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Pay What You Want for Art (Live!)

If you haven’t read the post Pay What You Want for Art it’s a good primer for this post. Did you read it good! If not, the gist of it is that I have the privilege of being able to create and and make it available to people at a price they can afford. How do I do this? By letting the customer choose the price.

Sure, this has all been well and good when friends, follower, and people I know (online) have messaged me about a piece and offered a price. I think everyone at least covered the cost of materials, the cost of postage, and then some. A few people covered it fivefold, which is great!

Part of the idea here is that (much like in society) we all contribute according to our means. If you make more money, you pay more in taxes, as you can afford to… and then we all contribute to the things we all use, like roads, parks, public services, etc.

(Obviously the wealthy are excluded from this idea here in the United States because they are human garbage and don’t pay their fair share, but we’ll ignore that for now.)

So a guy I know (Jeff) asked me to take part in this art show and said I could sell my art. When he mentioned it would also be a fundraiser for the Bay View Community Center‘s food pantry program, I was in. Jeff asked that I donate a piece to the silent auction, and then I could sell my art. I told him I’d like to donate half of the sales to the cause, and that’s what I did.

So I figured I would test the “Pay What You Want for Art” idea in person, at an event… with people I did not know. And here’s how it went.

To start, I should say that this was my first event selling art I created. I had no idea how it would go. I was hoping I would cover my costs, and also raise some money. We managed to do both.

I had 15 sales during the event, with an average sale amount of $36.33.

Breaking that down further I sold 38 pieces during the event, with an average sale price of $14.34 per piece.

Total sales for the night was $545. After transaction fees that came down to $514.14. (I used Square but really should have tried to use Venmo more since people can easily avoid fees there. About 1/5th of the sales were cash, so no fees there!)

I took that $515.14 and divided by two for $257.07, which was awesome. I would get half to cover my costs, and the BVCC would get half. So wait, there’s actually another $40 to add on because someone who could not make it to the show really wanted a piece so I delivered it to them Monday morning and added in their $40 with half to me and half to the BVCC.

So the grand total for the BVCC was $277.07. There was an additional $50 from the piece I donated to the silent auction as well! So my efforts resulted in over $300 raised.

Let me say right now this is not about me. I did the work of creating art, doing the event, selling stuff, and all that other jazz, but the people brought the money. I would not have been able to help contribute this without the help of some very generous friends. My pal Gary bought a lot of pieces, and also got my auction item. Gary also helped me 3D print all the frames! Gary is one of the heroes of the night. Another hero is Kim, who I attended high school with. I didn’t have a great time in high school but Kim was one of handful of people I really liked, so seeing her was great, and she bought four pieces and paid well for them.

Did anyone take advantage of the system? Well, the third sale of the night was to a guy who seemed really excited. He picked a piece, then another, and another, and eventually was holding 8 prints. He then said “How’s 25 bucks?” and my heart kind of sank… I was convinced I made a huge mistake. I didn’t really push back, I just said “Well, sure. So the Bay View Community Center will get about $12 and I’ll get about $12.” Doing the math that set each piece at $3.13 which doesn’t even cover the cost of materials. It’s low. But hey, I committed to this experiment. I took the $25 and gave him the 8 prints.

Now, I just sort of chose to believe that he really liked the work, and he was excited to give art to people (he mentioned a few people’s names while browsing) and you know what? If I got some art out into the world to people, that’s a good thing. He got a killer deal, he got some art, and I got a little bit of money for myself and the BVCC. Sure, if two or three more people did the same thing it would have wiped me out and I would have been a bit crushed, but things went up from there. Kids came to buy art, sometimes for just $10 or maybe 3 for $35. It’s all good. In the end people (hopefully) paid what they could afford, or what they deemed something worth, and we raised some money.

Two people asked for a guideline on pricing, and the response I usually give is that I’ve had people pay as little as $10 and as much as $60 for a piece. If someone said “Is $15 okay?” I said “That’s awesome! Thank you so much!” and the trick is, I say that no matter what the amount (except for the guy who got 8 for $25). If a kid came up with $5 I’d sell to them… Heck, if a kid came up with a crayon drawing I’d probably straight up do a trade!

