Susie Monday . El Cielo Studio

In the mailbox today: a copy of July/August issue of Art Calendar; the business magazine for visual artists. Alyson B. Stanfield included some pictures of one of my workshops that Linda took in an article about promoting one's workshops.

10 Planning and Promoting Workshops
By Alyson B. Stanfield
Find the students, and fill your classes.

And the editor's used two photos: one with a nice picture too of Diane Sanfield, and another with two pretty indistinguishable images of Robin Early and Stephanie Stokes (they are both in dust masks, the worlds' most unflattering workshop gear). OK, here's the pictures -- you asked!

Alyson has also just finished a redo of her website that makes an easy link to her blog -- a great improvement I think, I love her site, but often found myself a bit lost in all the links and the navigation seems a bit easier now.

The Art Calendar's website seems to include some interesting features, too. It's worth a look! 

One of my other odd-bin archetypes is surely the geeky techie one. So, if this archetype is anathema to you, just skip this post and come back when the fiber artist is in charge. Geeky Tech (or is it Techy Geek?) has been playing with a new browser -- Flock. (This is the new browser reccommended by Ed Dale, whose 30-day challenge --to make one's first $1 on the internet--is on my agenda for August.) Like Firefox, it puts a lot of tools and interactive media instantly in place on a customizable browser home page and has some nifty sidebars and toolbars that make all kinds of tasks instant and easy. I think most people are using it who want all their social networking sites easily accessible. Here's an industry take on the Flock browser from Technology Today.

So far, I like Flock a lot. If you have accounts with several web 2.0 sites and social networking sites like Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, etc, Flock puts them all in easy to access reach on the desktop, and combines all your "friend" lists on a live action sidebar so you can easily keep up with the conversation -- and probably figure out more easily who you don't want to listen to!

Now if all of this sounds like gobbledygook to you, but you are still reading because some little inner archetype is actually a cousin to Techy Geek, I reccomend the videos at Common Craft. I'll embed their "social networking" explanation here, but if you go to the home page, you'll find similar simple videos that explain blogging, rss,  and other web phenomena.

Or is the studio on top of me. Feels that way right now. Those of you who have attended one of my workshops may be under the mistaken assumption that I am a neat and well-organized artist.

Oh, how wrong.

One of the unexpected benefits of teaching in my studio is that I am forced to clean, tidy and organize at least once a month. Pride and necessity coalesce to motivate me before the participants arrive. Truth is, I work with piles of stuff, large piles, scary piles. When I am in the art-making mode, I just can't be neat and tidy. All those mountains of material must magically return to their bottles before anyone else can fit in the space, as large as it is. Having a large studio has been a mixed blessing -- I have room to continue working without cleaning as I go. Great for flow. Not so great for organization. This is not a plea to the universe for downsizing, BTW. I LOVE my studio. But it does look like Vesuvius after the erruption at times (like now).

What does work:

Keeping items in like categories, no matter their end results or techniques. ie all the batik materials together. All the scissors together. All the textile paints together. If I get too fussy about my sorting, I'll spend all my time trying to keep it together. Big lumps of categories work best for me, no alphabetized sortings of dye colors -- though I do write the colors large on the lids, so I don't spend all my time squinting.

The art drawer cabinet is filled with "roughly" sorted colors of smallish pieces of fabric. So if I need a green I know where to go. If I need all the green, I can dump the drawer out on the design table. I don't spend time folding or neatening up these drawers, they are the surprise grab bags of the studio. Larger pieces of fabric are folded (sometimes) and stored in large plastic bins by type -- silks and silky stuff here, florals there, dyed pieces in progress in another,  white linens in yet another, clothing to cut up in another. These are a bit unwieldy, but the best system I've found so far. When the lids are down and the bins stacked, the studio returns to visual calm.

I'm lucky, since the space was once a full kitchen, bath and studio apartment to have lots of shelves and drawers for supplies like scissors, dye and paints. The quality of these fixtures is lousy -- drawers are falling apart, hinges are dodgy, and someday I'll have to do a remodel, but for now, it works well enough. 

