As Seen on TV

So Saturday was my big TV debut. Well, my artwork debuted on tv, not me, but it's better looking anyway.



I was contacted at the end of January by Lindsay Roberts, an Advertising Assistant for Good Housekeeping Magazine and blogger, who writes the blog Gift Giving With Love

I made a custom silhouette for her parent's anniversary based on an old photo from their wedding.

She regularly makes appearances on Fox News in Detroit to show great gift giving ideas, and this Valentine's Day she showed the silhouette I made for her and her parents. Very exciting! The video is below (I'm about 3:30 into it)


Lindsay did a phenomenal job on the presentation, I can't imagine staying composed on TV! Thanks so much Lindsay for finding me and showing my work!

Go check out her great blog, if you haven't already: Gift Giving With Love

Guide to papercutting: Adhesive

Okay, this has been a long-time promised post, and a BUNCH of people have written me to ask, so here it is: My guide to Papercut Adhesives.

Well, really it's just adhesive, since I pretty much only use one.

It's called Studio Tac or Letra Tac. Both are made by Letraset. I'm not sure exactly what's happening, but it appears the Studio Tac (blue package) is being phased into Letra Tac (yellow package). You can order Studio Tac from Blick online, but if you go to the store, they sell the Letra Tac.

No matter, it's all the same stuff.

Essentiall, this adhesive is a sheet of thousands of very small white silicon adhesive dots. They are packaged in sheets, with a a wax paper cover. You place your artwork on the dots, then rub the back, which sticks the dots to the back of the design, then you peel off the design and stick it to your background. Pretty simple, and it has great coverage.

They stick very well. I have several mess-up papercuts that I simply slapped on my studio walls, and they are still up there after months of dramatic temperature changes and no glass covering.

A few very very helpful tips.

1. It sticks pretty good, so be very careful removing your piece from the wax paper.

2. It's technically repositionable, which is great for when you stick it down not quite in the perfect spot, but it is very good at long-term adhesive.

3. Because it's silicon, it has a bit of a rubbery ness that allows your piece to expand and contract with weather and not become detached. I've had pieces adhered for years without any sign of detachment.

4. Personally, I would avoid the "permanent" kind since the regular kind is quite permanent and still allows repositioning.

5. Place your piece upside down on the sheet of wax paper that isn't covered in dots, then press the sheet with dots down onto the back of the piece. It stops the piece from moving and getting wrinkles, trust me.

6. Rub the back of the piece (the side with the dots) not the front of the piece. This makes the dots stick more thoroughly

7. When mounting your piece, lay your piece face down (sticky dots up) on a grided surface, like a quilters mat, and use the grid to place the piece in the right spot, then take your pre-cut background, and line it up with the grid, and slowly fold it over your papercut. This I have found to be the best way to mount your work without damaging, folding, creasing, or otherwise messing up your papercut.

8. This adhesive works best for white backgrounds as tiny bits of the dots will overhang your papercut. If you are adhering it to a white background, these will become completely invisible, but if you are mounting to a colored background, they may be very noticeable and I recommend a different adhesive like double sided tape.

9. If any stray dots get on your work, you can remove them with a very clean soft eraser and they come right off.

10. #9 is especially helpful if you accidently put the wrong side down and cover your presentation side with thousands of tiny sticky white dots.

Photos of me using the Studio Tac:

Each of those dots is a dot of adhesive, and yes, I accidentally covered the back of my ruler with studio tac taking this photo



This shows me pulling one of my papercuts away from the adhesive. Note the fact that one side of the paper is white. I'll discuss that in my next post...

Next helpful post will be on the paper I use. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments section. I'll answer them the best I can.

Hard work (and a little play)

The valentine's day orders are rolling in left and right, which is fantastic considering last year I literally did not sell a single piece that I knew was going to be a V-Day gift.

Right now the two biggies are my custom silhouettes and hand-cut valentine

Anyway, the real point of this post isn't to get you guys to buy stuff, but to encourage you all. Last January was the start of what I call "the rough months". My sales plummeted, almost nobody was interested in my work, and the entire country was in near-panic over the economic situation.

The incredible amount of "down time" allowed me to focus on my art, get some pieces cut, and come up with new ideas for my etsy shop. It got so bad that in February of last year I had $300 in total sales. That isn't profit, that's TOTAL sales. It was rough, and when you are working 40+ hour work weeks and seeing nothing for it, it hurts. Wasn't much better in January or March. Fortunately we were expecting a dip after Christmas and cut our spending WAY back and just managed to squeek by through March.

