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21 Essential Links for Independent Artists

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

Here are some people who have helped me in my quest to be an independent artist. They range from artists to creative entrepreneurs who are shaping possibilities undreamt of 10 years ago thanks to the internet, like:

1. Chris Guillebeau, Creative Noncomformist who’s traveling to every country around the world while starting small businesses

2. * I was a featured artist for his Art and Money Guide - if you’ve a half hour to spare you can hear my interview with his collaborator Zoe Westhof by clicking here.

and creative marketers like:

3. Hugh McLeod, the ‘cartoons on the back of business cards’ guy

4. Seth Godin, talking about how to survive in the changing publishing industry,

5. Simon Sinek, who shows if we dig and look at WHY we do what we do, we’ll attract fans of what we make,

6. sites like Lateral Action – work strategies for creatives,

7. and Behance, a portfolio site and magazine.

The music industry is leagues ahead of the visual arts system in moving from analog to digital distribution.

8. Bandcamp is a service I’m thinking to use for sound projects takes a fraction of the proceeds [15%] compared with iTunes,

9. and for e-Book projects I’m considering Smashwords [also only 15%].

10. Vook blends videos with e-books.

11. Speaking of videos, here Kirk Mastin explains how you can create your own HQ video studio with just a flipcam/iPhone and your laptop.

In a few months I’ll release my first self-published book in different formats. 10% of the proceeds will go to a Bangkok-based charity, and the rest will fund the transformation of a small Sicilian studio into a creative retreat for artists around the world.

If people love what you do, they will want to support it, even if they’ve only a couple of dollars to spare. Why not let them, and give them something back?

12. Kickstarter has given me some ideas for fundraising for my projects.

These artists are using new indie services and their fan base to make their projects happen:

13. “Avant Cellist” Zoe Keating

14. and neo-Brechtian cabaret singer-songwriter Amanda Palmer [some entries not work-safe].

15. Writers like Neil Gaiman – who’s reading at the Sydney Opera House this weekend – and William Dalrymple have inspired me to do more than your standard bookstore readings on my tour next year.

16. Here’s why Dalrymple took along nine mystics on his recent book tour.

17. Speaking of writing, Men with Pens is a snappy read packed with advice for good web writing,

18. and Copyblogger is pretty good, too.

Back to artists.

19. This visual artist [some entries NSFW] is more forthcoming about bipolar disorder than auction strategies [but the fine art world has famously opaque machinations]. She began showing in the gallery system here in Australia, connected with collectors and the artworld through her galleries, then decided to go independent,

20. and Kesha Bruce is an American artist living in Europe who gives a glimpse of what a professional can achieve outside the insular NYC artsworld.

Successful artists experiment again and again before finding what works for them. Some of us even experiment with where we live.

21. Jon & Lea Woodward are an illustrator/marketer team who show people how to live and work remotely from locations around the world with their Location Independent websites. Have a look and start dreaming of where you’d like to go next.

What websites would you recommend to help creatives forge their own path?

Posted in Art, Artist Opportunities, Books, Cyanotype, Photo, Photos, Studio, Travel | 5 Comments »

Knife Village

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Lai Chau, Vietnam, on assignment for my book Sensual Papers: Through the Back Roads and Rivers of Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.

I’m standing by one side of the road as my guide pisses off the other. We’ve been chasing rumors of papermakers through the back roads of the province all afternoon but haven’t had any luck. I take off my helmet, wipe off sweat and sunscreen, and admire the view anyway.

My guide walks up next to me and shares a grin. “How about we go to the knife village?” he asks.

“Knife Village?”

“Yeah they turn car parts into knives. It’s famous throughout Lai Chau.”

If a province has no noteworthy features, why not make one up?

The road is lined with rickety open-air shelters, each strung with knives made by the family of blacksmiths who live in a house next door.

“These are all made from destroyed cars,” my guide says.

I picture the slender blacksmiths tearing apart car bodies.

“They use car springs, brakes, that kind of thing,” he says. I nod, as though I have an idea of what a car brake looks like, and pick up a knife. It is cold and rough, a pleasing weight in my hand.

“How much do you think they’d charge a foreigner for this one?” I ask.

“Let’s find the guy who owns this place,” my guide says.

We walk over to the house where an elderly man smiles at us through an open window. He reads through the mid-day heat, and his book catches my eye. It’s not printed in the Roman script of Vietnamese. Instead, its pages are covered in a hand-written script, neither completely traditional Chinese characters nor the modern version.

“This is a prayer book,” my guide says. “The man is from the Dao people, and this is their family’s book. The paper is….” he pauses to translate, “from China, maybe handmade, maybe not.”

I look through the translucent pages into the sunny sky. The paper fibers go in all directions. “It’s handmade,” I say. “Did he write the book himself?”

“He copied it from another book. No, this village doesn’t make paper anymore, there’s a road and they can buy everything they need from the markets.”

Except knives, apparently.

“Now he wonders how much you will pay for the knife. He can throw in a pair of handmade scissors for half price.”

