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Message 1
From: Marco Flavio Marinucci
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 09:20:00 -0700
Subject: [Baren 28315] New wood supplier in the US?
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Greetings Baren friends,
as my supplier stopped importing high-quality Shina from Japan, I am
now looking to find someone else. I am looking for either basswood or
magnolia (or good shina again, but no 1mm veneer, it needs to be at
least 3, 4 mm). I welcome any suggestion for good plates mail-order, if
you feel like recommending a place.
Thank you in advance,
Marco Flavio

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Message 2
From: bridget pilip
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 09:39:00 -0700
Subject: [Baren 28316] 2006 summit
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Hello all:
Do we have firm dates for the summit next August?
bridget

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Message 3
From: Julio.Rodriguez # walgreens.com
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 11:57:16 -0500
Subject: [Baren 28317] Re: 2006 summit
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Hi Bridget......

Sharri LaPierre is the main person for questions regarding the 2006
Summit, but the last I saw on the survey was 8/14 - 8/18 (Monday to
Friday). Here is the link to the survey page Maria put together for anyone
interested in attending.....please fill out only once....

http://barenforum.org/survey/survey.html


thanks....Julio Rodriguez (Skokie, Illinois)

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Message 4
From: ArtfulCarol # aol.com
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 13:06:27 EDT
Subject: [Baren 28318] Re: New wood supplier in the US?
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Hi Marco, I get my shina from McClain's
_www.immcclains.com_ (http://www.immcclains.com)
_mail@imcclains.com_ (mailto:mail@imcclains.com)
1-800-832-4264
503-641-3555

It chips--big time!--but that you know how to handle.

Carol (Irvington, NY)

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Message 5
From: Andrew
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 13:51:29 -0700
Subject: [Baren 28319] t-shirts and greeting cards?
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Hello People,

I have a question: I have made a series of simple woodblock prints that
I really like (a sample of them, I have about 30 different ones, is at
http://glowingtech.com/lino/index.html ), and would like to sell them as
t-shirts and greeting cards to generate more income. I would prefer to
have total control of the printing, etc but have been intrigued by
printing services like printcafe. Has anyone used that service? Is it
better for me to totally control the process? Any advice for me in terms
of marketing the images? Anybody tried selling their images as geeting
cards? I like to make things (
http://glowingtech.com/make/article/article.htm ) and don't know what I
should do to market them successfully. I need collective enlightenment.

-Yours perplexedly, Andrew

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Message 6
From: "Ellen Shipley"
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 11:49:48 -0700
Subject: [Baren 28320] Re: t-shirts and greeting cards?
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Hi Andrew,

I would be interested in the answer myself. I have printed t-shirts in
print lab, but I need to find a better ink than etching ink. I have been
directed to something by Lumiere, but I haven't tried it yet.

I would imagine it would be easier all around to license your image to
someone who mass produces the tees, but maybe not.

I love your vacuum tube clocks! Do you sell them? How much? My dh has
been in computers since the early 70's, which is not much after vacuum
tubes. ;-> He's be greatly amused.

Ellen Shipley, CA

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/philippaschuyler/my_photos

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Message 7
From: "phare-camp # imp-s.com"
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 15:38:32 -0400
Subject: [Baren 28321] RE: New Baren Digest (Text) V32 #3125 (Jul 16, 2005)
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From: Charles Morgan
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 08:23:19 -0700
Subject: [Baren 28300] the new world of art

Maybe I will just outsource my next exchange print ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/business/worldbusiness/15paint.html?th&emc
=th

Charles is it possible to post the text of this article? Problem is a
person can't see the article without registering. I get enough junk mail
as it is...

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Message 8
From: slinders # comcast.net
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 14:38:11 -0500
Subject: [Baren 28322] Own Original Chinese Copies of Real Western Art!
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phare-camp@imp-s.com wrote:

> Charles is it possible to post the text of this article?

Own Original Chinese Copies of Real Western Art!

By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: July 15, 2005

SHENZHEN, China - Zhang Libing has painted more van Goghs than
van Gogh ever did.

