Thursday, November 4, 2010

Making Money Ideas

The market rallied today as election booths underflowed with
discontented voters, unemployed workers looking for a warm place to hang
out during the day, and douchey hipsters who thought the lines were for the Apple store.

 



Apparently the Republicans are going to win back the House and thus
have 1/4 of the decision making bodies in the US (the others of course
being the Senate, the Executive Office, and Marisa Miller because Money
McBags would do whatever her body
decides) which is somehow a good thing even though their policies are
what got us to where we are in the first place.  So
hoooooooooooofuckingray.  Instead of the party who can't get us out of
this mess having all of the power, they can now share part of it with
the party who got us in to this mess as the clusterfuck of bad ideas and
incompetence will continue.  So Rally fucking on.

 



To use a terrible analogy, it's like when Bo and Luke Duke came back
to the Dukes of Hazzard after their contract dispute led their gay cousins
to take over for a season.  While it might have been a marginal
improvement, the show still fucking sucked and all anyone wanted to see
was Daisy Duke
anyway, so who fucking cared whose turn it was to drive the racist
car.  And that is like this election because no matter who wins, the
economy will still suck and all anyone wants to see is real economic
growth (and Daisy Duke), so who fucking cares which unoriginal, solution-less dickbag drives the figurative legislative car.

 



Hopefully you all did the sensible thing and voted for "None of The Above"
and wrote in Money McBags of the BOGUS party (Bail Outs Get Us Savings)
who will finally take this farce of an economic non-strategy all the
way.  Money McBags spent at least half the day writing his acceptance
address (and the other half googling Cintia Dicker's
address) and promises to return this country to fiscal prosperity
through destroying it and building it back up with more bail outs, more
TARP, and especially more PPIP (though what else would one pee?).

 



As for macro news, it was more non-existent than people who have read all of Middlemarch or Art Laffer's credibility. 
The story remains QE2 and it will be very interesting to see how the
market digests the size of it (perhaps they will ask Peter North's
co-stars for advice) because there still remains a lack of consensus as
to how much the Fed will ease.  Of course the silliest part of all of
this (even sillier than this trend of giving up showering and deodorant and way the fuck sillier than suing Mcdonald's for being fat), is that the prospect of QE2 has rallied the market when the whole reason for QE2 is that the economy is more fucked than Capri Anderson
after an eight ball in Charlie Sheen's hotel room.  So while QE2 is
somehow the panacea for the dying economy (just like QE1 was, and TARP
was, and everything else that has led to cyclically low 2% GDP growth
(until the 2% is revised lower) was), the market is acting like that
panacea has already cured the disease when in fact it may exacerbate the
disease like Mentos in a Diet Coke bottle.  This is as confusing to Money McBags as men who look like lesbians and ergodic theory so as the market rallies, he is left scratching his head in amazement (or perhaps it just scabies).

 



Internationally, Australia and India both raised rates as their economies continue to be healthier than Gabourey Sidibe's
appetite after skipping both first and second breakfasts.  China's
unquenchable thirst (perhaps caused by too much soy sauce) for natural
resources has helped drive Australia's economy higher and as a result of
the rate increase and Bernanke's folly, the AUD reached its 28 year
high last night achieving parity with the US dollar.   Money McBags is
now counting down the days until the dollar is no longer worth even a dong, which will be bad news for the Key West Vietnamese population.

 



Also, something to be aware of as your EPV etf drops faster than Abe Vigoda's balls in a steam room and that is that Spain's 2nd largest bank is looking to Turkey
for growth by buying a 25% stake in Turkish bank Garanti.  Now look,
Money McBags is well aware of the benefits of Turkey's growing
population, its youthful demographics, the the way it perfectly
complements cranberry sauce, but something strikes Money McBags as being
a bit fucked up when that is where Spain is turning to for growth. 
First of all, it means Spain realizes it is fucked for a long time and
that is about as good for Europe as Lillian McEwen's memoir
will be for Clarence Thomas.  But secondly, BBVA stretching for growth
here opens up all kinds of risks because whenever Money McBags hears of a
financial services company trying to buy growth, so many red flags go
flying up that you would think he was part of a semaphorist circle
jerk.  So while Europe is running right now, be very very careful.