Posted in Art, Books, Travel, Vietnam | 3 Comments »

Paradise is a Room-Full of Books

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

Growing up, I was happiest in a room filled with books. I’d save pocket money from odd jobs and household chores and spend it on discreet paperback classics and pulpy fantasy novels. It was an escape from the tyrannical atmosphere of our family home, and my bedroom was soon filled with books containing worlds and words that offered a kind of comfort I couldn’t find anywhere else.

Today, every time I pass a quirky-looking bookstore I can’t resist going inside it. The best bookstores are one-of-a-kind places featuring indie publishers like mine, and a welcoming atmosphere that reflects the neighborhood, not the ethos of a suburban chain store.

My favorite neighborhoods in Sydney are Darlinghurst and Paddington, where the bookstores per-capita are the highest in town.

This display drew me into Ariel Books today:

Who thought astroturf could look so good on a book cover?

Orange stools and flowers invite readers to spend some time with Ariel’s punk rock selection

Their kids’ section has a well-used table to tame small customers and give parents a few moments peace

And you can browse through books while relaxing on a couch under a pseudo-gothic poster of Winona Ryder by Marc Ryden

My next stop was Ampersand Cafe Bookstore, its three storeys filled with secondhand books selected by discerning buyers. Their staff are friendly, laid-back and highly caffeinated. Their Lindt mochas could knock a girl’s knickers off with a rich and creamy chocolate kick.

The best way to savor Ampersand is to soak in the atmosphere of their reading rooms like this one:

Reading by the light of a chandelier is a romance you can’t get at home

These velvet chairs are the perfect place to rifle through shelves packed with travel and art books. I found photos of handsome Moroccan men taken by Paul Bowles during his long residence there, and spent some quality time exploring imaginary worlds with Jan Morris. A room-full of books still gives a comfortable escape from a frenetic world, and offers undreamt-of possibilities.

What’s your favorite bookstore, wherever you are now or wherever you’ve been?

Posted in Books, Sydney | 5 Comments »

Photo Book Exhibition

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

This Saturday I’ll be exhibiting my book Lost and Found: Hong Kong at the Australian Centre for Photography‘s Winter Book Fair in Sydney.

Four HK-based photographers and I contributed images to the book, which was published last year.

Stop by from 10am – 4pm and I’ll see you there.

Or you can order your copy of the book here.

Posted in Books, Hong Kong, News | 1 Comment »

Where to Buy your Books in Bali

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Bookstore shelves, Kuala Lumpur Airport

You can tell a lot about a place from its bookstores. Skim the shelves and you will get a good impression of the passions and the phobias of those around you. I’ve always been a book-obsessed geek but now that I’ve been published, browsing in bookstores counts as work too.

Here’s a selection from my recent travels:

The much-touted destination of Ubud was a disappointment from the moment I stepped into the street. Hustlers, bad paintings, and crumbling sidewalks jostled for attention from middle-aged European tourists. The bookstores were similarly disappointing, aside from Ganesha Books, which had a reasonable selection of new and used books.

Amed Beach is a fishing village that sprawls along the east coast of Bali, considered a well-kept secret for those looking to escape crowded tourist spots. It draws an assortment of hippies, rastas, and creative travelers like my neighbors who played Klezmer music on their steel banjos every afternoon at the beach. The Dutch owner of GaneshAmed hotel and bookstore has an eccentric library of old and obscure books on Bali/Indonesia and lends them out for a mere 30,000 rupiah each (around US$3). They also boasted the best selection of first edition paperbacks from dead travelwriters I’ve seen in awhile. I picked up copies of Stevenson’s The Suicide Club/Jekyll and Hyde, Graham Green’s Honorary Consul, Somerset Maugham’s The Sinners, and Thesinger’s Arabian Sands.

Candi Dasa is a fading beach town with a disappearing beach. Locals destroyed the coral reefs during construction of the area’s many resorts, and efforts are now belatedly recreating some of what was lost. The tourists there have similarly unimaginative taste in reading: the town’s bookstores are filled with cheap cookbooks and beach-reading paperbacks in assorted languages.

Denpasar Airport barely stocked any books at all, anywhere. I searched a dozen souvenir stores and found only one which sold a fraction of the books available in Kuala Lumpur. Still I picked up a copy of the bizarre “novel”/autobiography Country of Origin by the colonist-turned-Rive Gauche socialist, E. du Perron. This Periplus edition had been translated from [deadly dull?] Dutch into dreadful English but is an unusual portrait of early 20th century Indonesia.

So if you’re headed to Bali, you’re best off bringing your own books – or, better yet, writing your own tribute to the place while there.

Bonus: KL [In the Kuala Lumpur International Airport the AirAsia budget airline terminal, some of my fellow travelers had a touch of anti-Semitism (note The International Jew by Henry Ford - yes, that Ford) and a taste for trashy horror (Gravedigger's Kiss and 44 Cemetary Road by Malaysian author Tunku Halim). Their travel section was confined to Lonely Planet paperbacks - not a single work of travel literature to be found in the place. Plenty of business books, advice on feng shui, and managing stress and nutrition to round out the reading of your overworked international businessman-on-a-budget.]

Posted in Books, Travel | 2 Comments »

Archive for the ‘Books’ Category