If you are also self employed and facing a minor crisis and possibly considering quitting, look at your goods. Look at your website, blog, twitter, facebook, etc. What can you do better? Think of it as a bit of a vacation and do something crazy as an experiment. Can't get much worse right?

I did some CRAZY pieces last winter, and I don't have them any more, because come summer and fall, I had a better blog, a better site, increased my items in my etsy shop (more items, the better I have found) and had a TON of new pieces that were ready to go any time a show came up and sold a bunch of pieces.

If you need help, tips or encouragement, especially these slow times, I'm a pretty good cheerleader. Drop me a note!
~Joe

Terminal 22 Papercuts Show

Just sharing the announcement for the Terminal 22 Papercuts Show including seven of my pieces:
If any of you happen to be over in the San Francisco area, please attend the show and let me know how it goes. Unfortunately I won't be able to make it!

Experimentation!

I've been itching to make things, but lately it's been of the 3D variety.

For starters, I made a paper collar my wife was kind enough to model for:

Link to Etsy Listing: Radiant- Avant Garde Paper Neck Piece

I have another collar that's all done, just need to photograph it and list it.

I also had an idea last night about combining papercutting with origami. Wasn't sure if it would work, and it, guess what, it did!

This one's 14x14x8



Etsy Listign: Origami papercut crane with branches

This inspired me to make this smaller one (7x7x4), which I cut out all the "panels" between the folds making a paper crane skeleton:


Etsy listing: Origami paper crane skeleton

Let me know what you think!

Tools of the trade- Knives

I get a bunch of emails each month asking how I make my papercuts and the materials I use.

I thought it might be a good idea to make some posts about my techniques so others can give it a try themselves. Plenty of room in the world for more papercutters!

I'll be focusing on knives. I use exclusively Xacto products just because they are, in my opinion, the best available. Trust me, I've tried them all.

A quick note on terminology: Knife is the handle, blade is the sharp part that the knife holds.

Here are my two main knives (I have pretty much every product Xacto makes, but these are my most used ones)

Xacto X3627 Gripster Soft Grip Knife- available everywhere


and my piece de resistance: Xacto 3051 Professional Swivel Knife. (shown with some blue painters tape to thicken it a bit and make it more comfortable for my hands)



Xacto no longer makes the 3051, and I only have one that was given to me by a friend who did rubylith cutting for billboards in the 70s (that's how old the knife is). If you find one, I'll buy it off you! Actually, my birthday is coming up on Feb 3rd...

The Gripster takes standard #11 blades. I use this knife for all my straight cuts as it is very easy to cut a perfectly straight cut with a standard xacto knife/blade.

The Pro swivel knife, however, is pretty much the greatest thing ever and I'd love for Xacto to start producing the knife again (are you listening Xacto???)

This swivel knife, unlike the swivel knife Xacto makes today, is entirely made from metal. There are tiny ball bearings that allow the blade to rotate in the knife without having any wiggle to the blade. The currently available swivel knife allows way to much movement of the blade inside the knife, so trying to put the tip of the knife exactly in the right spot is difficult because the blade wiggles a bit as you press it into the paper (bad).

While they say you cant use the current swivel knives available at stores (they come in a tiny plastic tube and each blade is encased in a white piece of plastic), I found that you can still use the blades for the old style knife, you just need to take the blade out of the plastic case. This is very easy.

I really wish Xacto did not package these blades with the point down as they are very sharp yet delicate. When they get jostled around on the shelf or in shipping, the tips can sometimes break off in the package. At $1 each, I don't want to waste ANY blades in the package and I'll check every one before I buy them.

I use a pair of pliers and squeeze the plastic case just below the blade. This crushes the plastic and loosens the blade, then I take the pliers, pull the blade out, and put the blade directly into the pro swivel knife, which holds the blade in a brass mechanism. A bit of work, but totally worth it for the stability of the pro knife.


The best thing about the pro knife is that the blade swivels inside the knife so incredibly smoothly, you can cut your work just like you would drawing with a pen. Here's a video of my using my swivel knife to cut a piece. It doesn't cut straight lines very well though, that's why I use the traditional knife with #11 blades.





