing strategies based on those pages. I don't really have a desire to do that, to move into an independent identity as pop art producer, but I still have this undeveloped side of me that yearns to be known as a pop artist. I no longer make calendars, but would like to do it again. These are all hazy bucket-list resolutions, but resolutions nevertheless.
1. Consider making a calendar again. Specifically, a Quaker Book Charity calendar.
2. A pop artist should have t-shirts.
3. Take a good hard look at all thirty book covers: these will go down as my legacy. Make them as good as possible. Some that need work are: CRTLI,HOTP, and AfB4 (these are acronyms, but you can guess or find them)
4. Explore other impressionist-making apps.
See you in a month or two, to see if I've made any progress!
I don't plan on changing any of this any time soon, though you never know when another app will come along that will make ordinary photos into impressionist masterpieces. One thing I like to remember is that it's the book covers that will survive, as most of the stuff I put on these blogs or facebook is really somewhat temporary and in any case not easy to find. What is the cover of the book, though, is in an entirely different arena. Those will still be looked at years from now, and will serve as a kind of record of my ability to get words on a piece of pop art and still have it do its job. Of my thirty books, almost all are pop works of some kind or the other, and three I'm itching to delete, I'm saving now for the pop alone. It's occurred to me to change the covers regularly and have a revolving door of covers such that all the books of a single series (e pluribus haiku) are spread out and quite random in terms of their pop covers. They are, as it is, a kind of record of my pop journey. But that is a kind of abuse of the zon's liberal policy of letting artists change their covers easily, which I don't want to upset really.
I've noticed lately an explosion of good artists, many of them impressionist, who have good Facebook pages and aggressive marketing strategies based on those pages. I don't really have a desire to do that, to move into an independent identity as pop art producer, but I still have this undeveloped side of me that yearns to be known as a pop artist. I no longer make calendars, but would like to do it again. These are all hazy bucket-list resolutions, but resolutions nevertheless.
1. Consider making a calendar again. Specifically, a Quaker Book Charity calendar.
2. A pop artist should have t-shirts.
3. Take a good hard look at all thirty book covers: these will go down as my legacy. Make them as good as possible. Some that need work are: CRTLI,HOTP, and AfB4 (these are acronyms, but you can guess or find them)
4. Explore other impressionist-making apps.
See you in a month or two, to see if I've made any progress!
Sunday, September 17, 2023
lately
I have to say, that although I am not having exhibits around town, or gathering up fame and notoreity like Banksy is, I am at least creating art regularly. Check this out if you doubt me. It's not much, it's not organized, but at least I'm cranking it out.
That's because I'm determined enough to keep creating that I put it on a schedule that is otherwise very full with writing. I need pop for my covers (see that Disney one? that will be a cover) but to make good covers I have to be in good practice, not only keeping an eye for what makes a good 6 X 9 or 6.25 X 10, but also evaluating how the cover will look when script is put in it. My titles sometimes change in the course of working with them, but they might change even according to the kind of space I have to put the words in.
Ideally I would organize this pop art and put it into exhibits - say, one for Disney, one for Illinois, one for anything else - and these would appear on my blog. This, as I've inferred, is not happening, or at least not happening well. Maybe what would be ideal would be if I were more like Banksy, and got in everyone's faces more readily. I noticed with joy the other day that a Banksy pop-art with Trump, Putin, and Jong-Eun got in my Facebook and I thought, that's clever. Somebody is getting himself out there. But it wasn't me; I'm still sitting here talking about it.
Some of the good pop art is related to the book of Quaker plays; I have Hoover, Nixon and Nayler so far but really this could be a whole collection. In addition I'm still creating a Cloud Quaker pop art every week here. Check it out. I like to keep it coming.
That's because I'm determined enough to keep creating that I put it on a schedule that is otherwise very full with writing. I need pop for my covers (see that Disney one? that will be a cover) but to make good covers I have to be in good practice, not only keeping an eye for what makes a good 6 X 9 or 6.25 X 10, but also evaluating how the cover will look when script is put in it. My titles sometimes change in the course of working with them, but they might change even according to the kind of space I have to put the words in.
