I don’t often sit for a whole 6 minute video these days but I enjoyed every second of this one.  It features Michael Wolff, co-founder of Wolff Olins Agency and he is arguably one of the most accomplished thinkers about brand (one of my all time favorite topics).

Best Part: When Wolff makes the point that if you go to a store you don’t respect that much and they are out of your favorite product you think “what a crap store”. If you go to a store you really respect and they are out of your favorite product you think “I should have been there earlier”. It’s a really interesting concept and basically, branding can be that difference.

enjoy!

3 years ago I fell in love with a painting I saw in a gallery in Santa Fe.  I stood there for nearly 2 hours looking at it.  From every angle.  First one way and then walking by it, and then going into another room before coming back.  Then  trying to decide if I could justify spending more than 2 months rent on this.  I took the card of the gallery telling myself that I could always have it shipped.

Over the next 3 years, I thought about this painting often.  It literally was haunting me.   Also in this time period, I lost the gallery card and forgot the artist’s name.

Last week I went back to Santa Fe, found the gallery and ran from room to room looking for the painting.  Or something from the artist.  The gallery owner came up and asked me what I was looking for and I described the painting to her.  She told me that the artist had beautiful work but was ‘difficult to motivate’.  That she often painted entire paintings only to sand them down and start over, often completing only 1 work in long periods of time.   She had even told the artist that she could sell her work easily if she would just stop ruining it before it made it to the gallery.

“she’s feeling like she’s this tortured artist, but… it’s a business and she could make a good living”.

She then told me that she hoped I had learned a lesson about things you love at first site.  “You take them, you don’t miss out on things you’re going to think about for years.”  She told me how she wanted to go over to the artist’s house and grab the paintings before she could paint over them and bring them into the gallery.

So I’ve been thinking about this artist that ruins her own paintings.  It’s not so uncommon, there are Buddhist poets that burn their poems once they write them and even Picasso was known to paint right over his work with a new work. Less romantically, there are also a lot of entrepreneurs that do the exact same thing.

Bloggers that excessively edit their posts and never publish them.  Business ideas that are never opened because the owner has a bad day and decides it’s a stupid idea.  People that get a few bad reviews and discard their great idea.  Even social media and marketing plans that never see the light of day because the creator is too afraid to speak up at the brainstorming meeting.

I’ve ruined plenty of perfectly good ideas, most notably in my first business.  I had done this artsy (really cool in retrospect) event that got a lashing in a local publication the next day.  I let that review become my gallery owner, I started editing out the creative parts of every event until they were stale, boring, and eventually not fun to create anymore.

So here’s what I propose:  When you are having one of those ideas that you want to shoot down imagine this gallery owner over your shoulder grabbing your idea and taking it to market for you.  Envision your gallery owner taking an objective look before you cover it up with something else.  It may not turn out to be the most excellent idea ever but I think having a moment where you allow an outside perspective (even if it’s yourself thinking about it from a different angle – like the gallery owner looking at it through a seller’s eyes) can get you out of your own way.  It just doesn’t make sense to kill an idea, business, or half finished project with a jury of one.

Have you ever tossed an idea you wish you hadn’t?

pic of artist is Matte Stephens, here’s an interview with him.

I have been obsessed with block printing the last few weeks since I’m dying to make some kind of business cards myself.  I’ve been eyeing up this kit to start because it includes everything you need to start printing for under $50.

If you’re not familiar with block printing it’s basically where you carve a stamp into a piece of linoleum and paint ink on it and stamp it on things.  People use them to make pillows, T-shirts, tote bags (think for the farmer’s market), cards (mine will be business cards), and other things.  The great part is that you can design it yourself so the product will be completely unique.

I think there are also businesses that could use this type of art to create their marketing since the whole process lends itself to a unique, handmade, feel.  For example, a local coffeeshop could use it to create their cups and even host an open art night to get help making them.

Anyway, I was on this great blog and found out about Thomas Hicks, who makes these really creative videos out of drawings and block prints.  He even has a mini documentary about how he creates and carves his blocks.  Check out his video below it’s weird and totally worth it!

Thomas Hicks Animation Montage from Thomas Hicks on Vimeo.

I was in Mineral Point this Saturday showing some relatives around Wisconsin and I always try to show people that Wisconsin is more than a big beer and cheese factory (not easy when our state is, in fact, kind of a beer and cheese factory).  The difference between Mineral Point and many art centered areas is that it’s more than galleries.  All of the artists live there and you can also go through and see many of their studios and workshops.

When we walked into Bruce Howdle’s gallery he shouted “Oh!  Newbies!” and started showing us his work.  His sculptures were huge – some 9 feet by 32 feet or even larger and he started touring us through workshops, studios, and even his backyard where he had a huge telephone booth that he claimed fell from the sky.  In his basement studio was an absolutely insane amount of gadgets, antique nails, door handles, wires, and we toured it all.  There were moments when I was thinking to myself “I’m in someone’s basement looking at things most people would throw away. 

