Yes we can!

It turns out Obama himself gave the American economy a boost when his face became the most popular print on t-shirts, buttons and mugs. When someone becomes a pop icon, they tip a point when everything they touch becomes gold.



Most band managers and labels know that there is a lot of money to be made from merchandise if you can become an icon. If it becomes cool to have your face on someone's t-shirt you can probably make more money with merch than you can with selling music (digital, cd and live).

But if the point tips too much, then you run the risk of becoming a cheesy icon (let's think Boy George) or other people will start making money from your 'iconicness' and you start losing money.

Here is the big problem:

• bands don't own their music anymore (either the labels have taken their 75% or people are getting it for free)
• bands potentially don't own their merch anymore (anyone can print t-shirts with your face on it and sell it on e-bay)
• bands don't own their image anymore (managers, label execs, stylists will try and 'tailor' your looks so that you are more marketable) Has anyone seen Lady Gaga lately? I wonder what she looks like first thing in the morning.

So what do bands own? Well if they are smart, they will keep a hold of their IP.

Bands/musicians/songwriters only own their creativity. The only thing they have that is unique is their thought process and their ideas. If they don't protect that, they are nothing more than a product on a shelf.

Blythe Dolls

You can't help but fall in love with the story of the doll who became a pop icon by travelling the world posing for photographs.

Read more of her story at http://www.thisisblythe.com/blythe_history.php

Watch out, they are falling from the sky!

The Giant Tetris (aka “One More Go One More Go”) is part of an outdoor art exhibition called Live Lanes - By George! which runs through January 31, 2009 in Australia. The installation was put together by the people at Gaffa Gallery - http://www.gaffa.com.au/

Merry Christmas, old school style!

Genius!

The 'shell house' by architect Kotaro Ide, is a sculptural shell-like structure which has been built in the woodsof karuizawa, located in the nagano prefecture of japan. The house is meant to function as a vacation home,which is able to withstand the humid summers and cold winters of the region. to accomplish this,ide opted not to use the typical wood structure of villas in the area because of their susceptibility to decay easily.

Grace Jones is sweet!

The artwork for her latest album, Hurricane, designed and art directed by Tom Hingston Studio, knowingly works the conceit of the popstar as visual commodity: in this case featuring life-size versions of Jones made out of chocolate.Photographed by Jonathan De Villiers, the cover for Hurricane features a production line of chocolate Grace Jones heads with supporting imagery showing Jones inspecting a range of body parts at various stages of the manufacturing process.“The original idea was to produce a set of images of Grace being mass-produced but with her being in control of the actual process,” says Hingston. “The crux of the idea is that she has ownership of her identity. We looked at a range of manufacturing processes, from car makers to pottery factories, but there was something about her being made of chocolate that had [the right] connotations.”

Bands that sell more than music

The White Stripes have released limited edition camera sets on their website. The whole set is themed in their red, black and white signature colors.



The band offers two different kits for sale, The JACK Holga Flash Camera Starter Kit and the MEG Diana+ Multi function all-plastic camera. They each sell for US$180 and although only 3000 of those were made, they are still for sale on their website. A lot of artists use this limited edition model but sometimes it doesn't always do its job. However Nine Inch Nails used this same model with their limited edition deluxe box and it sold out in weeks.

The camera sets are a great way to enforce the band's brand. They are very unique in many ways but loads of bands get lost in the crowd after a few years and by creating unique branded products they can have a stronger impact on their fans while also creating a culture around their image. Smart move by their managers and label - or maybe it was their idea?

Cool knitting

This is the incredible work of artist Blythe Church:

You can see all of her work at http://sewnbyblythe.blogspot.com/

Things to read this month:

Late Bloomers by Malcolm Gladwell:

Gladwell has recently written a blog in the 'New Yorker' called Late Bloomers in which he talks about the myth that creative genius is only expressed at youth: "Genius, in the popular conception, is inextricably tied up with precocity—doing something truly creative, we're inclined to think, requires the freshness and exuberance and energy of youth. Orson Welles made his masterpiece, "Citizen Kane," at twenty-five. Herman Melville wrote a book a year through his late twenties, culminating, at age thirty-two, with "Moby-Dick." Mozart wrote his breakthrough Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-Flat-Major at the age of twenty-one.(...)

On the other hand you have Alfred Hitchcock, who made "Dial M for Murder," "Rear Window," "To Catch a Thief," "The Trouble with Harry," "Vertigo," "North by Northwest," and "Psycho"—one of the greatest runs by a director in history—between his fifty-fourth and sixty-first birthdays. Mark Twain published "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" at forty-nine. Daniel Defoe wrote "Robinson Crusoe" at fifty-eight."

Very interesting article, there is still hope to be a genius at any age!

Read more at:
http://www.gladwell.com/2008/2008_10_20_a_latebloomers.html

The Ruff - Steven Kenny

Untitled- Lori Early

The Debutante - Mark Ryden

I believe everyone has an innate talent, a gift that cannot be taught or learned, a special power. Not everyone discovers theirs, I am myself in search of mine. Sometimes I wish I had Erykah Badu's voice but then I look at these paintings and wonder what it felt like for the artist when they discovered their gift becoming alive on a white canvas.