It's been a busy week here in Seattle... whew! What with SEAF opening tomorrow night with the artist reception. here is a list of all the things I am doing in the next 4 days:
Staging and planning seaf tonight
Artist reception tomorrow where I help unveil some awesome art by Jeff Hengst
SEAF Friday night Lounge Salon from 10-2am where I have been doing assistant set design, possible assistanct Direction.
A small short performance piece with Misty Montainge on beds earlier in the evening.
SEAF Sat. night passionfruit performance
A night long afterpart that should go until noon on Sun. followed by a nice relaxing evening of rop bondage with my darling Mad Scientist and I if we are not too exhausted by all the sexiness from this past week. whew!
NEXT WEEK?
i am equally swamped with getting my new line ready for first thursdays artswalk, and possibly Fremont Sunday market a week after that!
Alright, back to making steam punk costumes and cuffs for tomorrow night.
Kiss kiss!
-Mellington
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
The Windows of Opportunity Open...
Very recently after my sad unemployment stint I a couple of people interested in custom work have come out of the wood work! yipee! I also have gotten the opportunity to work on being Assistant Set Designer for the Friday night lounge of the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival! Yipee!!! www.seattleerotic.org
Also, after firmly deciding that I was not going to go to Burning Man this year (it's been 3 years in a row now), but I have just been approached by a group of Engineers who would like me to possibly be the lead artist in constructing a 500 ft. combustible monorail art installation in the desert. They have been funded by a grant from the Black Rock Arts Foundation and YES, now I have a budget of someone else's fund to make art with! Horray!!!! (wait... is my dream really coming true?) www.nowhere2nowhere.com
The creative gods have now gifted me with more amazing projects than I could of dreamed of! .....the only problem... finding a watch that stops time for 3 weeks... eeekkk!
-Mellington
Also, after firmly deciding that I was not going to go to Burning Man this year (it's been 3 years in a row now), but I have just been approached by a group of Engineers who would like me to possibly be the lead artist in constructing a 500 ft. combustible monorail art installation in the desert. They have been funded by a grant from the Black Rock Arts Foundation and YES, now I have a budget of someone else's fund to make art with! Horray!!!! (wait... is my dream really coming true?) www.nowhere2nowhere.com
The creative gods have now gifted me with more amazing projects than I could of dreamed of! .....the only problem... finding a watch that stops time for 3 weeks... eeekkk!
-Mellington
Unemployment: I guess it's Nothing Personal It's just... Business? (really?)
March 2010, a week after my birthday i was laid off from my job at Green Lake for reasons unknown. I was sad and perplexed, and still do not know why they let me go. In the end they told me the company wasn't growing fast enough, and that I wasn't a good fit for the time being. So I left with sadness, only to find out that they had told the department of unemployment they had fired me for general mistakes. hmm... this is really funny since I have a gmail from Jim the owner stating that "Yes, laid off is a fair term." I guess business owners who have a good strong business try and cut corners like under-paying staff (many have taken a pay cut to work there I heard) and my attempting to get out of pay unemployment.
I guess it's nothing personal, it's just business? They never told me I was fired, never had me sign anything, still haven't paid me my last pay check... hmmm... not to be unprofessional, but so I smell a lying rat or a business owner? It's ok I sent all my email and proof of documentation that I was in fact Laid off to the dept of unemployment and I am battling it right now. To end this hurtful rant, I just want to say that if you want a high quality one of a kind piece of platinum or gold jewelry I cannot argue that their work and there products are amazing and there artists are fabulous. I would tell you to go to them.
Also though, if you would love to support a company that has underpaid artists working for them, no training procedure, and an owner that likes to not fully disclose reasons of discharge and tries to make it difficult for workers to get unemployment I highly recommend Green Lake Jewelry works for all these reasons as well. I would especially recommend working for them if you like working for someone who promises a 90 day review and training programs during your job offer that are actually Non-existent. (Can we spell bait and switch?) I know my rant is far from professional, but I guess they weren't either.... nothing personal, just business...
So now I am hoping for unemployment, and in the midst of feeling jaded about getting re-employed in this industry for at least a while, I have decided to take a look at my own dusty bench and try and make my own business happen again. I have begun to work a min. or 30 hrs a week on my own production line and another 20 hrs. a week on marketing, social media and craft fair research... wish me luck! With this economy I will kinda need it!
When one door closes a couple windows open... or something...
-Mellington
I guess it's nothing personal, it's just business? They never told me I was fired, never had me sign anything, still haven't paid me my last pay check... hmmm... not to be unprofessional, but so I smell a lying rat or a business owner? It's ok I sent all my email and proof of documentation that I was in fact Laid off to the dept of unemployment and I am battling it right now. To end this hurtful rant, I just want to say that if you want a high quality one of a kind piece of platinum or gold jewelry I cannot argue that their work and there products are amazing and there artists are fabulous. I would tell you to go to them.
Also though, if you would love to support a company that has underpaid artists working for them, no training procedure, and an owner that likes to not fully disclose reasons of discharge and tries to make it difficult for workers to get unemployment I highly recommend Green Lake Jewelry works for all these reasons as well. I would especially recommend working for them if you like working for someone who promises a 90 day review and training programs during your job offer that are actually Non-existent. (Can we spell bait and switch?) I know my rant is far from professional, but I guess they weren't either.... nothing personal, just business...
