The First Week Of The New Year

As Future Husband and I held hand last Saturday at 11:59 pm,  he said "Do you have any resolutions?"  Now usually it's to lose those nagging 10 lbs that I hate so much, but this year I decided to focus on art.  "Yep, I hope to get more publicity. Don't know how, but that's what I want!"

My friend Paul says that if you put it out in to the universe, you'll get a response.

This week I had over 30 unique articles written about a series I only finished on Dec. 18, 2011 and thought that no one would like.  I have to say, that's pretty crazy.

I maintain this blog for three reasons: 1. It's my journal, 2. So that non-artists can have a glimpse of how an artist's life is composed, 3. So that students/beginners have an idea of what's in store for them.

With that in mind, I'm going to share an ancedote:

Titles are inextricably linked to your work and can even function as an artist or  political statement.

I knew this before, but that sentiment was pounded in to the 'ol noggin this week.  Sometimes, I have a tendency to not take my work too seriously.  In this case I gave Barbie Trashes Her Dreamhouse  a rather flippant title. If it were not for that consideration, no one would have "gotten" this work and no one would currently be viewing it.  Originally I did call the series "Time To Burn the House Down" and everyone thought I was showing images of my own home, so I changed the title to stress the point that what they were seeing was, in fact, miniature.  The rest is history.

Be careful what you wish for, though.  I had envisioned that the work would be a one-two punch.  I thought that people would look at the images, gasp, think "God I hope that's not real", then see something odd and realize what they were seeing was very small, then marvel again at the detail. 
This is not what happened. Everyone thought that I was a hoarder and I had to explain the image to each viewer,  so I changed the title so that they could instantly understand that the scenes were models. In doing so,  I caused a sensation while providing a small disservice to myself. I think that a certain amount of mystique had been lost due to the "barbie" association, but it's what people get and who am to argue with that?  Future Husband says of his stand-up career, "It doesn't matter how you come up with a joke, if it's brainy or dumb, all that matters is if people laugh."  I think that sentiment fits here, too.

Lastly, here is my list of things to be grateful for:
I have almost 90,000 unique visitors to my Flickr page.
My work has graced the online pages of Huffington Post and Time, plus many other publications, all within a weeks' time.
Other than the few nut jobs who think this work is satanic, most of the response had been amazingly positive.
I've made some pretty useful connections.
Work was printed in the actual local newspaper, the Post-Dispatch.  That made my mom proud.
I might have a future in this art thing. 

If you've been keeping up with thisahere blog, you know that heretofore I was a nobody, so these are quite huge events for someone who hasn't even been out of grad school for 2 years.

Now I just hope to find a full-time job.  Universe?  Are you listening?