 



In the market today, PFE had what Money McBags calls a a Jennifer Lopez Q as they put up a good bottom line but a weak top line. 
The company sold off ~1% as their revenue was below analyst guesses
thanks to a stronger dollar and Lipitor sales falling by 11% due to
increased competition from generics and fat people being unable to
afford to eat as much.  Also in the health care space, MHS put up a good Q
and rose ~9% as they were able to grow their business and maintain
margins which the Street thought would be less likely than Paul Krugman
exhibiting modesty (or common sense) or Money McBags caring which of the
Bernaola twins was tickling his taint.

 

Elsewhere, MA put up a nice Q
and rose ~5% as eps of $3.94 grew 15% and beat analyst guesses of $3.54
as consumers max out their 1% cash back credit cards in order to earn
income (like that is any stupider than continually borrowing from
China?).  ADM got cropped on as profits dropped due to weak grain merchandising margins and CLX tumbled by ~4%
after the conglomerate posted disappointing earnings and lowered full
year numbers as apparently all 800 of their categories sucked.

 

Money McBags also breaks down some small cap stocks today at the award winning When Genius Prevailed.



This piece was originally written for Paul Overton's creative process blog Make & Meaning, which is now sadly defunct. In honor of our quarterly theme, I'm resurrecting it to live here at Make: Online. It is both touchier and feelier than we usually get, but I hope you will enjoy it, anyway. —SMR



hatever else may be said of me, I am fundamentally a dreamer: I have ideas. Lots of them. Most are terrible (ask me sometime about my scheme to potty-train cattle), but every so often, one will work out. And, like many creative people, when others see my work, I often get asked "How did you ever think of that?" When I was younger, the process was as mysterious to me as to anybody else. But over the years, I've learned a lot about where my ideas come from and what to do with them when they pop up, and the more I read about and talk to other creative people, the more I come to believe that there are, in fact, some more-or-less universal principles of creativity. And while there will always be something mysterious in the workings of the muse, I do not subscribe to the common belief that creativity is a magical gift bestowed on some and not on others. Like drawing, doing algebra, or speaking a second language, having original ideas is a mental skill that can be developed, and with practice, can become second nature. What follows is a brief list of the stations on my own personal "assembly line" of ideas. If you need an idea and can't seem to have one, give it a read, give it a try, and see what shakes loose. If it works for you, remember it; if it doesn't, throw it away. Experiment, as always, and develop your own process.





Step 1: Give yourself permission



Society does not always encourage us to express ourselves creatively. I was lucky and had supportive parents who put up with my messiness, my inattention to detail, my continual dismantling of household appliances, my tendency to hunt for treasure in other people's garbage, my constant carrying off and breaking of tools, etc., etc. They always told me I could do anything I set my mind to, and when I came to them, for instance, with a very ugly "modern" table nailed together from scraps out of the lumber pile, they didn't just pat me on the head and say, "That's nice, dear"—they put it in the living room and left it there until it fell apart. My friends who had stricter upbringings are off making more money, now, but none of them is very creative. They learned early on to do what was expected of them, and that their own ideas were less important. So they stopped having them. And when they are called on to produce original work, they are plagued by insecurity: Well, I might do this, but that's stupid and would never work. First ideas almost always are, and almost never do. You've got to stick with it. Anybody can do it. And the more you do it, the better you'll get at it.





Step 2: Clean the slate





One of my favorite American artists is an everyday-object sculptor named Tom Friedman. Tom Friedman, famously, started his artistic career by going into an empty all-white room, closing the door, and sitting in it for days on end. This from an interview with Friedman in Bruce Hainley's 2001 survey of his work, published as part of Phaidon's Contemporary Artists series:



Every day I would bring an object from my apartment and place it somewhere in the space. The first day I placed a metronome on the floor, and it just clicked back and forth. Or I would sit the whole day, on the floor, looking at it and thinking about it, and asking questions about my experience of it...For me, this was more like a mental space that had been cleared away.



When Tom Friedman came out of that room, he started making art that today is valued at millions of dollars by collectors all over the world. Cleaning the slate is about eliminating the distractions of daily life and listening to what bubbles up from inside. The longer and more deeply you listen, the more interesting the things you'll hear.





bench craft company

Tonino Lamborghini Spyder Series Luxury Mobile Phones | iTech <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

Following CULV notebooks, Tonino Lamborghini releases in Hong Kong its Spyder line of luxury mobile phones. There are six models, S-600, S-610, S-620,

Kiefer&#39;s Heading to Broadway and More Celebrity <b>News</b> from PopEater

Want to know what's going on with your favorite TV stars when the cameras aren't rolling? Check out the latest celebrity news from our friends.