So now I am hoping for unemployment, and in the midst of feeling jaded about getting re-employed in this industry for at least a while, I have decided to take a look at my own dusty bench and try and make my own business happen again. I have begun to work a min. or 30 hrs a week on my own production line and another 20 hrs. a week on marketing, social media and craft fair research... wish me luck! With this economy I will kinda need it!
When one door closes a couple windows open... or something...
-Mellington
A Long-Awaited Blog Post!
Alright, it has been a very long time since I have posted, and many things have happened over the course of this year and a half so let me try and cum things up in a nutshell.
about a year ago I moved up to Seattle and, after a brief stint of moving to Kirkland I am now located centrally in The Emerald City. I move my studio into an awesome space full of artists and blacksmiths call Equinox Studios in south Seattle. http://www.equinoxstudios.org/
Last May, right as I got a job as a jewelry sales rep. I also got the opportunity to work on a large art installation for Burning Man, a giant interactive art festival in the Nevada Desert that experiments in communal living and concepts of radical free expression. The project: a 35ft tall interactive rubiks cube which required three people at three control panels to solve it collectively... a real experiment in collaborating on a large scale project, that's goal was to itself stimulate collaboration among stranger. www.groovik.com
After a long summer or basically 20hr of work a week on this giant cube (I helped with Welding, soldering electronics, and sewing mainly.) I got a not so surprising lay-off (recession, blah) conveniently a month before Burning Man. We went, we installed, we had amazing success!
Post Burn I immediately landed a full-time job in high end custom jewelry design with Green Lake Jewelry Works and after a summer of hard work on art I began to have a normal and routine life, and due to the fact that I was designing jewelry 40 hrs a week my studio time, and attention to my personal work decreased, and my focus and attention to my gemological studies picked up.
Nov. and Dec. of 2009 were filled with busy holiday season happenings. Equinox had a winter opening on Dec. 12th and I basically worked 40hrs at my job and 20 hrs a week or myself with my goal of trying to create a small but stylistically solid production line for the holiday art opening. In the end I created 30 pieces in 4 week and sold 1/3 of my inventory the first night and another 1/3 over the next month... ok so it was a hit! I was a bit surprised! but it made me confident that I could potentially sell my work and that low and behold people really liked it!
Jan. 2010 took me to Thailand where I studied at GIA, the Gemological Institute of America and took several final exams and completing 85% of my Graduate Gemologist Degree. By the time I am certified I will be able to identify, and confidently purchase my own gemstones for my jewelry/metalwork, not to mention I am able to discuss gem knowledge in choosing appropriate gemstones for custom design work for customers and friends.... aka a good skill to have. (not to mention a good thing on my resume if ever wanting a job in my field.)
...whew... ! that was a lot... still not done with updating, more to come!
Wheee!!!!
-mellington
about a year ago I moved up to Seattle and, after a brief stint of moving to Kirkland I am now located centrally in The Emerald City. I move my studio into an awesome space full of artists and blacksmiths call Equinox Studios in south Seattle. http://www.equinoxstudios.org/
Last May, right as I got a job as a jewelry sales rep. I also got the opportunity to work on a large art installation for Burning Man, a giant interactive art festival in the Nevada Desert that experiments in communal living and concepts of radical free expression. The project: a 35ft tall interactive rubiks cube which required three people at three control panels to solve it collectively... a real experiment in collaborating on a large scale project, that's goal was to itself stimulate collaboration among stranger. www.groovik.com
After a long summer or basically 20hr of work a week on this giant cube (I helped with Welding, soldering electronics, and sewing mainly.) I got a not so surprising lay-off (recession, blah) conveniently a month before Burning Man. We went, we installed, we had amazing success!
Post Burn I immediately landed a full-time job in high end custom jewelry design with Green Lake Jewelry Works and after a summer of hard work on art I began to have a normal and routine life, and due to the fact that I was designing jewelry 40 hrs a week my studio time, and attention to my personal work decreased, and my focus and attention to my gemological studies picked up.
Nov. and Dec. of 2009 were filled with busy holiday season happenings. Equinox had a winter opening on Dec. 12th and I basically worked 40hrs at my job and 20 hrs a week or myself with my goal of trying to create a small but stylistically solid production line for the holiday art opening. In the end I created 30 pieces in 4 week and sold 1/3 of my inventory the first night and another 1/3 over the next month... ok so it was a hit! I was a bit surprised! but it made me confident that I could potentially sell my work and that low and behold people really liked it!
Jan. 2010 took me to Thailand where I studied at GIA, the Gemological Institute of America and took several final exams and completing 85% of my Graduate Gemologist Degree. By the time I am certified I will be able to identify, and confidently purchase my own gemstones for my jewelry/metalwork, not to mention I am able to discuss gem knowledge in choosing appropriate gemstones for custom design work for customers and friends.... aka a good skill to have. (not to mention a good thing on my resume if ever wanting a job in my field.)
...whew... ! that was a lot... still not done with updating, more to come!
Wheee!!!!
-mellington
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