At 26, Mr. Zhang estimates that he has painted up to 20,000
copies of van Gogh's works in a paint-spattered third-floor
garret here where freshly washed socks and freshly painted
canvases dry side-by-side on the balcony.
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Zhang Libing estimates that he has produced up to 20,000 copies
of paintings by Van Gogh. More Photos >
Mass-Produced Art
Enlarge This Image
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Ye Xiaodong, 25, is completing 200 paintings of a landscape of
pink and white flowers in his garret. More Photos >

A block away, Ye Xiaodong, 25, is completing 200 paintings of a
landscape of pink and white flowers in another third-floor
garret. And down the street, Huang Yihong, also 25, stands in an
art-packed store and paints a waterfall tumbling gracefully into
a pool, mixing the paints on an oval palette.

China's low wages and hunger for exports have already changed
many industries, from furniture to underwear. The art world, at
least art for the masses, seems to be next, and is emerging as a
miniature case study of China's successful expansion in a long
list of small and obscure industries that when taken together
represent a sizable chunk of economic activity.

China is rapidly expanding art colleges, turning out tens of
thousands of skilled artists each year willing to work cheaply.
The Internet is allowing these assembly-line paintings to be
sold all over the world; the same technology allows families
across America to arrange for their portraits to be painted in
coastal China.

As in the United States and Europe, a handful of contemporary
painters in China can command hundreds of thousands or even
millions of dollars for each of their highly creative works -
artists like Chen Yifei, Zhao Wuji and Wu Guanzhong. But the
main push by China has been in the broad market for works that
retail for $500 or less, with painters who work from postcards
or images on the Internet or, in Mr. Zhang's case, a large,
dog-eared copy of an art book in English on van Gogh.

China's ability to turn what has long been an individual craft
into a mass production industry may affect small-scale artists
from Rome's Spanish Steps to the sidewalks along Santa Monica's
beach in California, as well as many galleries and art colonies
in between.

Artist groups in the United States are starting to express
concern, questioning the originality of some Chinese paintings
and whether they comply with American copyright laws.

Wal-Mart, according to Bill Wertz, a company spokesman, has
opted not to stock any Chinese paintings for this reason. But
retailers from Pier 1 to Bed, Bath & Beyond say they are
importing Chinese oil paintings, as are Internet sites like
Oilpaintings.com.

United States customs data show that imports of Chinese
paintings nearly tripled from 1996 to 2004, with bulk shipments
reaching $30.5 million last year. Retail sales are several times
that, as the customs data are based on the price that
entrepreneurs pay for bulk purchases.

The biggest market for oil paintings from China turns out to be
in Florida condominiums and other second homes being built as
part of the global housing market boom. Hotels and restaurants
also buy large numbers of Chinese paintings.

Many of the paintings depict scenes that Chinese artists have
never seen. "European landscapes, like the Mediterranean or
Venice or Paris, are the best sellers for us," Moses Ben Herut,
the president of Oilpaintings.com, said in a telephone interview
from Alpharetta, Ga.

Mr. Herut's Web site does not publicize the fact that it buys
many of its paintings from Xiamen in southeastern coastal China,
instead putting "Georgia, U.S.A." at the top of its home page in
red, white and blue to emphasize that it is an extension of a
local gallery.

At the Canton Trade Fair in Guangzhou this spring, exporters
surrounded by paintings filled an entire row of exhibits. Adrian
Goldberg, the chief executive of the Ziganof Group, a wholesaler
in Manchester, England, walked into one of the booths and in
less than an hour had placed an order for six 40-foot shipping
containers filled with paintings to be delivered this autumn to
ports in Europe and the United States.

Standing outside the booth as crowds of buyers and sellers moved
past, Mr. Goldberg explained that he was paying $25 to $30 for
each painting, including the frames, and that it would cost him
another $1 a painting in shipping charges.

He plans to sell the paintings mainly to furniture stores for
$35 to $40 apiece, and predicted that shoppers would eventually
pay $100 to $125 apiece in Europe for the paintings, and up to
$160 each in the United States.