I hope this was helpful to all of you. Please feel free to ask any questions in the comments, I read them all, and I'll try to answer them all.

I'll be doing another post on paper, adhesive, and design.

One day to go!... so I missed a day

Yeah, remember two days ago when I said I had six days worth of work to do and four days to do it. That was before I got seven custom requests in 48 hours. One was an express deal, so I had to set aside everything to work on it. Not complaining, if people want my work, I'll be there!

So I did get lots done yesterday, just flat-out ran out of time and energy to blog.

All morning I worked on a rush-order custom piece, which should be in Florida in a couple of hours (hope you and your husband love it Marisa!)

After that, I really had to mount all the 18x24s or they just wouldn't get done. Since they are the main pieces for the show, thought that was important! My very first attempts of framing on my own. Kudos to Steve for everything you taught me about framing, I think they came out great!


Made a run to Target to get a tablecloth for my the huge 6' table they are supplying me for the show. Still not sure what to do with it, or where to put it, but figured I should at least make it look good. I was completely shocked at how expensive table cloths were, so I ended up buying a flat sheet which happened to be on crazy sale due to college season. Saved me $15 so I was happy.

I also got a box of huge clear bags, which I will use to transport the pieces and wrap them up when people purchase a piece. Looks like it may rain Friday and a bit on Saturday, so I'm determined not to ruin all my work!

Also designed all my "bookmark" pieces for the 8x10 frames. Hate waiting until the last second to do these, but they don't take too long and sell like hotcakes so they're a must. Here they all are unmounted.


Still have to pack everything up and make sure I have everything I need. Also need to mount and frame all the little guys above and two other smaller pieces. My biggest worry about these shows isn't the art, but doing something stupid like forgetting to bring anything to hang the artwork on the wall with, or forgetting my business cards or some other small detail that completely derails the whole thing.

Okay, back to work. I'll try to post again this evening to make up for the lack of post yesterday.

Cheers,
Joe

Accepted! Boston Ahts festival 2009

Woo-Hoo!

Just got a weird letter in the mail from the city of Boston (parking ticket?). No, it's an acceptance letter from the Mayor for the 2009 Boston Arts Festival! I applied back in March and pretty much forgot about it. I had a string of rejections lately so this was very nice to hear.

I was one of 60 artists accepted, so I'm damn proud of that alone. I think it didn't hurt that I was in the deadly-competitive paper category (ha ha)

The festival is located between the North End, Quincy Market, and the Aquarium in Downtown Boston, so TONS of people will be walking by. Last year, they said 50,000 people attended!

Blue Man Group, the Boston Pops, the Boston Ballet, the Opera, etc. have performed so there should continue to be a big turnout. Here's the official website: www.bostonahtsfestival.com

I would love to see some of you if you happen to be in the area!

New space, and a new papercut!

Just got back from Haymarket in Boston with bags full of fruits and veggies. Got four quarts of strawberries, four pears, two pounds of cherries, two ponds of roma tomatoes, a pint of blueberries, and eight kiwi...all for $11. I freaking love Boston!

Anyway, I'm just posting now that we are completely unpacked and back to work. Below is my new work space. I just hung up a ton of art and pretty much filled the book cases so it looks a bit busier now, but I now have an entire 12x12 room for my papercutting!




I've been doing between 5-10 custom papercuts every week since May so that's the biggest reason I haven't been posting much lately. It's definitely been my busy time of year with anniversary present requests rolling in. I haven't had much time to do more my-style pieces, however I did get a spare half-day yesterday to finish the piece below that I've been working on for about a month. It's of the Second-Empire building that housed Boston's City Hall from 1869-1965. Below are images of the city hall, the papercut, and just some shots to show scale and that it truly is cut from paper:) I haven't mounted the piece on its white background. Right now it's on a green cutting board and still has the support pieces I cut into the design to keep it's shape while I'm mounting. I cut them off when it's done.

That's all for now...

Introducing: Make

Make

16x28 mounted to 20x30
Single Sheet of Black Paper

Inspired by my previous work, I, I have continued experimenting with texture and scale with this papercutting of my left hand. I was sitting at my desk working on some custom pieces when I noticed my hands were extremely dry. When I looked at them up close, the sun was coming in through the window behind me at the perfect angle. I could see all the wrinkles and grooves in my palm and I wondered if I could capture it with a papercut. This is the result of a very long design process. I really fought for this one! I'm very happy with the outcome and I really love the bold graphic in-your-face quality, but it also has a tranquil side...somehow. Hope you like!