This show was unique since there was no fee to take part, so I could afford to do this experiment. That allowed me to donate 50% of the sales to the cause. For a typical show where you pay $100 or whatever fee to just get a table I don’t know that I could do the “Pay What You Want for Art” but also, I sort of want to try it.

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POTUS on the Fediverse

As I write this Joe Biden is the 46th President of the United States. There is a Presidential account called POTUS over on Twitter (X) at twitter.com/POTUS which honestly should probably be deleted since Twitter (X) is run by a fascist-friendly entity in 2024. (Note: I stopped posting on Twitter in 2022.)

There is also a @potus account on Threads, which is a platform owned by another terrible entity, Facebook.

Both of those accounts exist so the President can talk to the people, which is good. Sure, the President has many ways to talk to the people, but those platforms provide a place where the people can talk back, and share, and discuss. Those are (sometimes) good things.

But this is the Internet my friends, and just like the President, any company, any organization, and any person, can have a web site, the President can have their own damn server for social media microblogging.

Do you know about the Fediverse? Imagine if you could choose an alternative to Twitter, but still talk to Twitter users… or talk to Facebook users, and Instagram users, and Threads users, and now imagine we don’t need Twitter or Facebook (which also owns Instagram and Threads). It’s possible.

Also imagine you can block users and also entire servers. If there’s a Nazi server you can block it so you’ll never see their posts. And yes, there are such servers. Most of them are already blocked by most civilized Fediverse servers.

Threads is starting to federate, and what that means is I can see all of the posts that @potus@threads.net posts even if I never have a Threads account, because I have a Mastodon account at @rasterweb@mastodon.social on the Fediverse. I can subscribe and see the posts at https://mastodon.social/@potus@threads.net. Now, at this point I cannot reply to those posts, but supposedly by the end of 2024 this will be possible. (Threads needs to turn on two-way Federation, basically.)

Now, there are two opposing views of the Fediverse allowing federation to and from Threads, and those boil down to “Hey, Threads is run by a terrible organization that will not behave and does terrible things so we’ll block them!” and “Hey, this is the way we get more users to leave Facebook/Threads, by showing them there is an open alternative!”

I’ve probably simplified the two views, but I’m a simple man. I will admit I still use Instagram (mainly because I have a lot of friends there) but I also use Pixelfed and believe me, if I could just use Pixelfed and still interact with Instagram users, and they could see my posts and interact with me, I’d probably stop using Instagram…

Of course if Facebook hears enough of this, they’ll probably never want to Federate. It would mean losing users. Large companies depend on lock-in to keep you there, and it sucks.

So while I mentioned my account at mastodon.social, that’s not all there is… In fact, there are hundreds, sorry, thousands of Mastodon servers. Here’s a list of some. Check out FediDB and right now there are over 27,000 servers on the Fediverse. Some have thousands of users, some have just one user.

But I just wanted to let you know there is an alternative. Best case, we destroy these large powerful corporations that control social media, and worse case we live alongside them, as an alternative for some people.

Wait, who pays for this!? Well, people do. I donate a small amount of money to the servers I have accounts on. Not everyone does, and that’s okay. I don’t see advertisements, and none of the people who run the servers I use are selling my data. The Fediverse is much more about the people, not the money. But will it scale? Sure, maybe, or not? We don’t know, but we sure as hell should try it and find out.

Anyway, welcome Mr. President!

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Kids Camera Instant Print

I picked up this Kids Camera Instant Print which is a “toy” camera for kids that has a built-in thermal printer and spits out photos on what is commonly known as “receipt paper” and it’s a ton of lofi fun.

The one I got was around $40 USD but you can find them for less than $20 as well. (Just make sure it’s one that does thermal printing!)

I had seen a blog post from Joe Van Cleave titled Thermal Printing Fun! and then learned other nerds were getting these little cameras and having fun with them. (Note: Joe seems to be into typewriters and cameras so this puts him into the interesting person category for me!)

