State of the Artist, State of the Studio

[madshutterbug]

Framing and Packing and Such, Oh My

I've now acquired acrylic to use for glazing, and two frames specifically for two pieces. This leaves only the already mounted 8x10 range images left for framing from 'scratch' as it were. Well, Zen Garden needs to go from 'scratch'. However, at some point I need to say 'Enough' because there is also mounting hanging wires and preparing and printing the Name Cards.

Never a boring moment.

The Name Cards from Nude Nite printed on business card size stock. Top line, in a larger script font is Nude Nite. Then a san serif font (Helvetica or Ariel?) each on a line: bold, the Artist Name, then not bold Title, Medium, Price, Artist Location, and very bottom, slightly smaller point size, 'Visit sales desk to purchase.'

So we need something like that. And I sat down to play with it over the weekend, using Open Office Presentation as the closest in my current Spendtrift Child of Unmarried Parents status, not yet acquiring an updated version of one of the few Microshaft applications I think is actually worthy (Publisher). In the long run I think we may benefit from this being a merge file, however for now 'brute force' will do.

Variation on the theme though, most text in 12 point fonts, a script font for Studio 318 across the top, then Bold 16 Point Ariel for the title of the piece, then back to 12 point Ariel for Artist and Medium, then Bold 12 Point Ariel for the price of the piece. Dunno about long term, Herself likes it, and it's time to say I'm Done on that because this coming weekend is the Spring Arts Festival.

Big prints/frames ready:

• Naiad
  
• Dryad in the Forest of Good and Evil
  
• Last Transport to Clarkesville
  
• Kitsune Out of the Storm
  
• Peek-a-Boo
  
• Postcard from Arizona (Dam Traffic)
  
• All the Modern Conveniences (colour version)
  
• In the Parlour (sepia)
  
• View of Washington from Arlington (colour version)
  
• Basket, Bench, Buckets (colour version)
  
• Zen Garden (monochrome)
  
• Mermaid Bath
  

All of these are mounted, matted, and framed with the hanging hardware installed. Most of them required cutting new mats, in fact only Mermaid Bath used an existing mat from one of the frame sets I purchased in a yard sale. A couple of them are double-matted because that really worked well and set them off. Yesterday I started figuring how to pack them into available boxes, and still need to pack four more. Now, available boxes include ones I've been using, plus a portion of another which won't close and came from the leftovers of the larger box I converted into art transport.

Along with these, I purchased from the UPS store last week two boxes specifically for this purpose. One is the same size which we used to ship Kitsune Out of the Storm off to the Nude Nite show. I'm not using that one just now; it is really bigger than I may need for personal transport. I also purchased the next size down, and that one is holding three pieces, padded between with foam-core board. So are two of the other boxes, and two of them are holding individual large pieces.

So at this point, it's I'm Done with Art Preparation. If anything, I may set up the Pavilion one time before the weekend to double-check on some setup things we've been contemplating, though maybe not. Weather for this week isn't the shiniest, with rain forecast for today, less chance Tuesday and Wednesday (so, the two days I'm off to Hospital to work), pretty high Thursday, medium Friday (setup day for the Festival). However, looks fairly good for the weekend of the Festival itself.

On the Subject of iPhone(s)

Herselfs iPhone attempted drowning itself last week. There is also a history of it acting up, taking excessive time to do things, freezing. As a 'control' subject, that phone never has had the iOS upgraded, unlike mine. Still, two years, time to consider an upgrade. Herself being a clever lady, once she found her phone submerged (in the Border Collie Bros water bucket) immediately dried it off and then placed it into a bowl of dry rice, uncooked, and left it alone. She e-mailed me to let me know not to try contacting her.

Apparently it worked, as the next morning the pre-set alarm on that phone woke her up.

Mine on Saturday morning at Haile Farmers Market would not bring up the phone app. It would 'open' to screen, then close. It showed as being in the 'tray', and still would only flash open, then close. So, I rebooted the phone, thinking maybe that will fix this. Note to self, did not try going to Contacts first to make the call I wanted to make, rather than open phone, select Contacts, and call. When I restarted the phone, the phone app opened properly. Ah. Fixed.

Not exactly. The phone told me I have No Contacts.

I've a backup of Contacts on the PC. Checked that out and literally laughed out loud, rather cynically, because of course Contacts is a proprietary file format from a competing OS provider and there is no field in that file for iPhone (there is for cell phone). Which means, after research, that I may loose two specific phone numbers. All others I either found in Contacts or re-entered by referencing through Messages history. Amazing how well one can tell to whom a number belongs by reading old messages.

Now, the data is still in there, somewhere, because when I manually re-entered Herself as a contact (changing spelling on a last name, so as not to override an existing record) the number started showing the photo icon I'd assigned her. I've not re-synched yet, nor re-set the iPhone itself. Making sure I've got other backups from other apps first.

Meanwhile, I've started researching the upgrade situation, can do it, will do it before anything else (potentially truly bad) happens with these two phones. However, I'm annoyed with the Service Provider Website. Which would provide a nice price on a refurbished phone (even with an Upgrade Fee), but (hereby negating everything previously stated) won't Save the Cart, nor recognise our physical address as an actual address. I've been in direct contact with company representatives about this, and am told they entered the physical address as a second address. Still won't accept it as a verifiable address, and thus won't complete the transaction.

I know this is related to Big Brother, and wanting to be able to track cell phone sales and about International Terriers and such. However, both UPS and FedEx are very familiar with our physical address, haven't missed a delivery yet. And, it's this one business that seems to refuse to allow setting the address without stepping through its own background checks.

So I'll stop into the brick and mortar store and tell them about my problems, accept that I won't get that nice refurbished price (only on one phone anyway) and tell them My Dissatisfaction Is Great, Drop the Upgrade Fee or I'm off to see other providers...


And we'll see how that goes.