Moving things around as a motivational factor. I don't like things to stay the same forever spacially. I like my desk in different places, the design tables moved around and reconfigures. Some stuff is too heavy to move, but it works for me to rearrange as part of the neatening it all up process. 

Paper work also tends to pile up, no matter what "system" I try. A few methods have stuck, but maintanence still takes me longer than I wish it would, and when I'm busy with a production deadline, my "inbox" becomes a nightmare. Here's my paper system for now:

Open file box with hanging folders for my 43 folders. Also three hanging folders  for "Read and Review," "Errands," "Dreams and Goals." Anything dated (deadlines, maps, supply lists, appointment papers, etc) goes into the proper day or month folder. And, even if I get behind on sorting -- my May  folder items are still waiting to go into the proper days -- this system has been a godsend, saving me hours and hours of looking for lost stuff.

Three small file cabinets that fit under the bar for a.) business paperwork, including workshops and exhibits, b.) household bills and important papers, c.) everything else in alphabetical order,  also modeled on David Allen's  Getting Things Done.

In the virtual world, I aim for INBOX Zero. That keeps me relatively mindful of what's coming in and going out via email and gets me to tend to little wiggly stuff as it happens.  Not that I always achieve it -- but the days are over of finding myself with 478 items in my inbox. I also keep my calendar (one calendar only) on my computer (ical) and copy email dates, appointments, deadlines into it, printing it out about once every two weeks so I also have a hard copy. I now have an iphone and that has helped enormously, because I can carry synced versions of my calendar, my contacts and email along with me.

PS. This whole thing depends on a BIG inbox (a card table actually) where papers, supplies, art etc. coming into the studio lands until I take time to sort it out. At least if it lands in one place, I have a halfway decent chance at finding it if I need something BEFORE I get it back in its home.

Having so nicely listed my  ideal, it's time to tackle the actuality.  Time  to put on HGTV, read a few inspirational organization blogs*, have my Diet Rite cola iced up and ready to go, sset a timer for 1 hour increments (as a reward for each hour of cleaning, I spend 15 minutes doing something more fun) and visualize how nice it will be to have everything back in its place. As additional motivation, I will post some follow-up AFTER photos.

And, if you have any suggestions that might help me tame the beast, please post a comment.  I'd also like to hear how other artist's organize materials and supplies. What works for paper, doesn't always transfer to stuff -- and what works for linear thinkers, doesn't always work for us spacial/visual thinkers.

*No time to list more of these now, but I'll add them to tomorrow's AFTER post. 

Help! I earnestly request that my  subscribers and readers click this link

NEW GALLERY WEB SITE 

and give me feedback, suggestions, corrections, ideas for what's missing, and any other critique you'd like to contribute to my new gallery site-in-progress. Since I am designing the site with iweb and publishing it on .mac, I particularly want to know how it works on PC platforms and on browsers other than Firefox. I won't switch my public domain, www.susiemonday.com until I've done a bit more work, but it's ready for some outside eyes.

There is still an enormous amount to do to get the site where I want it to be, but with this much done and published, I feel like I have met my Artist Breakthrough Program goal of developing the site by April 1. With your help, I can take the next steps to  fatten it out with more content, better edited photos, and additional pages during the next 3 weeks leading up to my sale at Fiesta Arts Fair, April 19-20.

A few specific questions:

Do the live hyperLINKS need to be a more distinct color?

Is it too weird to have the tense go from third to first person (home page to gallery pages)? And if so, which should it be ?

Should I have a more formal bio/resume page?

Should I have more or fewer pictures on each of the galleries? Should I subdivide more or combine them? Do I include prices? Size? Media? More description for each photo on the gallery page and then NOT include it on the slideshow?

What other pages do you think I should include?

Does the design and format look enough like my blog to have a consistent style? Any suggestions on visual "branding"?

Any other ideas? Really, I need them. If you don't want to leave a personal comment, email me by sending a message to susiemonday@gmail.com (you do have my new email, right?).