His art, was all made of clay and it was all really messy.  There were swoops and fingerprints and mistakes everywhere and while we were in his studio standing over a huge mural of a moose destined for a log home in Utah he started talking about his process. It was incredibly interesting how well his philosophy could relate to bloggers and anyone interested in personal branding.  Bruce pointed at one of his pots that he had made.  It was covered in messy looking drawings of fish and he said “Artists can’t compete with production anymore.  We HAVE to be original.  You can go to Home Depot and pick up a planter pot like this for $20.  You will only buy one that an artist makes because it has a piece of the artist in it.  We are selling our souls on there”.  It occurred to me that Bruce was talking about what the internets have been calling Personal Branding.  Bloggers too, must have a bit of their soul in their writing otherwise there are textbooks, newspapers, and people to give us how-to’s in massive numbers.  Those messy swoops were a lot more than an afterthought decoration.  it was THE reason that pot was made and the only reason to buy it.  What artists have known for some time is that creativity and originality is the only way that an individual can compete on any level with the mass production of everything these days.  Even in the blogging world, there are content mills paying writers $5 an article (or less) because content is so widely available.  What earns the top bloggers more money for their work is absolutely their “messy swoops”.

The other thing that Bruce talked about while we were at his studio was imperfection and I’ve been thinking about his statement ever since.  While I was wondering aloud at how long a mural like his would take to make the artist said:

“1 day or so”

“1 day?”

“yes, mostly.  I don’t want to labor over it.  If it’s perfect, the viewer looks at my technique and my labor.  Instead, I want them to see the energy I created this with and the concept of the art.  There is labor in these artworks, but that’s not what I want you to focus on.  I want to connect in the fingerprints and in the roughness.”

This has been sticking with me because I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about online marketing and blogging and transparency and what it is that people want from their brands and their favorite bloggers.  I would argue that blogs are the arena with the most soul at this time, just ask any daily blogger about the blood sweat and tears they are putting in,  but what about online communities and sites?  What about advertisers and brands?  Perhaps with thousands of sites popping up every day the way to compete is to add more of our imperfections and soul to them.

On an interesting flip side, I think some brands LABOR over putting soul or compassion into their campaign until it’s too polished, too perfect, and not particularly genuine which isn’t working either.  Putting real creativity, quirks, etc. into anything is hard, but not impossible and something both bloggers and brands need to strive for to be relevant.

Icarus by Carmen Haase

So I was complaining a few days ago about how I was feeling uninspired and wanted to see something cool and so I stole a few hours from my workday and saw “Exit Through The Giftshop“.  If you have ANY INTEREST IN STREET ART you should go see it.  It will make you want to make things that people will love.  It will make you want to throw a party.  It will make you laugh at copycat artists.  I thought it would be just about Bansky, (remember the guy who walked into the MOMA and put up his own art?  That’s him) but it wasn’t just a love letter to Banksy, it had a really decent story.  See if it’s in your city.

MADISON – There’s only 3 showings left at Sundance here so go tonight or tomorrow!

Wow. Portuguese street artist Vhils makes this incredible art by digging into plaster and brick and they are so scarily realistic. Now, the marketer in me is immediately thinking “why isn’t anyone sponsoring this guy?” followed immediately by… “who would be the ideal sponsor?”  Converse sponsored that tattoo artist from Mexico which was a pretty bold / great move. 

Vhils reminds me of that quote about Michelangelo saying that his sculptures were already in the stone and he just carved the stone to let them out.

What about a car company?  What about something like Crayons?

If you’re anywhere near Milwaukee or planning to be there make sure and stop in at my favorite store / art gallery Hot Pop.

It’s chock full of tooth shaped post it notes, vinyl toys, awesome shirts and they’ve always got someone interesting showing their artwork.

Right now, it’s Minnesota based artist Rudy Fig…. .who at 21 makes some really cool art. It’s girly but not in an overly girly way.  In a cool macabre way.

To say I’ve been anxiously awaiting summer would be a mild understatement but when I stumbled across the retro photos of Jena Ardell, I spent about 20 blissful minutes on her site.  She photographs lots of beach scenes but my favorites are the lovely little beach bungalows that you can almost imagine yourself in. 

The Shoot Factory is a full service location agency in the UK, which means they can make your home, office, building, look great for a shoot or event. The guy who founded it came from the advertising industry (not surprised) If you are looking for great inspiration for your own house or apartment go to the site and browse their work. Could you even think of a cooler job?

via Dornob
With over 150 installations worldwide, Dougherty trains trees to grow into inhabitable spaces in fields, forests, or even more urban areas. Aren’t they cool?