📙 #022 - DIRECT MARKETING
In which I try (badly) to promote all the things, for once. Prints, Plots and those pesky digital things.
Hello, lovely people! I am bunged up with a cold, so I'm going to keep this one short and sweet (and a day late), and basically, it's just a bunch of stuff to buy! But first...
# Links...
Just two this week; back in [$month?], Anna over at Style Campaign created "PLOTTER MATERIALS", a beautiful single-sheet broadsheet chronological list of plotter artists and the materials they used. The limited-run physical edition is sold out, but the digital version lives on. What makes the digital edition (pdf) so great is the artist names, the paper and the pens they used are all linked (where possible), making this an excellent resource.
https://stylecampaign.com/blog/2023/05/plotter-materials-1 /via Anna
Also from Scotland is Ploterre, which is just full of loveliness. Rebecca makes fantastic data-based prints (and other bits and bobs). I apologise because I think I bought the last couple of pieces from a couple of the risoprint runs; Lighthouse, I'm looking at you.
This is in no way sponsored; I just think it's delightful, and if you're looking for Yuletide gifts, I'm giving it two thumbs up 👍👍
# Strata 3
I said I'd get these into the shop in time for the next newsletter, and I've managed it, kinda! But I also made a terrible mistake, so here's my learning moment. The link is here: https://shop.revdancatt.com/collections/strata-3
The paper I'm using is "Saunders Waterford" paper from St Cuthbert's Mill, it's, to quote them...
"an exquisite watercolour paper, traditionally made on a cylinder mould machine. This is the superior quality watercolour paper made by St Cuthberts Mill and comes with the Royal Watercolour Society's endorsement. Made using 100% cotton, the highest quality papermaking material, to high archival standards."
It's also a lovely off-white creamy colour, which was my downfall.
Even though I'm using a colour card to get the colour reproduction right, the result looks like I just underexposed the photos, or they're just plain wrong. This is entirely my fault for something I should have spotted sooner!
The correct thing would have been to take the photos on a WHITE background, and that way, when you see the images, your brain understands that the background is white and the paper is, well, not quite white. But here, your brain is wanting the paper to be white, and it's all wrong. Whole knew product photography was so tricky?!
Anyway, the good news for you, dear reader, is that (with hustle-hat on) I've put them into the shop, but not directly linked from the main page: https://shop.revdancatt.com/collections/strata-3
And it'll stay like that while I retake some more, better photos next week. At which point, I'll link it all up and make it go live. So if you want something uniquely unique 😁 and I say that because these feel even more one-off than my usual generative art stuff, go for it. This is a small run of just eight, which you've seen above, so if you spot one you fancy, snag it before someone else does. Personally, I think they look good in pairs 😉
I will save all the sales pitch (about how it's all unique all the way down to how each letter is formed) for another time. I have a couple more full-imperial (around A1 size) plots that were a total pita, and you may have seen on my IG stories, which will be hideously expensive even though they'll still be half the price of what I've been told to sell them for 😬
# +GRAPH
Straddling between physical and digital now, just gone live on FeralFile is a group show filled with a number of friends: https://feralfile.com/exhibitions/graph-8vs?tab=Overview#note
Here's a short description...
"It's been two years since the opening of –GRAPH, an iconic exhibition held during Feral File's first year. Today that early exhibition has evolved into a new one called +GRAPH, which, like its predecessor, explores the deep historical connection between coding and drawing and brings together artists who engage with both."
I could write a whole essay on NFT + Physical, but you'll be glad to hear I won't. The super short version is that you buy it, own a physical and digital version of an artwork, and then have to spend the rest of your life explaining how that works to others.
However, I suspect in the future, just as when you buy something in a shop, you get asked, "Would you like us to email your receipt?" when you purchase an artwork from a gallery, you'll get asked, "Would you like us to email you your digital version?". Or perhaps they'll ask, "Would you like us to post your physical version?" Who knows? I've given up trying to figure it out.
ANYWAY, if you want to buy a six-pack of drawing machine art (that happens to have digital versions) from amazing artists, this is how you do it: https://feralfile.com/exhibitions/graph-8vs?tab=Collect
# (81-82-83-84)
In purely digital now (but prints are coming soon), my own collection "(81-82-83-84)" is on sale very soon, or now, or sold out depending on a) when you read this newsletter and b) how quickly it sells out, over on Alba: https://www.alba.art/projects/81-82-83-84
Alba is busy building out the print shop side of this, which is all coming in a few weeks. I'm incredibly excited about it, as it means people can pick up FALLiNGWATER prints, too.
# THE END
And there we go, a very sales-heavy issue this week, but it is the lead-up to Christmas! I can highly recommend buying a pen plot drawing for a loved one, or a print from Ploterre.
I was going to mention something about YouTube, but the cold medicine has kicked in; my (81-82-83-84) drop goes live in two-and-a-half hours from the time of writing this, and my brain is frazzled. I let "Hustle Kitty" my AI PA take over tweeting for a bit and the recent backend changes to GPT-4 caused her to be even more aggressively hustling than usual, so I ended up un-approving most of the proposed tweets 😓
I guess that adds "Kitty Tuning" to my to-do tasks for next week.
Love you all
Dan ❤️