Available on Etsy

An homage to Tord Boontje

I had a wonderful person ask me to make them a paper chandelier through Etsy a few weeks ago. After playing around with designs and construction ideas, I came up with a two-layered paper lamp.

I used paper, since the lamp will be lighted with CFL bulbs exclusively. I have had it on for several hours and the bulb is still cool enough to hold your finger directly on it, and the paper is barely warm.

What do you guys think? Sorry for the terrible photography. I just snapped a few photos to get the point accross. If I continue to make these (hopefully) I will definitely spend a bit more effort on the staging!

Anyway, there are obvious similarities to Tord Boontje's incredible lamps. Didn't want it to look that similar, but I definitely used my own technique and trademark branches design. Not too many ways to make a paper lamp without doing some sort of conical shape. Hope he won't mind. I've been a HUGE fan of his work for many many years.

What do you guys think?

Not So Fast...

So after much reflection about my previous post, I realized one major issue: Is my custom page actually ready for an increase in interest? Will more people actually request a piece I don't have a well developed site that actually presents my pieces well?

The answer is no, I don't. Or atleast didn't. I hope I do now!

I spent pretty much the entire weekend reading about marketing, and all of today redesigning my custom anniversary paper art page: papercutsbyjoe.com/custom

There's a lot more words on the page, which I realize is a bit of a minus, but it lays out everything I have to say on one page and doesn't require anyone to travel through three pages before the actually know what I'm selling. I'm surprised they actually did before!

I added an About the Artist page, a fun jpg of where my pieces have found a home, completely re-did the Gallery page, and added a FAQ section.

I really want to get across the fact that I personally work with everyone, and that the piece I create for them is both worth what they are paying for, and will last generations. I hope that got across, please let me know if it didn't!

There has been a steady increase in hits from my google Adwords advertising. Hopefully things will start to pick up. Not expecting miracles, just something. Anything!

I'm sure I've got some major tweaking to do with the wording, but overall, I think I'll try this on for size for a bit. What do you all think of it?

Going for it

Friend-of-the-Blog ArtSnark, whose work I greatly admire, suggested in one of my recent posts to seek out publicity at various magazines and media outlets.

This has worked out well for me in the past, and I feel stupid for not doing it again sooner, but I definitely will! This past fall I wrote the editor of the local newspaper, and within two hours I had an interview. Within a week I was on the cover of the newspaper and had an online video interview and feature! Good fun!

So, because I am COMPLETELY incapable of holding back on anything, I'm really going for it this time. I have three major components to my "business": Fine art, Local Art, and Custom Anniversary Art. Therefore, I will be customizing several digital and printed press releases and harassing (politely) editors until I get some attention. All tastefully, respectively, and humbly done of course.

Here's the lineup, feel free to suggest others if you know of any:

Fine Art:
Crafts Arts International
Art in America
The Artist Magazine
Cloth, Paper, Scissors
Paper Crafts
Elle Decor
ART News
Paper Creations
World of Interiors

Local:
Down East
Portland
Boston
Maine Home Design
Port City Life

Custom Anniversary Art:
Rachael Ray
O
InStyle
Readers Digest
Better Homes + Gardens
Real Simple
The Nest
Lucky
Martha Stewart Living

(took FOREVER to get all those links!)

Frankly, if I get even one of these to so much as mention me in a footnote, I'll consider it successful. I have to believe that my work is the best thing ever or nobody else will think so. I've definitely learned that if you wait for things to come to you, often they never do and you have to sometimes show people what you are worth in order to get any attention. It's pretty much the only way I've gotten jobs, interviews, offers, gallery shows, displays, apartments, internships, articles...

I'm going to look into papercutting classes at Michaels too. I've got the Boys and Girls club workshop as experience and that was SO much fun.

One question for all of you to help out with: Should I send an 8x10 "custom" anniversary papercut to all the major magazines as a good visual (O, Instyle, Rachael ray, etc)? Lots of work, but might be worth it? I figure the more fine-art oriented publications can work with just images since that's really what they do anyway.

I'll share the stuff I'll be sending with the package with all of you when I make them (soon)

Thanks again ArtSnark!!!!

