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Monday, August 9, 2010

BlogHer'10

0 comments Posted by pece at 12:37 PM

The report on BlogHer '10 is here!! Enfin.

Listen up bloggers. The important thing - HAVE YR BIZ CARDS W/ YOU at all times. Go to Moo.com, Zazzle, do SOMETHING! Mommie bloggers ROCK!
There were so many rocking babies at the NY Hilton Thursday, Friday and Saturday at BlogHer last week. 2,400 attendees - 1000 more than last year!
We ROCK!
We are STRONG!
We are the world, Bloggers!
We DO make a difference!
There's a terrific recap @Marketing to Women...I borrowed this paragraph:
"For the uninitiated, BlogHer, founded in 2005, is a network of over 2,500 female-centric blogs, a "curated selection of authentic voices," according to BlogHer's About page. BlogHer is also a community for female bloggers, where they can find support, help, and inspiration. And finally, BlogHer is a yearly conference, which this year was held in New York City, August 6 and 7." Next year it will be BlogHer'11 in San Diego There were panels all day and you could wander in and out. Design Sponge, Grace Paley, along with Gabrielle Blair of Design Mom and designer Alex Vega gave us the lowdown on Good Blog Design:The role of layout in an online medium - the room was packed. Did you know if you have Google Analytics you can 'heat map' your blog and see what readers are hitting on the most?
We all hit hard on the Hilton lunch buffet with lots of vegan choices - YUM

And two floors of BlogHer sponsors. Thank you P&G and Emily for the fab makeover...
Thank you Marmaduke for not messing my new hairdo...
Do you know Dianne Jacobs' blog and now re-edited book, Will Write for Food? If food writing is your schtick go visit.
The updated edition has a new section for bloggers. My original copy was ripped in half to take to Paris, so I picked up the new one.
Thanks Dianne for reminding me I MUST create a separate 'About' page. So much to do post-BlogHer! Diane chaired the panel on How to use your blogging to make you a better writer.
In 2007 I wrote Elisa Camahort Page (one of BlogHer's founders and in the middle) requesting a panel for women online artists. I wrote again last October and Elisa was ready! So I got to speak on Transforming Online Spaces into Art Places, along with photographer-writer, Karen Walrond of Chookoolooks and performing artist Khadijah Ali-Coleman.

During our panel I met Jane Pollak, coach-author-artist of Soul Proprietor, 101 lessons from a lifestyle entrepreneur. I went racing after her to chat and she gave me her book. On the way home I opened to Lesson 56

"Go! You might meet somebody!"

Oh Jane, how did you know? Just the advice I need.

I'm so glad I went to BlogHer. I met and heard lots and lots of women tell their inspiring stories.

I met Libbydesign a PB fan.

Jo Packham of Where Women Create.

Vic DaChick of A Window into my life.

I met first year CIA student, Bekah of BeekEats.

Hi PBer, Cynthia of A shimmy in my spirit. Thanks for coming to the panel. I've got stacks more biz cards here :)

There is one problem though - I am not a 'Tweeter' nor a Facebook person yet. Flickr, Etsy, Zazzle, Blogger yes. But social media NO. Big NO. I'm seriously behind the 8-ball and I have to do something about it FAST!

Tweeters at Laduree, watercolor on Etsy, 9" x 11"

Who wants to help me get up to speed at Twitter & FB?

This watercolor (4" x 11") is yours, if you can assist me via SKYPE and email. Leave your street creds in the comments to convince me you can make me into a Social Media Diva.

Of course there was a BlogHer gala evening...

Here is my panel partner, Karen Walrond writing original messages on bloggers' arms, legs, necks, where ever...

Lastly I met Nelly Yusupova, a code writer of PHB(!?). She's head of WebGrrls and Digital Woman. Plus she gave me the shirt off her back. It was freezing in there.

Are you exhausted yet? I'm in recovery here, but there's so much I want to do now!!! Changes, changes, changes

FYI another terrific BlogHer recap from Amiee.