FOX <b>News</b> Propels <b>News</b> Corp to Profit Growth

News Corporation (News Corp) is the world's second-largest media conglomerate (behind The Walt Disney Company) as of 2008 and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009. The company's Chairman, Chief Executive. ...


bench craft company

The market rallied today as election booths underflowed with
discontented voters, unemployed workers looking for a warm place to hang
out during the day, and douchey hipsters who thought the lines were for the Apple store.

 



Apparently the Republicans are going to win back the House and thus
have 1/4 of the decision making bodies in the US (the others of course
being the Senate, the Executive Office, and Marisa Miller because Money
McBags would do whatever her body
decides) which is somehow a good thing even though their policies are
what got us to where we are in the first place.  So
hoooooooooooofuckingray.  Instead of the party who can't get us out of
this mess having all of the power, they can now share part of it with
the party who got us in to this mess as the clusterfuck of bad ideas and
incompetence will continue.  So Rally fucking on.

 



To use a terrible analogy, it's like when Bo and Luke Duke came back
to the Dukes of Hazzard after their contract dispute led their gay cousins
to take over for a season.  While it might have been a marginal
improvement, the show still fucking sucked and all anyone wanted to see
was Daisy Duke
anyway, so who fucking cared whose turn it was to drive the racist
car.  And that is like this election because no matter who wins, the
economy will still suck and all anyone wants to see is real economic
growth (and Daisy Duke), so who fucking cares which unoriginal, solution-less dickbag drives the figurative legislative car.

 



Hopefully you all did the sensible thing and voted for "None of The Above"
and wrote in Money McBags of the BOGUS party (Bail Outs Get Us Savings)
who will finally take this farce of an economic non-strategy all the
way.  Money McBags spent at least half the day writing his acceptance
address (and the other half googling Cintia Dicker's
address) and promises to return this country to fiscal prosperity
through destroying it and building it back up with more bail outs, more
TARP, and especially more PPIP (though what else would one pee?).

 



As for macro news, it was more non-existent than people who have read all of Middlemarch or Art Laffer's credibility. 
The story remains QE2 and it will be very interesting to see how the
market digests the size of it (perhaps they will ask Peter North's
co-stars for advice) because there still remains a lack of consensus as
to how much the Fed will ease.  Of course the silliest part of all of
this (even sillier than this trend of giving up showering and deodorant and way the fuck sillier than suing Mcdonald's for being fat), is that the prospect of QE2 has rallied the market when the whole reason for QE2 is that the economy is more fucked than Capri Anderson
after an eight ball in Charlie Sheen's hotel room.  So while QE2 is
somehow the panacea for the dying economy (just like QE1 was, and TARP
was, and everything else that has led to cyclically low 2% GDP growth
(until the 2% is revised lower) was), the market is acting like that
panacea has already cured the disease when in fact it may exacerbate the
disease like Mentos in a Diet Coke bottle.  This is as confusing to Money McBags as men who look like lesbians and ergodic theory so as the market rallies, he is left scratching his head in amazement (or perhaps it just scabies).

 



Internationally, Australia and India both raised rates as their economies continue to be healthier than Gabourey Sidibe's
appetite after skipping both first and second breakfasts.  China's
unquenchable thirst (perhaps caused by too much soy sauce) for natural
resources has helped drive Australia's economy higher and as a result of
the rate increase and Bernanke's folly, the AUD reached its 28 year
high last night achieving parity with the US dollar.   Money McBags is
now counting down the days until the dollar is no longer worth even a dong, which will be bad news for the Key West Vietnamese population.