Introducing: Jen

Jen 2009
20x20 inches

Black Paper on Illustration Board

I was staring at a profile silhouette I cut of my wife, Jen, when I had the idea of combining the very traditional profile with my new branch pieces. This is the result: One of my most detailed pieces yet. By far one of the most difficult pieces I have ever cut. DELICATE! but still bold and very graphic.

available on etsy.com

Hard Work, No Pay

In August of 2008, my wife and I both lost our jobs. Because of this,
we moved from Florida to Massachusetts where we had better connections
and job opportunities.Fortunately , my wife was able to find a good
job, but me...not so much. Basically, we have a lot of friends in
Boston, many of whom have the same education background as me plus a
masters degree. All of us were looking for jobs at the same time so I
just gave up on even competing with them.

Anyway, this whole art
thing was actually growing faster than I expected so I took the big
chance and went full time. It was convenient, I really enjoyed it, and
for a while, it was the best paying job I had ever had.

Then winter came.

Without going into the numbers, December was rough, January was terrible, and February was about third of January!

Granted, the work level hasn't gone down. Without all the custom pieces rolling
in, I've really gone wild with my own more fine art pieces, expand my
blog and website, and experimenting A LOT.

I have to tell you, It is really, really hard to put in a 40 plus hour work week and not
make a penny for it! The combination of winter making the weather suck
and no sunlight in the afternoons means I'm almost never going outside
of the house- and we live two minutes from the ocean! Not sure if I
should be getting a second job or not. Things feel like they are
bouncing back, but in this economy, what exactly could a bounce even
be? I'm lining myself for lots of summer art shows, but if I start
working, I may jeopardize either work, for having to prepare for shows and not be able to work weekends, or give up on some of the shows, which may actually sell a piece. There are NO jobs in archaeology right now, so I'll have to go into a really saturated job market with very minimal skills. Gah, decisions!

Right
now it's just really demoralizing to not seeing any return for hard
work. I know the saying, find a job you would do for free. I have two.
Archaeology and Art. But eventually you can't be stupid about it.
Unless you are financially secure, working for free isn't really an
option. It's difficult to live on one rather minimal income, and the
stress it's putting on Jen is tough for both of us.

oh
well. You're told your entire life you can do anything you want so long
as you are willing to work for it. But when are you supposed to give
up? Are only those with enough money (whether it's their own or their
family's) to have the luxury to do what they want allowed to do
everything? I really don't want to go back to the grocery store. I've worked so freaking hard to get where I was in my archaeology career (honors, publications, recognition, etc). Now I've put in so much time with the art career. I know I'm at the beginning stages at both, I completely recognize this, but at the same time we can't last much longer without getting a paycheck.

Bleh. Sorry for the rant. I think I'll go cut a bunch of holes in a piece of paper or something:)

Papercutting Lecture Tour- Massachusetts Libraries

As part of the Solo show this summer, I was asked to prepare a lecture to present some time around the opening of the show.

I was happy to do so, and figured if I was going to be writing such a long talk and slide show, I might as well get some more mileage out of it. I proceeded to write every, and I mean every, library between my home and Boston.

Fortunately several agreed to have me come by, so here is a list of the upcoming lectures in Hingham, Brockton, Quincy, and Cohasset, Massachusetts.

All the lectures are FREE to attend. The basic outline is a history of papercutting and its spread around the world, followed with the works of several modern papercutters. A PowerPoint presentation will provide great visuals for the talk, and I will be bringing authentic papercuttings from around the world as well as several of my original works.

March 26th: Paul Pratt Memorial Library (Cohasset), 7-8pm

April 21: Hingham Public Library, 7-8:45pm

April 24: Brockton Public Library, 2-3 pm

August: Thomas Crane Public Library (Quincy) date tbd
Also, I will be displaying my work in their gallery space for the month of August.

If any of you are in the area or know someone who will be, please come by! If you have a venue you would like me to give the presentation, please email me and we can discuss an appearance. I have limited travel ability (gets expensive), but if you are willing to reimburse for travel or charge admissions, I am more than willing to travel outside of Massachusetts for the lecture.

Papercutting with the Boys and Girls Club

I had the honor to work with some fantastic kids at the Boys and Girls Club in my home town of South Portland.

I gave a brief talk about the history of papercutting and passed around some authentic pieces from around the world (papel picado, Jian Jhi, silhouette, etc) then the kids got to create their own original papercut. There were almost no rules, so they really got to express their creativity.

Here are some highlights of the two-day workshop