The economics of the Chinese oil painting industry - very few
watercolors or pastels are traded internationally - are
striking. Mr. Zhang and Mr. Ye, who both learned to paint by
serving two-year apprenticeships after high school, each earn
less than $200 a month, plus modest room and board. Mr. Huang,
who earned a four-year art degree from Jiangxi Normal University
in east-central China, said he was paid $360 a month, but buys
his own food and housing.
Skip to next paragraph
Mass-Produced Art

Paints, brushes, canvases, frames and other materials are all
available at low prices here in the Dafen artist village - more
than a dozen blocks of paintings stores with studios upstairs -
just across the border from Hong Kong.

Wang Yuankang, the paintings entrepreneur at the Canton Trade
Fair who received Mr. Goldberg's order, said his factory had 10
"designers" who do original paintings and 300 painters who copy
these originals. Another 200 workers do the framing, he said.

Some operations are even larger. Vicky Leung, the business
manager for the Chaozhou Hongjia Arts and Crafts Company, with a
booth near Mr. Wang's, said that the company had two factories
with a total of 10 designers, 250 painters and more than 500
framers and assistant painters.

One advantage of the larger operations is that they allow
specialization, with simple assembly lines like those that Henry
Ford brought to the automobile industry.

The larger factories have some painters specializing in trees,
others in skies, others in flowers and so forth, an approach
that not only improves "quality" but also increases output and
reduces costs.

Mr. Ye, working by himself in a garret, has a similar approach:
on a recent afternoon, he was painting the top half of each of
dozens of white flowers on a series of canvases.

"It's quicker to do it like this, and after the paint dries,
I'll do the rest," he said as he mixed a slightly darker shade
of cream to paint the bottom, shadowed half of each flower.

More skilled painters in Xiamen, 400 miles northeast of here,
produce portraits of American families from photographs sent to
them over the Internet. About a tenth of the Chinese-painted
portraits that Mr. Herut, the Georgia art entrepreneur, sells
are returned by families who do not find them to be good
likenesses; Mr. Herut has these portraits redone.

Northern New Jersey used to have a small but thriving cluster of
businesses with artists churning out inexpensive paintings for
restaurants, hotels and homes across the country. But these
enterprises have been switching to imports, like the Dae Ryung
Company, which had seven painters two decades ago at a studio
attached to its offices in Hackensack, N.J., and let the last
one leave four years ago without finding a replacement.

"In the beginning it was better here, because we were able to
tell them exactly what we wanted," said Helen Cho, the company's
purchasing and accounting manager. "But after a while, the
Chinese caught on."

Exporters of Chinese paintings say that even though the
paintings often imitate well-known works of art, the copies are
inherently different because they are handmade, and so do not
violate copyrights.

Robert Panzer, the executive director of the Visual Artists and
Galleries Association, a trade group based in New York,
disagreed. He said that the vast majority of paintings produced
before the 20th century were in the public domain and could be
freely copied and sold. But it is not legal to sell a painting
that appears to a reasonable person like a copy of a more
recent, copyrighted work, he said.

In any event, China is creating a fast-growing army of trained
artists to produce both copies and original works. Art has
become such a popular major in China that the number of art
graduates from universities soared 59 percent last year, to
20,031, according to China's education ministry.

That growth took place even though Chinese universities, sensing
a financial opportunity, now charge twice as much in annual
tuition for arts majors as for engineering majors, said Jin
Baoping, an art professor at Shenzhen University.

Mr. Zhang and Mr. Ye said they did not mind painting hundreds of
copies.

But Mr. Huang, the university graduate in the street-front
store, aspires to greater heights.

"I've never done more than four copies" of the same painting, he
said proudly, adding that to do more, "would be boring and very
tiring."

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Message 9
From: ArtfulCarol # aol.com
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 15:58:43 EDT
Subject: [Baren 28323] Re: t-shirts and greeting cards?
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My experience was a greeting card Federal copyright case which was written
about before, but here it is again:
_____________________________________________________________________________


My case was not about T-shirts. My village took a drawing of mine from a
greeting card, removed my signature and copyright sign, mailed it out to every
resident and business as the New Year card for that year. This was done
without my knowledge or agreement. Of course we received it.

Chamber of Commerce and Mayor's refusal to apologize, acknowledge, or make a
correction in the newspaper started the siuation snow-balling. We were up
against one of the largest insurance companies, Hartford. They were dirty!