Ideally I would organize this pop art and put it into exhibits - say, one for Disney, one for Illinois, one for anything else - and these would appear on my blog. This, as I've inferred, is not happening, or at least not happening well. Maybe what would be ideal would be if I were more like Banksy, and got in everyone's faces more readily. I noticed with joy the other day that a Banksy pop-art with Trump, Putin, and Jong-Eun got in my Facebook and I thought, that's clever. Somebody is getting himself out there. But it wasn't me; I'm still sitting here talking about it.
Some of the good pop art is related to the book of Quaker plays; I have Hoover, Nixon and Nayler so far but really this could be a whole collection. In addition I'm still creating a Cloud Quaker pop art every week here. Check it out. I like to keep it coming.
Sunday, February 12, 2023
Monday, October 24, 2022
I've got a secret that I've been dying to share, and there's no better place than on a blog that very few people read, for who wants to actually read about pop art? People want an exhibit, they want a big Marilyn in their face, they want a bold statement like those that Warhol was good at making. All on the surface. All in a single picture. All with the boldest colors one can imagine.
Here's my secret: I make book covers; that's my medium, and though I'm not great at it, I've found it to be a fascinating way to crank out pop art. First I have the book, of course. The book doesn't need to have all its copies have the same cover; a cover can last a few years, and then I can change it to another cover. In fact I can change that cover after I've sold only a single book. It doesn't seem to be against Amazon's policy and it doesn't even necessarily upset them all that much. If they feel inclined to make a few test copies or have a few sitting around to prepare them for orders, then of course they risk wasting those few as I move on to a different or better cover and they're stuck with the old ones. But I never hear about that. What their machinery tells me is that if I make a new one, they'll put it on there. That can be tomorrow or any day.
What that means is that theoretically, I can print as much pop art as I want. I can get all my pop art out there in the world, one book at a time, and with every bizarre bold pop-art creation someone will look at it and say, wow, that's a wild picture. That's a piece of work. That's like Andy Warhol.
What I'm working toward is to have every book, every cover, every iteration, be as special as an Andy Warhol work. I have twenty-seven books out now and many of them if not all of them have some kind of pop art on the cover. Sometimes the titles and author's name ruin it a little - if it looks too much like a standard book cover, I'm a little disappointed. I want it to be bold, striking, intense. I want them all to be like that. If one of them is not, I want to change it until it is.
The world of pop art requires someone to be the kind of hustler Andy Warhol was. I don't know if I have the kind of genius it took to take a Campbell's soup can and make millions off its image, which actually has some problems with copyright probably, but I do know that Warhol did not let copyright keep him from splashing images all around the world and becoming one of the most easily recognized artists of the modern era. He had a kind of genius that I admire and am following up on. My books will for the most part be full of haiku, but that's ok, you have to have something in a book, otherwise it's just blank pages with pop art on the cover. The haiku is part of the bargain. And you know the kind of thing that goes along with haiku: flowers, roads, monarch butterflies. Vistas of incredible beauty. Impressionism through computer-aided cartoonization.
In this pop art site, I keep my best secrets. In plain sight.
Here's my secret: I make book covers; that's my medium, and though I'm not great at it, I've found it to be a fascinating way to crank out pop art. First I have the book, of course. The book doesn't need to have all its copies have the same cover; a cover can last a few years, and then I can change it to another cover. In fact I can change that cover after I've sold only a single book. It doesn't seem to be against Amazon's policy and it doesn't even necessarily upset them all that much. If they feel inclined to make a few test copies or have a few sitting around to prepare them for orders, then of course they risk wasting those few as I move on to a different or better cover and they're stuck with the old ones. But I never hear about that. What their machinery tells me is that if I make a new one, they'll put it on there. That can be tomorrow or any day.
What that means is that theoretically, I can print as much pop art as I want. I can get all my pop art out there in the world, one book at a time, and with every bizarre bold pop-art creation someone will look at it and say, wow, that's a wild picture. That's a piece of work. That's like Andy Warhol.
What I'm working toward is to have every book, every cover, every iteration, be as special as an Andy Warhol work. I have twenty-seven books out now and many of them if not all of them have some kind of pop art on the cover. Sometimes the titles and author's name ruin it a little - if it looks too much like a standard book cover, I'm a little disappointed. I want it to be bold, striking, intense. I want them all to be like that. If one of them is not, I want to change it until it is.