BONJOUR BlogHer et Big Merci!!!
Look at the beautiful sights and faces of BlogHer'10
by Karen Walrond of Chookooloonks

 

Labels: artists, bloggers, BlogHer

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Rest in Peace - Frank Frazetta 1928 - 2010

0 comments Posted by pece at 5:12 AM

One of the most influential artists of all-time for me has passed. My absolute favorite Vampirella illustrator, but I never was much for other Fantasy Art, and awesome Lil Abner penciller. He will always live on through his amazing artwork.
Thank You Frank ... and Rest In Peace

Frank Frazetta, an illustrator of comic books, movie posters and paperback book covers whose visions of musclebound men fighting with swords and axes to defend scantily dressed women helped define fantasy heroes like Conan, Tarzan and John Carter of Mars, died on Monday in Fort Myers, Fla. He was 82.

The cause was complications from a stroke, said Rob Pistella and Stephen Ferzoco, Mr. Frazetta’s business managers.


Mr. Frazetta was a versatile and prolific comic book artist who, in the 1940s and ’50s, drew for comic strips like Al Capp’s “Lil’ Abner” and comic books like “Famous Funnies,” for which he contributed a series of covers depicting the futuristic adventurer Buck Rogers.


A satirical advertisement Mr. Frazetta drew for Mad earned him his first Hollywood job, the movie poster for “What’s New Pussycat?” (1965), a sex farce written by Woody Allen that starred Peter Sellers. In 1983 he collaborated with the director Ralph Bakshi to produce the animated film “Fire and Ice.”

His most prominent work, however, was on the cover of book jackets, where his signature images were of strikingly fierce, hard-bodied heroes and bosomy, callipygian damsels in distress. In 1966, his cover of “Conan the Adventurer,” a collection of four fantasy short stories written by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp, depicted a brawny long-haired warrior standing in repose on top of a pile of skeletons and other detritus, his sword thrust downward into the mound, an apparently naked young woman lying at his feet, hugging his ankle.

The cover created a new look for fantasy adventure novels and established Mr. Frazetta as an artist who could sell books. He illustrated many more Conan books (including “Conan the Conqueror,” “Conan the Usurper” and “Conan the Avenger”) and works by Edgar Rice Burroughs (including “John Carter and the Savage Apes of Mars” and “Tarzan and the Antmen”).

“Paperback publishers have been known to buy one of his paintings for use as a cover, then commission a writer to turn out a novel to go with it,” The New York Times reported in 1977, the same year that a collection of his drawings, “The Fantastic Art of Frank Frazetta,” sold more than 300,000 copies.

Frank Frazzetta was born in Brooklyn on Feb. 9, 1928, and as a boy studied painting at a local art school. (Early in his career, he excised one z from his last name because “with one z it just looked better,” Mr. Pistella said. “He said the two z’s and two t’s was too clumsy.”)

Mr. Frazetta began drawing for comic books of all stripes — westerns, mysteries, fantasies — when he was still a teenager. He was also a good enough baseball player to try out for the New York Giants.

The popularity of Mr. Frazetta’s work coincided with the rise of heavy metal in the early 1970s, and his otherworldly imagery showed up on a number of album covers, including Molly Hatchet’s “Flirtin’ With Disaster” and Nazareth’s “Expect No Mercy.” Last year, Kirk Hammett, the lead guitarist for Metallica, bought Mr. Frazetta’s cover artwork for the paperback reissue of Robert E. Howard’s “Conan the Conqueror” for $1 million.

Mr. Frazetta married Eleanor Kelly, known as Ellie, in 1956. She served as his occasional model and as his business partner; in 2000 she started a small museum of her husband’s work on their property in East Stroudsburg, Pa. She died last year.

Mr. Frazetta is survived by three sisters, Carol, Adel and Jeanie; two sons, Alfonso Frank Frazetta, known as Frank Jr., and William Frazetta, both of East Stroudsburg; two daughters, Heidi Grabin, of Englewood, Fla., and Holly Frazetta, of Boca Grande, Fla.; and 11 grandchildren.

After Ellie Frazetta’s death, her children became embroiled in a custodial dispute over their father’s work, and in December, Frank Jr. was arrested on charges of breaking into the family museum and attempting to remove 90 paintings that had been insured for $20 million. In April, the family said the dispute over the paintings had been resolved, and the Monroe County, Pa., district attorney said he would drop the charges.

 

Labels: artists, comic art, fantasy art, lil abner, mad monster party