Here’s a fun Mastodon thread on these cameras and you can also see the #ShittyCameraChallenge hashtag for more.

There are a ton of these from different manufacturers and they’re all a little different and somewhat the same. Thermal paper is pretty cheap so the cost per print can be pennies.

This seems like the perfect camera to take to events and shoot photos of people and then give them a print. I know, you’re saying “But Pete, the photos look like shit!” and I would counter that they don’t look “like shit” but have a unique lofi look to them that has a certain charm.

This thing reminds me of the Game Boy Camera. When I got the Game Boy Camera working (and eventually the Game Boy Camera Dumper) I liked the style and quality of the images, but doing the transfer from the Game Boy to a computer was still a chore.

Anyway, the Game Boy Camera is still neat, but this Kids Camera Instant Print thing is more of an all-in-one unit. It’s a bit bulky but hey, it’s got a built-in printer.

One of the interesting things about the prints (since they are on thermal paper) is that they won’t last… at least not in their native form. You can’t laminate them as the heat will destroy them by turning it all black. You can “cold” laminate them with clear packing tape, or you can scan them to a digital file, or take a photo of them, make a copy, or just… let them fade, much like life itself does. They are ephemeral and maybe that’s okay.

Who knows? Caturday may be a lot more interesting(?!?) in the future…

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Recupero Urbano

Jeff Winkowski asked if I would want to take part in a benefit to raise money for the Bay View Community Center‘s food pantry program and I said “I’m in!” so join us Saturday, April 6th, 2024 at Puddler’s Hall from 6pm to 10pm. (See the Facebook Event!)

And what’s happening? It’s an Art Show (and Sale) and I will be offering a bunch of my recent digital illustrations (well, prints of them) as well as some of the relief prints I made in January.

This is another Pay What You Want experiment on my part, and I will be donating 50% of all sales to the Bay View Community Center. Get one of my prints for $5 and the BVCC gets $2.50… Give me $50 for a print and the BVCC gets $25. We’re going to work together on this, providing art to people at a price they can afford, and hopefully also raising some money for those in need. (Fun Fact: I used to live right down the street from the Bay View Community Center and passed it every day on the way to work.)

There’s also a silent auction planned that will feature a never-before-seen illustration I’ve done. It’s a classic Milwaukee historical thing, and you might like it. Oh, there will probably also be some music or other things happening… a live band? A local DJ? I don’t even know. (Literally, things are still in the works.)

Oh, there is an entry fee! It’s one non-perishable food item. So canned goods or the like, something you would donate to a food pantry. Anyway, I hope you can join us. (And bring some cash or a card or your phone or all of those things!)

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Game Boy Sketch

Game Boy (Sketch)

Game Boy (Sketch)

For me the peak of portable handheld gaming in the 1990s was the Nintendo Game Boy. I remember not having on, but using the one my girlfriend had. A year or so later we broke up but I got a new girlfriend and she also had a Game Boy. (Also, just a quick shout out to Adafruit for the Game Grrl.)

Game Boy (Sketch)

Anyway, past relationships aside, I pretty much just played Tetris on the Game Boy. So yeah, Tetris… which led me to the Anbernic RG35XX last year. I probably spent more time playing Game Boy games in 2023 than I did in all of the 1990s.

Game Boy (Sketch)

For these sketches I always start with the lines, typically working directly from a photo, doing some tracing and making decisions about each hand drawn line. Damn I am really enjoying the capabilities of the Apple Pencil! I still have a lot to learn and I spent about 20 minutes watching a video over the weekend and learned a few Procreate tricks I was unaware of…

Game Boy (Sketch)

I should probably spend a bit more time just screwing around in Procreate and doing some real learning but I also find the drawing so fun and enjoyable that I mostly try to do that when I have a small amount of free time.

Game Boy (Sketch)

Finally, here’s a more loose and sketch version. Once again this digital illustration was done with an Apple Pencil on an iPad using Procreate.

Oh, just a quick side note, I do have a Game Boy Advance for my Game Boy Camera but I sort of wish I had the Game Boy Color because the form factor seems much better for using the camera.

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