coyleart

sing a song of surtex

I've been getting out the word and so I want to post it here on my blog as well - that I will not be showing at Surtex this year. This was a tough decision, because last year was my first time exhibiting - I met wonderful people and made some great contacts. I was looking forward to using my new-found knowledge of putting together a booth and seeing some of the same great folks again, fellow artists and art buyers alike.

But back at the beginning of this year I realized May was going to be a big month for me in other corners. This month I am putting the finishing touches on my very first CD as a jazz singer, in a week the mastering process will be finished and it will be off to the printers for reproduction. The learning curve for doing a project like this has been a little steep, but luckily I have some amazing (and far more experienced) musicians working with me. Every time I went into the studio to work on my vocals I learned something new about the art of singing into that microphone, without the live performance setting I'm becoming accustomed to, where all gestures can become more subtle and intimate. Along with the new CD, I'm finding ever more opportunities to perform and in effect I'm becoming a steadily working musician and sometimes band leader, hiring many of the musicians that just 2 years ago I would have never dreamed I would be able to collaborate with.

So musically speaking, it's an exciting time for me. For the longest time, singing has been a bit of a well kept secret with me. Over the years I longed to find a way to get out and just do it, but the fear of singing in front of anybody, even a sympathetic music teacher was just too much. I finally started taking steps toward finding my nerve 4 years ago and then began my first professional steady gig with a jazz band a year and a half ago.

With all this going on, I couldn't quite imagine myself in the throes of late nights working on my portfolio and booth displays, while keeping my assignment work going. Fortunately I made lots of contacts last year that I'm working with now, and with that and my usual business of editorial and advertising assignments, I'm keeping plenty busy with my art. And the beautiful thing is that with every new discovery I make about being a musician, there's some little pearl of truth in there that applies just as well to making art, and I expect that will somehow make my illustration better.

So I will set aside Surtex for this year and hope to be back in my own booth in 2009, picking up where I left off, recharged with even a little more artistic inspiration.

time for action on the Orphan Works bill

Visit this website for an easy and fast way to make a statement about the new proposed "orphan works" legislation to your members of congress.

I have read the bill myself and made sure that I've taken a thorough look at both sides of the issue, because as someone who appreciates the cause of librarians, documentarians, and education; as a musician and someone who benefits from some of the free and open exchange of creativity on the web and as someone who benefits greatly from new technology, I want to be sure that I'm not contributing to an overly clamped-down copyright minefield for people who have legitimate need for using truly orphaned works.

As an illustrator though, I make my living from licensing the usage rights to my artwork - and after reading the new legislation, it's obvious to me that there is no specific language that does nearly enough to protect visual works that are created specifically for commercial purposes. And there are far more burdens placed on individual artists to register and police their work than ever before.

Walk in to any bookstore, retail outlet, home furnishings store, fabric store, open a magazine, you will encounter hundreds even thousands of works of art and photography every day that enhance the commercial value of products for sale. There must be a way to maintain the commercial value of these works for the individuals who created them (who are making a living at it) and still allow for researchers and those who make documentaries to do their work too. The language as it exists now is far too broad and it doesn't serve commercial artists and photographers at all. Please take a look at the website I mentioned above; in 3 minutes you can send a letter to your representatives and get back to work.