{"id":2624,"date":"2011-05-25T07:50:52","date_gmt":"2011-05-25T07:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/?p=2624"},"modified":"2011-05-25T07:50:55","modified_gmt":"2011-05-25T07:50:55","slug":"but-is-it-fart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/?p=2624","title":{"rendered":"But is it fArt?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most of you will have noticed that we have experienced many cuts to public funding in recent months, and that The Arts have fared poorly under the regretable coalition<\/strike>Tory clownshoes<\/strike> Government who are currently running the country. Still, complaining about this situation won’t get me very far in practical terms, (although it is immensely satisfying<\/em>) and since I like to think of myself as an enterprising sort, I have been busy making a go of things as a self-employed artist since October 2010, and working hard on various projects to make an honest crust. This strategy is not making me hugely rich, but I am enjoying it so far, and am always looking for new, creative ways to turn the things which I do into hard cash<\/em>. Any artist – or indeed any person of any kind who has bills and rent to pay who says otherwise is either lying or heavily sponsored<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Thus, as an additional income stream to my rather modest earnings, I decided there might be a way of monetising the powerz of the badgemaker<\/em>. In this vein, I am delighted to announce that Prick Your Finger<\/a> are now stocking my entire KNITSONIKTM<\/sup> range and<\/em> all the vintage knitting magazine badges which I created when I first got the badgemaker. I am delighted about this; all the badges which are sold make a modest profit which is shared between me and the shop, and this is joyous, because the customer gets a fantastic badge, the shop gets a cut of the profit, and so do I. Everybody wins<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here is the wonderful Colleen<\/a>, sporting her new accessory, made by me and stocked by PYF. I feel very happy\/honoured\/supported by the fact that Colleen was the first buyer of Felix Badges Inc. Thank You, Colleen!<\/em><\/p>\n

But I wondered if there might be a place closer to home – maybe in the town I love so much<\/em> – where I could also have a wee presence; an area in the corner of someone’s shop where I could sell nice little packets of one-off, Ltd. edition quirky badges. Little sets, perhaps, like this one.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s nice, no?<\/p>\n

So I racked my brains and decided that But is it Art?<\/em><\/a> might be a good place to approach re: a deal. I earnestly set about making some sets to take into town with me, I printed labels, I cut them out, I pinned all the badges into their little bags, I stapled the bags together, and then I set off with my sample goods and my best Felix smile. This is the website of But is it Art?<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For context, But is it Art?<\/em><\/a> is a sort of emporium of the quirky<\/em>. We do not have so many shops stocking lovely, handmade items in Reading, but this shop does at least evidence some locally-minded creativity. In a sort of pastiche\/rip-off of The Caravan Gallery<\/a>, they have postcards showcasing the hidden sides of Reading which have either been locally commissioned or produced inhouse, and they have nice vintagey cupcake-themed lipbalms; witty stationery; pretty, vintage wrapping paper inspired by the Ladybird books etc. They do, admittedly, stock wrapping paper emblazoned with the C word and a range of foolish\/profane giftcards, but some of their things are cute and I thought that perhaps since they are dealing with many items with a similar price-point to my badges, it would not be ridiculous to assume that they might sell them there. I left a packet of badges and a note in the store for the Manager to see, and said I would call back after a few days once they had had a chance to look at the badges and consider my proposal. <\/p>\n

It was a simple question; “would you like to stock my badges, and if so, how would you expect us to cut the profits?” and I was neither crestfallen or disappointed when I called by yesterday and learnt that – having considered it – they did not think the badges were quite right for the shop. <\/p>\n

I was, however, incensed<\/em> to discover halfway home that while the sample pack had been sitting in the store waiting for the manager’s attention, someone had vandalised it<\/em>. I didn’t mind the fact that my badges had been roughly handled, it was the text addition to one of the badges which really got my goat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Let’s look closer.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Not only is this badge (one off, ltd. edition, unrepeatable) now completely un-saleable; (unless I can find a creative way of “adding value” through the process of this ridiculous tale) it also now resembles a kind of insult to KNITTERS, to me, and – more importantly, on a symbolic level – TO SMALL PRODUCERS.<\/p>\n

I am not a delicate little snowflake who is sad because my precious badge was defaced; what I object to is the total lack of respect<\/em> and the in-your-face-rudeness<\/em> implicit in the vandalising gesture which I – as an individual producer and maker – have been shown in this interchange. I had a perfectly good business proposal to make, even though it was a very modest one<\/em>. <\/p>\n

The bottom line is:<\/p>\n

If I was DELL or McDonald’s or HITACHI or TESCOs, nobody would crap on me or the things that I make, and I’m sorry to say it, but But is it Art?<\/em> your response to my proposal does ammount to crapping on me<\/em> and I am most displeased about it.<\/p>\n

So remember, next time you think it would be good to support a local business in Reading, go to Jackson’s<\/a> or The Farmer’s Market<\/a> where the labour involved in making things is recognised, where customers are treated with civility and respect, and where nobody will deface your stuff with the word shitter<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…of economics, insults and rudeness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[648,637,636],"tags":[2693,2695,2694,3149],"class_list":["post-2624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-projects","category-making","category-valuing-reality","tag-but-is-it-art","tag-in-your-face","tag-insult","tag-reading"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/badges1.jpg?fit=950%2C632","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pmise-Gk","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2624"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2628,"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2624\/revisions\/2628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}