mojo thoughts + 21st century conundrums

I think I may have my printing mojo back. It's been a while. But sometimes I think it's good to step away and do other things. It can be quite conducive to letting the creative juices percolate.

Today's carving session was musically accompanied by:

1. Holly Throsby
2. Jen Cloher
3. The Jezabels
4. Sarah Blasko
5. The Be Good Tanyas.

A fabulously talented combination of Australian and Canadian musicians indeed! And really good to do some intensive carving to. In case you ever wanted to know.

Now have you heard about all the Pinterest fuss going on? It seems the web is full of debate about Pinterest inspired copyright and digital identity crises at the moment. And here I was thinking it was just pretty eye candy. To be honest though, the first time I looked at Pinterest (about 2 weeks ago) I found one of my woodblock prints pinned there without any reference to me, the creator or to where they'd pinned it from (my shop). I was a bit annoyed when I saw that. Then after I signed up to play on Pinterest I realised that when you click on a pinned image it takes you back to the original source so you can see who owns it. Eventually. I was still cross that the original pinner hadn't taken the time to mention who owned the print though. And then on Twitter I noticed some artists saying a big thank you to people who had pinned their work because they'd receive enquiries as a result. And one person I know sold a painting due to the publicity it received on Pinterest.

Then Flickr made some moves in response to the Pinterest copyright debate. They disabled the pin function on copyright protected Flickr images.

So it seems that it's a bit of a complex situation. A real 21st century conundrum.

Any thoughts?

show and tell

This lovely collection of pods, including my woodblock print (lower left corner), graced the front page of etsy yesterday and I was awake for it! So thankyou to Lisa Hopkins who put this list together. I just love seed pods so much so that a while ago I helped set up a flickr group for photos and artwork of pods with the lovely Kristin Loganbill of Moon Tea Art.

And in November last year Apartment Therapy ran a wrap up of Melbourne etsy folk they're fond of and were kind enough to include moi (in the form of my Chiyogami Teapot print). I didn't find the article until recently but am flattered to be included. Thanks AT! Just click on the images to see them bigger.