The world of pop art requires someone to be the kind of hustler Andy Warhol was. I don't know if I have the kind of genius it took to take a Campbell's soup can and make millions off its image, which actually has some problems with copyright probably, but I do know that Warhol did not let copyright keep him from splashing images all around the world and becoming one of the most easily recognized artists of the modern era. He had a kind of genius that I admire and am following up on. My books will for the most part be full of haiku, but that's ok, you have to have something in a book, otherwise it's just blank pages with pop art on the cover. The haiku is part of the bargain. And you know the kind of thing that goes along with haiku: flowers, roads, monarch butterflies. Vistas of incredible beauty. Impressionism through computer-aided cartoonization.
In this pop art site, I keep my best secrets. In plain sight.
Monday, September 5, 2022
covers to die for
Nobody buys haiku; the market for any poetry whatsoever appears to be pretty small. When I buy one of my own, I shoot straight up in the ratings and become one of the best sellers ever. With a single book buy I can own the haiku ratings.
Of course I could get the "author's copy" where it only costs a couple bucks but they charge a couple more for shipping - they have to make back on the shipping what they don't make simply printing the book - but I'm too cheap to pay any shipping whatsoever. And besides, it comes out to about the same. You pay over the top, you get about a buck royalty and your ratings skyrocket. So when my ratings swoon I've taken to just buying my own.
And if I'm going to do that, then I'm going to have my own pop exhibit, by having pop covers that are essentially the best I can make them. I'm only at the beginning stages. I'm not sure I've mastered this art of covers. These books that have professionally made covers seem to have gold and silver embossed lettering on them or something like that, and mine are not quite like that yet. Also they tend to make the author's name really big like it's more of a draw than the book itself - I'm not sure if I'm ready for that either.
But the covers themselves are the new pop exhibit. It appears to be a book. But actually it's pop art, in your face.
Of course I could get the "author's copy" where it only costs a couple bucks but they charge a couple more for shipping - they have to make back on the shipping what they don't make simply printing the book - but I'm too cheap to pay any shipping whatsoever. And besides, it comes out to about the same. You pay over the top, you get about a buck royalty and your ratings skyrocket. So when my ratings swoon I've taken to just buying my own.
And if I'm going to do that, then I'm going to have my own pop exhibit, by having pop covers that are essentially the best I can make them. I'm only at the beginning stages. I'm not sure I've mastered this art of covers. These books that have professionally made covers seem to have gold and silver embossed lettering on them or something like that, and mine are not quite like that yet. Also they tend to make the author's name really big like it's more of a draw than the book itself - I'm not sure if I'm ready for that either.
But the covers themselves are the new pop exhibit. It appears to be a book. But actually it's pop art, in your face.
Wednesday, May 18, 2022
update
I'm in the doldrums with my pop art. I've been Kandinskying things - almost all my pop art over the last couple years has been Kandinskyed (sp?) photos - and it hasn't really run its course. I produce one for the Quakers every week. I produce book covers. That's about the run of my pop art these days.
On the topic of book covers, I've had trouble, actually, getting the inspiration to remake all the ones that need to be remade. I've remade a few - Kandinskyed, in most cases - but have a dozen to redo. I've had a few ideas but I'm having fewer hours to click together to pull them together.
Furthermore, I'm not happy about my pop gallerie, which doesn't really display the pop art the way I want it displayed. And, I don't have much time to redo it although I've had plenty of chances.
Life is just so bizarre. I'm going to take my phone out, and try to record more of it.
On the topic of book covers, I've had trouble, actually, getting the inspiration to remake all the ones that need to be remade. I've remade a few - Kandinskyed, in most cases - but have a dozen to redo. I've had a few ideas but I'm having fewer hours to click together to pull them together.
Furthermore, I'm not happy about my pop gallerie, which doesn't really display the pop art the way I want it displayed. And, I don't have much time to redo it although I've had plenty of chances.
Life is just so bizarre. I'm going to take my phone out, and try to record more of it.
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