Wow - it's been forever since I've written on here. New Year's resolution! Weekly blogs! I have to.

I unfortunately could not afford the website anymore. It was coming out of my own pocket. Sorry folks. So I thought I'll start a blog - get some sponsors and hopefully build this one step at a time.

So we are almost (1 day away) in February and things need to be rolling and shaking. The registration will open up this weekend. Sunday evening. OFFICIALLY. Thank you to all that have been inquiring about it. And thank you for your patience.

RULES to REGISTER:
1. Your product MUST be handmade. We want to see your craft. Whether it's painting, illustrating, photography, pottery, sculptures (metal, wood, mixed media), crafts, oils (if homemade), baking, music,  drama, writing/writers, poetry, dance - those are all ART RELATED.

2. You must send in photos of your craft or a link to facebook or website if available. For reference and to help us promote your craft on our blog and facebook page.

3. You must be prepaid through the paypal registration form. If it does not go through then it is not confirmed.

4. You must provide your own table - the area is 10' x 10' and it will be in the grass area this year. Leaving the sidewalk free for the public. Cost is $20.00/ booth area and $80.00 for food trucks
Along with a table - we highly recommend chairs, tents (overhead to shade you from the sun) and any drinks or snacks for the day.

5. Restaurants area providing special for that day. And will come to your booth for orders and deliver the food, so you don't have to leave your booth.

6. Invite friends, family and groups you below to - church or volunteer groups. The more you invite the more the word spreads to help bring MORE business for you. SHARE our fb page and blog!

7.  Parking is only permitted up front for the public. All participates must park behind Sports Junction and or the Salon on the corners.

8. EVERYONE is responsible for their own trash. So please be respectful and pick up after yourselves.

9. 80% of the registration is going towards the scholarship. the other portion needs to help with advertising and flyers. Any in-kind donations is greatly appreciated.

Any questions or concerns please feel free to contact me directly at Teresa Stern (teresastern16@yahoo.com) or you can reach me at my work at teresas@journalbooks.com
You can call me after 6:00 p.m. at 704.458.0362. (cell)

The Psychology Behind Messy Rooms: Why The Most

 Creative People Flourish In Clutter

All our lives, we’ve been told to “be organized.” Organization has always been pegged as a direct key to success.

Whether at home, school or in your bunk at camp, organization is something that has been instilled in everyone pretty much from birth. On the other hand, being messy has been equally condemned and made to be a quick path to failure. And, honestly, no rebuttal could say otherwise.

I mean, what good can come from being disorganized, right? Perhaps more than you might think. More recent studies, conducted by the University of Minnesota last year, provide us with a new side of the debate. The pro-messy one.

There has always been this sort of “urban legend” that has floated around modern society deeming people with messy desks as having a high affinity for creative reasoning.

Frankly, I initially thought that people with “messy desks” had to be creative, out of necessity, to survive outside the boundaries of organization.

Last week’s take home test, still undone, in one corner. A page from last month’s Playboy ripped out and crumpled next to the bottle of cocoa butter in the other. Empty Arizona cans distributed across the surface, like a battlefield.

Your desk is a mess. Then again, it’s your mess, and thus, it feels very in-control. When you habitually fail to put things in their designated place, you’re bound to get creative figuring out ways to make everything, I don’t know, fit. And fit comfortably.

While it might look completely random to strangers, a lot of times, a person’s mess is very methodical – with respect to himself.

Psychological scientist Kathleen Vohs, from the University of Minnesota, who set out to debunk this urban legend, didn’t confine her study to solely the desk. No, Vohs, clearly a creative mind, chose to think outside the desk. She just sounds messy. The creative kind of messy.

Using a paradigm consisting of one messy room and one tidy room, and a series of trials, Vohs concluded that messy rooms provoke more creative thinking – and provided scientific evidence!

The next question is, what exactly constitutes “creative thinking,” and how will your pig sty of a room help?

Creative thinking, in its purest form, is thinking outside the lines of “conventional” reasoning. When considering this, it should be no huge shock that messy rooms containing possessions misplaced from their “conventional” locations would promote creativity.

I suppose if you prefer to “lay,” and I use that term very loosely, your clean clothes on the floor of your bedroom, when the empty dresser is only a few feet away – you’re certainly thinking outside the lines of conventional reasoning. And that same concept could be applied to more abstract conception.

Consider this from Albert Einstein, “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, then what are we to think of an empty desk?”

Obviously, Einstein’s desk looked like a spiteful ex-girlfriend had a mission to destroy his workspace, and executed it rather successfully. Yet, there’s no denying Einstein’s creativity.

Einstein wasn’t alone. Mark Twain, too, had a cluttered desk. Perhaps even more cluttered than that of Albert Einstein. Mark Twain was one of the most imaginative minds of his generation.

If the likes of Einstein and Mark Twain don’t catch the attention of Generation-Y, I give you Steve Jobs. No wonder he invented iBooks, it’s clear he had trouble maintaining his real life ones. His desk, and office alike, were f*cking disasters. I suppose this just added to his brilliance.