 



Also, something to be aware of as your EPV etf drops faster than Abe Vigoda's balls in a steam room and that is that Spain's 2nd largest bank is looking to Turkey
for growth by buying a 25% stake in Turkish bank Garanti.  Now look,
Money McBags is well aware of the benefits of Turkey's growing
population, its youthful demographics, the the way it perfectly
complements cranberry sauce, but something strikes Money McBags as being
a bit fucked up when that is where Spain is turning to for growth. 
First of all, it means Spain realizes it is fucked for a long time and
that is about as good for Europe as Lillian McEwen's memoir
will be for Clarence Thomas.  But secondly, BBVA stretching for growth
here opens up all kinds of risks because whenever Money McBags hears of a
financial services company trying to buy growth, so many red flags go
flying up that you would think he was part of a semaphorist circle
jerk.  So while Europe is running right now, be very very careful.

 



In the market today, PFE had what Money McBags calls a a Jennifer Lopez Q as they put up a good bottom line but a weak top line. 
The company sold off ~1% as their revenue was below analyst guesses
thanks to a stronger dollar and Lipitor sales falling by 11% due to
increased competition from generics and fat people being unable to
afford to eat as much.  Also in the health care space, MHS put up a good Q
and rose ~9% as they were able to grow their business and maintain
margins which the Street thought would be less likely than Paul Krugman
exhibiting modesty (or common sense) or Money McBags caring which of the
Bernaola twins was tickling his taint.

 

Elsewhere, MA put up a nice Q
and rose ~5% as eps of $3.94 grew 15% and beat analyst guesses of $3.54
as consumers max out their 1% cash back credit cards in order to earn
income (like that is any stupider than continually borrowing from
China?).  ADM got cropped on as profits dropped due to weak grain merchandising margins and CLX tumbled by ~4%
after the conglomerate posted disappointing earnings and lowered full
year numbers as apparently all 800 of their categories sucked.

 

Money McBags also breaks down some small cap stocks today at the award winning When Genius Prevailed.



This piece was originally written for Paul Overton's creative process blog Make & Meaning, which is now sadly defunct. In honor of our quarterly theme, I'm resurrecting it to live here at Make: Online. It is both touchier and feelier than we usually get, but I hope you will enjoy it, anyway. —SMR



hatever else may be said of me, I am fundamentally a dreamer: I have ideas. Lots of them. Most are terrible (ask me sometime about my scheme to potty-train cattle), but every so often, one will work out. And, like many creative people, when others see my work, I often get asked "How did you ever think of that?" When I was younger, the process was as mysterious to me as to anybody else. But over the years, I've learned a lot about where my ideas come from and what to do with them when they pop up, and the more I read about and talk to other creative people, the more I come to believe that there are, in fact, some more-or-less universal principles of creativity. And while there will always be something mysterious in the workings of the muse, I do not subscribe to the common belief that creativity is a magical gift bestowed on some and not on others. Like drawing, doing algebra, or speaking a second language, having original ideas is a mental skill that can be developed, and with practice, can become second nature. What follows is a brief list of the stations on my own personal "assembly line" of ideas. If you need an idea and can't seem to have one, give it a read, give it a try, and see what shakes loose. If it works for you, remember it; if it doesn't, throw it away. Experiment, as always, and develop your own process.





Step 1: Give yourself permission



Society does not always encourage us to express ourselves creatively. I was lucky and had supportive parents who put up with my messiness, my inattention to detail, my continual dismantling of household appliances, my tendency to hunt for treasure in other people's garbage, my constant carrying off and breaking of tools, etc., etc. They always told me I could do anything I set my mind to, and when I came to them, for instance, with a very ugly "modern" table nailed together from scraps out of the lumber pile, they didn't just pat me on the head and say, "That's nice, dear"—they put it in the living room and left it there until it fell apart. My friends who had stricter upbringings are off making more money, now, but none of them is very creative. They learned early on to do what was expected of them, and that their own ideas were less important. So they stopped having them. And when they are called on to produce original work, they are plagued by insecurity: Well, I might do this, but that's stupid and would never work. First ideas almost always are, and almost never do. You've got to stick with it. Anybody can do it. And the more you do it, the better you'll get at it.





Step 2: Clean the slate





One of my favorite American artists is an everyday-object sculptor named Tom Friedman. Tom Friedman, famously, started his artistic career by going into an empty all-white room, closing the door, and sitting in it for days on end. This from an interview with Friedman in Bruce Hainley's 2001 survey of his work, published as part of Phaidon's Contemporary Artists series:



Every day I would bring an object from my apartment and place it somewhere in the space. The first day I placed a metronome on the floor, and it just clicked back and forth. Or I would sit the whole day, on the floor, looking at it and thinking about it, and asking questions about my experience of it...For me, this was more like a mental space that had been cleared away.