You do not have to have a copyright sign on your work. At the time NY and CA
had the best protections for artists. Researching is very interesting,
updated books available. Vargas, the pin-up artist, had one of the first art
copyright cases. He won his case against Esquire.

Thanks to my husband, not our ineffective lawyer, we were able to win!
Public apology in the newspapers, $10,000 awarded by the judge, and no harm to my
reputation in the town. In fact, the leading Real Estate owner asked me to
do a watercolor for him and I did.

I am fine with the Chamber of Commerce and have helped them out with their
events.

(Oh, by the way. When the story came out in the newspapers the Mayor
resigned, left his day job, sold his house and moved to Vero Beach , Fla.) The
paper didn't explain why...


This story was also covered for the information of artists by Mike Ward, as
his Letter from the Editor editior of Artists' Magazine, Nov 1994.
Previously I had written articles for that magazine.


Carol Lyons
Irvington, NY

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Message 10
From: Sharri LaPierre
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 13:11:06 -0700
Subject: [Baren 28324] Re: Rooster Minstrels
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Sarah,
A wandering minstrel rooster just came singing his way through the mail
and he is gorgeous! I would have sent this to you personally, but I've
misplaced your address someplace. He is wonderful and I love him!

Cheers,
Sharri

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Message 11
From: Barbara Mason
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 14:13:03 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Baren 28325] t-shirts and greeting cards?
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Boring business stuff below...not woodblock related....read at your own risk...

Andrew,
In the early 90's I had a greeting card company.....I used 15 of my own images and 8 each of 10 other artists images. To print and market these cost me about $50,000 over two years. I did 1500 of each image and reprinted several twice. At the end of two years and 8 trade shows including the National Sationary Show in NY and the ABA Book Show (largest paper market in the world) in Chicago, I made about $20,000 over my costs. I worked about 60 hours a week. So this works out to very little money per hour. I never want to work so hard again. The greeting card business is dominated by a few and the rest get the occasional crumb. If you can sell to walmart, walgreens, borders, barnes and noble, etc you can do enough volume to make it work...but the return is small. Very hard for an independet to make it. It is so hard they put you behind a column in the basement of the trade show in the back row, but at least the independents are all there suffering together and many buyers do come down
to see you incase they miss the next Gary Larson.

However, if you just want to make them yourself and sell to all the local book and card stores, you can have a good time and probably make a little money. It is a lot of work, but fun too. You can license your images for t-shirts, mugs, etc. It is a whole other business and if you are persistent you might sell them. I suggest a trip to one of these trade shows. They have a national licensing market, sometimes connected to the Stationary show in NY. I have been away from the industry for a long time so things might have changed.

If you want to screen the shirts yourself, there is a whole wholesale market for t-shirts that are for sale from $2 up and the quantities are not huge that you need to buy. Do a little research on the internet for wholesale clothing. You will find them, there are a lot of companines and since most shirts are now made overseas the prices, as I said, are reasonable. Marketing is hard and you have tied up a lot of money in inventory before you have any sales...you will find you never have the correct size in the correct color and you will slowly go nuts.

I know this sounds like sour grapes...it is not, just reality. If you want to do this you can, just be aware it is hard and expensive to get going but if you are tenacious enough you can probably make a small living at it. I decided I would rather make prints that sell cards so shut my business down....it was a good decision. However, I still have a whole lot of greeting cards!
What part of the country are you in? There might be a gift show or gift mart close that you can go and see....just seeing it is an education in itself. This is where the buyers go to see new products and the shows are twice a year...the big ones are in Atlanta, SF, NY, Chicago and Seattle. Seattle is the smallest. Lots of other cities also have them, just on a smaller scale. They are open limited hours, usually one or two days a week...some are open daily...probably Atlanta and Chicago. They are beyond huge, so be prepared to be exhausted if you decide to go and see one. It is hard to get in if you do not have a business, so find a friend with a business and go along, or start your own business so you have credentials. You need a business card, business check, Resale number and so on to get in, or a freind that has all of these.
Best to you,
Barbara

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End of [Baren] Digest