So what does this mean to you? Trash your desks, trash your rooms and hope for a touch of genius? Not exactly. The relationship between messiness and creativity is by no means causal. Being messy won’t find you waking up one morning more creative.

The two are, however, correlated. If you are “messy by nature,” perhaps finding a healthy medium between your usual mess and that urgency to clean, is optimal. By curbing your sloppy desk, room or tendencies, – keep in mind – you might also be curbing your overall creative tendencies.

Ultimately, the only way for you gauge the effectiveness of your mess-induced creativity is to go out and experiment for yourself. So, go ahead, make it rain with all your important files and paperwork, toss your clean clothes across the room, have a blast. See what you come up with, after.

PSA: If you have a roommate, tell him not to send me any hate mail if your dorm room turns into a zoo while you experiment with this. I am not liable for any of the future messes my readers may create.

Harrisburg ARTwalk

OCTOBER 18th / Saturday

10:00 a.m. 'til 4:00 p.m.

Harrisburg Town Center

     Registration is ONLY $10.00 for a (10' x 10') until the 15th of October then it will go up to $20.00 for the same area. We are only allowing 7-10 jewelry artists and 5 mult-level businesses. Please bring your own canopy you never know what even October will hold. You are responsible for your own tables, chairs and inventory. We ask that you area also responsible for your own trash - at the time we do not have access to trash cans, but hoping to work on that through the Parks & Rec Center. Also remember this registration fee is for our youth - all registration fees go towards an ART Scholarship towards a college in dance, music, graphics, or other form of art that the youth is interested in. It's endless where this scholarship can take a student and Harrisburg ARTwalk wants to be a part of this and make their dream possible.  Please register online through the website:

www.harrisburgartwalk.com

(registration form)

On this blog I will be focusing on those new artists that we welcome aboard to the event. Within a couple of days of them registration. So be patient as I try to catch up from the 11+ we have registered already. And thank you for plugging into the blog. I'm hoping to focus on new ideas - new talent - new events all over the Carolinas. 

Thank you-

Teresa 

15 Ways to Sell Your Art Online

Ways to Sell Art Online

1. Etsy – a community of artists who make hand crafted pieces.  See our post on How to Sell Your Art on Etsy.

2. Adwords – Google’s advertising program.  If you have a website where you sell your work, Adwords is a highly effective way of targeting those looking for art to buy.  If you’d like some tips on how to use Adwords, please contact me directly.

3. Ebay – the world’s largest auction site.  Follow @ebayart on Twitter to get an idea of what kind of art does well on ebay.

4. Amazon – the single largest directory of online stores, Amazon turned itself into one of the world’s largest retailers by creating a platform for anyone to sell anything.  There are literally thousands of stores that use Amazon as their main source of sales.  If you make handmade jewelry, Amazon has a section just for you on their front page.

5. Imagekind.com – high quality printing & framing, community, and marketing tips. See Imagekind Power Selling Tips.

6. Cafepress.com – for designing shirts, other screen printed things

7. Craigslist – in certain cities, people use Craigslist for everything.  In Portland, I have seen everything from couches, to cars, to beautiful pieces of art for sale.  Think of it as the world’s largest classified ad.

8. Artfire.com – a little bit like Etsy, but with a different focus. ArtFire’s Community Directed Development asks their artists to tell them what kind of features and products to build.

9. DailyOriginal.com – feature one piece of art each day on the site.

10. EmptyEasel.com – the most comprehensive guide to selling paintings on the internet.

11. Yessy.com – buy, sell art gallery

12. FineArtAmerica.com – sell prints at any price you want to set

13. Fuelforart.com – a marketing book for artists

14, Foliotwist.com – ready made art websites w/Paypal shopping cart built in

15. Vistaprints - great professional websites that allow you to also sell artwork online w/Paypal

Organization & Business Tools for Artists

ArtworkArchive.com – the best inventory management software that I’ve seen. Super handy.

Support Your ARTs Council Community

Artists Registration Form

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1HOCx4hVas9XUw8mJO4Y3K5cxI5UzPE1w0bq3B79KbtE/viewform

Going Local...right here in little Harrisburg!

Dear Local ARTist,

Come one, come all - young and mature creative folks all makes alike. I'm planning the Harrisburg ARTwalk once again. Kicking it off on August 31, 2013 from 6:00 p.m. til 9:00 p.m. This year I've asked all artists as they register to give $10.00. This money will go toward a scholarship for a lucky senior in high school that wants to further their education. My goal, $500.00. Wouldn't that be awesome to be able to give to a student for their education in the arts? Help me  SUPPORT THE ARTS right here in Harrisburg. For more information you can also follow us on www.facebook.com/HarrisburgARTwalk.

So mark it on your calendar and join us at the local Harrisburg Town Center. Directions through Google Maps. Main & Roberta is the opening for the event, the entrance to Town Center from Roberta, going to Rocky River Coffee Company and Winedown.

For direct questions please feel free to contact me at teresastern16@yahoo.com/Teresa Stern

Let Go Of the Artist In You!