When Tom Friedman came out of that room, he started making art that today is valued at millions of dollars by collectors all over the world. Cleaning the slate is about eliminating the distractions of daily life and listening to what bubbles up from inside. The longer and more deeply you listen, the more interesting the things you'll hear.





bench craft company

Tonino Lamborghini Spyder Series Luxury Mobile Phones | iTech <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

Following CULV notebooks, Tonino Lamborghini releases in Hong Kong its Spyder line of luxury mobile phones. There are six models, S-600, S-610, S-620,

Kiefer&#39;s Heading to Broadway and More Celebrity <b>News</b> from PopEater

Want to know what's going on with your favorite TV stars when the cameras aren't rolling? Check out the latest celebrity news from our friends.

FOX <b>News</b> Propels <b>News</b> Corp to Profit Growth

News Corporation (News Corp) is the world's second-largest media conglomerate (behind The Walt Disney Company) as of 2008 and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009. The company's Chairman, Chief Executive. ...


bench craft company

bench craft company

Evan likes Camels so I took this by iwearyourshirt


bench craft company

Tonino Lamborghini Spyder Series Luxury Mobile Phones | iTech <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

Following CULV notebooks, Tonino Lamborghini releases in Hong Kong its Spyder line of luxury mobile phones. There are six models, S-600, S-610, S-620,

Kiefer&#39;s Heading to Broadway and More Celebrity <b>News</b> from PopEater

Want to know what's going on with your favorite TV stars when the cameras aren't rolling? Check out the latest celebrity news from our friends.

FOX <b>News</b> Propels <b>News</b> Corp to Profit Growth

News Corporation (News Corp) is the world's second-largest media conglomerate (behind The Walt Disney Company) as of 2008 and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009. The company's Chairman, Chief Executive. ...


bench craft company

The market rallied today as election booths underflowed with
discontented voters, unemployed workers looking for a warm place to hang
out during the day, and douchey hipsters who thought the lines were for the Apple store.

 



Apparently the Republicans are going to win back the House and thus
have 1/4 of the decision making bodies in the US (the others of course
being the Senate, the Executive Office, and Marisa Miller because Money
McBags would do whatever her body
decides) which is somehow a good thing even though their policies are
what got us to where we are in the first place.  So
hoooooooooooofuckingray.  Instead of the party who can't get us out of
this mess having all of the power, they can now share part of it with
the party who got us in to this mess as the clusterfuck of bad ideas and
incompetence will continue.  So Rally fucking on.

 



To use a terrible analogy, it's like when Bo and Luke Duke came back
to the Dukes of Hazzard after their contract dispute led their gay cousins
to take over for a season.  While it might have been a marginal
improvement, the show still fucking sucked and all anyone wanted to see
was Daisy Duke
anyway, so who fucking cared whose turn it was to drive the racist
car.  And that is like this election because no matter who wins, the
economy will still suck and all anyone wants to see is real economic
growth (and Daisy Duke), so who fucking cares which unoriginal, solution-less dickbag drives the figurative legislative car.

 



Hopefully you all did the sensible thing and voted for "None of The Above"
and wrote in Money McBags of the BOGUS party (Bail Outs Get Us Savings)
who will finally take this farce of an economic non-strategy all the
way.  Money McBags spent at least half the day writing his acceptance
address (and the other half googling Cintia Dicker's
address) and promises to return this country to fiscal prosperity
through destroying it and building it back up with more bail outs, more
TARP, and especially more PPIP (though what else would one pee?).

 



As for macro news, it was more non-existent than people who have read all of Middlemarch or Art Laffer's credibility. 
The story remains QE2 and it will be very interesting to see how the
market digests the size of it (perhaps they will ask Peter North's
co-stars for advice) because there still remains a lack of consensus as
to how much the Fed will ease.  Of course the silliest part of all of
this (even sillier than this trend of giving up showering and deodorant and way the fuck sillier than suing Mcdonald's for being fat), is that the prospect of QE2 has rallied the market when the whole reason for QE2 is that the economy is more fucked than Capri Anderson
after an eight ball in Charlie Sheen's hotel room.  So while QE2 is
somehow the panacea for the dying economy (just like QE1 was, and TARP
was, and everything else that has led to cyclically low 2% GDP growth
(until the 2% is revised lower) was), the market is acting like that
panacea has already cured the disease when in fact it may exacerbate the
disease like Mentos in a Diet Coke bottle.  This is as confusing to Money McBags as men who look like lesbians and ergodic theory so as the market rallies, he is left scratching his head in amazement (or perhaps it just scabies).

 



Internationally, Australia and India both raised rates as their economies continue to be healthier than Gabourey Sidibe's
appetite after skipping both first and second breakfasts.  China's
unquenchable thirst (perhaps caused by too much soy sauce) for natural
resources has helped drive Australia's economy higher and as a result of
the rate increase and Bernanke's folly, the AUD reached its 28 year
high last night achieving parity with the US dollar.   Money McBags is
now counting down the days until the dollar is no longer worth even a dong, which will be bad news for the Key West Vietnamese population.

 



Also, something to be aware of as your EPV etf drops faster than Abe Vigoda's balls in a steam room and that is that Spain's 2nd largest bank is looking to Turkey
for growth by buying a 25% stake in Turkish bank Garanti.  Now look,
Money McBags is well aware of the benefits of Turkey's growing
population, its youthful demographics, the the way it perfectly
complements cranberry sauce, but something strikes Money McBags as being
a bit fucked up when that is where Spain is turning to for growth. 
First of all, it means Spain realizes it is fucked for a long time and
that is about as good for Europe as Lillian McEwen's memoir
will be for Clarence Thomas.  But secondly, BBVA stretching for growth
here opens up all kinds of risks because whenever Money McBags hears of a
financial services company trying to buy growth, so many red flags go
flying up that you would think he was part of a semaphorist circle
jerk.  So while Europe is running right now, be very very careful.

 



In the market today, PFE had what Money McBags calls a a Jennifer Lopez Q as they put up a good bottom line but a weak top line. 
The company sold off ~1% as their revenue was below analyst guesses
thanks to a stronger dollar and Lipitor sales falling by 11% due to
increased competition from generics and fat people being unable to
afford to eat as much.  Also in the health care space, MHS put up a good Q
and rose ~9% as they were able to grow their business and maintain
margins which the Street thought would be less likely than Paul Krugman
exhibiting modesty (or common sense) or Money McBags caring which of the
Bernaola twins was tickling his taint.

 

Elsewhere, MA put up a nice Q
and rose ~5% as eps of $3.94 grew 15% and beat analyst guesses of $3.54
as consumers max out their 1% cash back credit cards in order to earn
income (like that is any stupider than continually borrowing from
China?).  ADM got cropped on as profits dropped due to weak grain merchandising margins and CLX tumbled by ~4%
after the conglomerate posted disappointing earnings and lowered full
year numbers as apparently all 800 of their categories sucked.

 

Money McBags also breaks down some small cap stocks today at the award winning When Genius Prevailed.



This piece was originally written for Paul Overton's creative process blog Make & Meaning, which is now sadly defunct. In honor of our quarterly theme, I'm resurrecting it to live here at Make: Online. It is both touchier and feelier than we usually get, but I hope you will enjoy it, anyway. —SMR



hatever else may be said of me, I am fundamentally a dreamer: I have ideas. Lots of them. Most are terrible (ask me sometime about my scheme to potty-train cattle), but every so often, one will work out. And, like many creative people, when others see my work, I often get asked "How did you ever think of that?" When I was younger, the process was as mysterious to me as to anybody else. But over the years, I've learned a lot about where my ideas come from and what to do with them when they pop up, and the more I read about and talk to other creative people, the more I come to believe that there are, in fact, some more-or-less universal principles of creativity. And while there will always be something mysterious in the workings of the muse, I do not subscribe to the common belief that creativity is a magical gift bestowed on some and not on others. Like drawing, doing algebra, or speaking a second language, having original ideas is a mental skill that can be developed, and with practice, can become second nature. What follows is a brief list of the stations on my own personal "assembly line" of ideas. If you need an idea and can't seem to have one, give it a read, give it a try, and see what shakes loose. If it works for you, remember it; if it doesn't, throw it away. Experiment, as always, and develop your own process.





Step 1: Give yourself permission



Society does not always encourage us to express ourselves creatively. I was lucky and had supportive parents who put up with my messiness, my inattention to detail, my continual dismantling of household appliances, my tendency to hunt for treasure in other people's garbage, my constant carrying off and breaking of tools, etc., etc. They always told me I could do anything I set my mind to, and when I came to them, for instance, with a very ugly "modern" table nailed together from scraps out of the lumber pile, they didn't just pat me on the head and say, "That's nice, dear"—they put it in the living room and left it there until it fell apart. My friends who had stricter upbringings are off making more money, now, but none of them is very creative. They learned early on to do what was expected of them, and that their own ideas were less important. So they stopped having them. And when they are called on to produce original work, they are plagued by insecurity: Well, I might do this, but that's stupid and would never work. First ideas almost always are, and almost never do. You've got to stick with it. Anybody can do it. And the more you do it, the better you'll get at it.





Step 2: Clean the slate





One of my favorite American artists is an everyday-object sculptor named Tom Friedman. Tom Friedman, famously, started his artistic career by going into an empty all-white room, closing the door, and sitting in it for days on end. This from an interview with Friedman in Bruce Hainley's 2001 survey of his work, published as part of Phaidon's Contemporary Artists series:



Every day I would bring an object from my apartment and place it somewhere in the space. The first day I placed a metronome on the floor, and it just clicked back and forth. Or I would sit the whole day, on the floor, looking at it and thinking about it, and asking questions about my experience of it...For me, this was more like a mental space that had been cleared away.



When Tom Friedman came out of that room, he started making art that today is valued at millions of dollars by collectors all over the world. Cleaning the slate is about eliminating the distractions of daily life and listening to what bubbles up from inside. The longer and more deeply you listen, the more interesting the things you'll hear.





bench craft company

Evan likes Camels so I took this by iwearyourshirt


bench craft company

Tonino Lamborghini Spyder Series Luxury Mobile Phones | iTech <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

Following CULV notebooks, Tonino Lamborghini releases in Hong Kong its Spyder line of luxury mobile phones. There are six models, S-600, S-610, S-620,

Kiefer&#39;s Heading to Broadway and More Celebrity <b>News</b> from PopEater

Want to know what's going on with your favorite TV stars when the cameras aren't rolling? Check out the latest celebrity news from our friends.

FOX <b>News</b> Propels <b>News</b> Corp to Profit Growth

News Corporation (News Corp) is the world's second-largest media conglomerate (behind The Walt Disney Company) as of 2008 and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009. The company's Chairman, Chief Executive. ...


bench craft company

Evan likes Camels so I took this by iwearyourshirt


bench craft company

Tonino Lamborghini Spyder Series Luxury Mobile Phones | iTech <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

Following CULV notebooks, Tonino Lamborghini releases in Hong Kong its Spyder line of luxury mobile phones. There are six models, S-600, S-610, S-620,

Kiefer&#39;s Heading to Broadway and More Celebrity <b>News</b> from PopEater

Want to know what's going on with your favorite TV stars when the cameras aren't rolling? Check out the latest celebrity news from our friends.

FOX <b>News</b> Propels <b>News</b> Corp to Profit Growth

News Corporation (News Corp) is the world's second-largest media conglomerate (behind The Walt Disney Company) as of 2008 and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009. The company's Chairman, Chief Executive. ...


bench craft company

Tonino Lamborghini Spyder Series Luxury Mobile Phones | iTech <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

Following CULV notebooks, Tonino Lamborghini releases in Hong Kong its Spyder line of luxury mobile phones. There are six models, S-600, S-610, S-620,

Kiefer&#39;s Heading to Broadway and More Celebrity <b>News</b> from PopEater

Want to know what's going on with your favorite TV stars when the cameras aren't rolling? Check out the latest celebrity news from our friends.

FOX <b>News</b> Propels <b>News</b> Corp to Profit Growth

News Corporation (News Corp) is the world's second-largest media conglomerate (behind The Walt Disney Company) as of 2008 and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009. The company's Chairman, Chief Executive. ...


bench craft company

Tonino Lamborghini Spyder Series Luxury Mobile Phones | iTech <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

Following CULV notebooks, Tonino Lamborghini releases in Hong Kong its Spyder line of luxury mobile phones. There are six models, S-600, S-610, S-620,

Kiefer&#39;s Heading to Broadway and More Celebrity <b>News</b> from PopEater

Want to know what's going on with your favorite TV stars when the cameras aren't rolling? Check out the latest celebrity news from our friends.

FOX <b>News</b> Propels <b>News</b> Corp to Profit Growth

News Corporation (News Corp) is the world's second-largest media conglomerate (behind The Walt Disney Company) as of 2008 and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009. The company's Chairman, Chief Executive. ...


bench craft company bench craft company
bench craft company

Evan likes Camels so I took this by iwearyourshirt


bench craft company
bench craft company

Tonino Lamborghini Spyder Series Luxury Mobile Phones | iTech <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

Following CULV notebooks, Tonino Lamborghini releases in Hong Kong its Spyder line of luxury mobile phones. There are six models, S-600, S-610, S-620,

Kiefer&#39;s Heading to Broadway and More Celebrity <b>News</b> from PopEater

Want to know what's going on with your favorite TV stars when the cameras aren't rolling? Check out the latest celebrity news from our friends.

FOX <b>News</b> Propels <b>News</b> Corp to Profit Growth

News Corporation (News Corp) is the world's second-largest media conglomerate (behind The Walt Disney Company) as of 2008 and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009. The company's Chairman, Chief Executive. ...


benchcraft company portland or

I am one of so many who dare to try their hand at making money online. While I've only been at it for 3 or 4 months now, I thought I would share my experiences on being a member of Zazzle. Zazzle is an online website that gives you access to having your own on-line "gallery." (http://zazzle.com) It is actually tons of fun if you are a photographer, love to draw, or if you can create witty sayings to put on t-shirts, mugs, posters, etc. The concept is brilliant! Whatever you create, you can put it onto one of their products. These products vary from mugs to t-shirts to U.S. postage stamps. You can create your own ties, Keds shoes, greeting cards, and baby onesies. The list goes on. It's quite impressive actually. Did I mention its fun?

Immediately you are the owner of your own gallery. Not only that, you can sell your art for free. Zazzle does not charge for anyone to be a member. You are paid a percentage of what you sell your art for. This percentage is chosen by you and is anywhere from 10 percent up. The more of a percentage you collect, the higher the price of your product is. With this system, Zazzle gives you the opportunity to make money while guaranteeing that they will always make money. It's up to you to decide what you're worth and to factor in what people might be willing to pay for your creations. Personally, I started at 10 percent and worked my way up to 20 percent for most of my items. Some of the items are quite pricey. For instance, the Ked's shoes are approximately 55 to 60 dollars and up! That, to me, is crazy! I think I will go lower my shoes to 10 percent after I write this article. Most other items are quite reasonable. The stamps are my favorite. They are the price of a normal package of stamps plus 10 percent and up. I chose 20 percent. I'm proud of my art, but I want it to be affordable to many.

Am I incredibly successful with my Zazzle gallery? I feel I am successful because I enjoy the creative outlet and the comments I get from other artists in the Zazzle community. However, I will admit I have not earned one dime. There, I said it! I still have hope I might sell something. I might even sell more than one something! I've learned from other members that in order to be even a little successful you have to network. For instance, go through the website and leave comments for others on their art. It's fun and is a good way to become a part of the community. Pick out some favorites and join their fan clubs. This will let them know that you appreciate their art while giving them a link to visit your gallery. Most times, people you favorite or leave comments for do visit and may even favorite you as well. If they like you enough they can choose to link you to their gallery, so you will get more exposure. Also, Zazzle has many ideas on how to make more money. They advise you to put a link to your gallery on your web pages and email signatures. They also have something called an associates account where you can promote other's art and make 10 percent off of it if someone visits them from your link and buys something. Does this sound confusing? I won't lie and say I have it all figured out. If you don't, you can consult their tutorials and their forums. Overall, this site is very easy to understand.

My advice to you is to give it a try and see if you enjoy being a member. I can almost guarantee that the creatively inclined will enjoy it, money or no money. It is a thrill to have your own art gallery and look at other's galleries. I love having my own products up for sale and expressing myself through those products. If you have a moment, check out my gallery, "Pomeranian Dream Clouds" at http://www.zazzle.com/grrlcpc .

Site Title: http://www.zazzle.com
My Zazzle Guru: http://www.zazzle.com/audrart





















































No comments:

Post a Comment