The Air Scare

Woodturners deal with dust and lots of it. The dust isn’t always the same as different woods have different properties and many of the imported exotics can be detrimental to your health. Some woods like Paddauk, Rosewood, and Bloodwood can create anything from severe allergic reactions to general lung irritation depending on the person. Lately I have been turning a lot and the heavy duty fiber respirators I am using don’t seem to be keeping up with the volume of activity in my shop. I use a dust collector, but the very small micronic particles build up over time and it seems that my lungs are feeling the side effects. Also, my day job as a cabinetmaker seems to add to the issues with plywood dust, chemical solvents, and glues. It is harder to protect myself at work due to the fact that there are others working around me and wearing a mask 24/7 is just not feasible.

Asthma

I have grown up with asthma. You might ask why the heck I picked the profession then. Well, I will say that artistic woodturning is in my blood. It’s my passion and I would do anything to continue on doing what I love. However, I am a realist in that I need to protect myself while in production of my art.

The Trend Air Shield

Have to love new technology right? I sure do! I Love computers, the net, digital cameras and everything else shiny and new. This is where the Trend Air Shield fits in. New technology to keep me safe and comfy while in my shop making dust. But like all things shiny and new they come with a shiny and new price tag. I think these people should sponsor me. What do you think? I would be the perfect candidate to test and evangelize their product.

The Proposition

So I have a proposition to make. Do you know anyone having a wedding? How about someone opening a business or that currently owns a business? How about someone close to you that might be retiring? Recently, I have been doing some carving on platters that I turn on my lathe. I did one for the Niagara on the lake Meet-up in August that was raffled off for the conference.

I want to make YOU a custom carved piece. Send me your logo, your name, or whatever you would like on the face of the platter and I will make it happen — all by hand. Below is a picture of the Niagara on the Lake meet-up platter. These platters usually go for between $299 and $350. My proposal is to make a barter; The Trend Air Shield for One Custom Turned Platter. For whoever would like to take me up on this barter I will also include four of my Hardwood Artisian Bottle Stoppers as a bonus.

The Help for Health

I try not to sound like car salesman too often. Actually I never like to sound that way, but I need to protect my health. The Trend Air Shield is new technology that can aide in my woodturning for now and for the future. Send me an e-mail. Keith@magicwoodworks.com or leave a comment in the box below this post if you would be interested in my proposed barter. I would be forever grateful and I thank you for considering.

Keith Burtis

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A quick Video Update of my woodturning and whats up!

Comments welcome! Gets lonely in my shop

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Hi Folks. Yep, it’s been two days since my last post. I have been really, really busy working on my woodturning for my art shows! I have screwed up and I owe you some art! Today, i decided i wanted to do something in the wood theme, I had seen some craftsmen at a local show that did what they call kinetic motion art. The craftsmen I saw had done this type of art with all sorts of materials, but todays artist David C Roy utilizes this kinetic motion design with all sculpted wood parts. Enjoy!

You can check out more of Davids work at Wood That Works

If you re an artists and would like me to feature your work in my daily…or semi-daily art posts please let me know. Post a comment or drop me an email. Of course you can check out photos of my woodturning by visiting my Etsy Store or Flickr photo gallery.

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Art Pick of the Day

Todays art pick of the day is paying homage to my mother. When I saw this gallery of art I immediately thought of Mom! My mother has never walked by the shore of a lake, a beach, or any waterfront property without asking me to climb down some crazy rock ledge to pick up a cool looking piece of driftwood. For some reason this love for driftwood has somehow leeched into my blood as well and todays art pick is the perfect selection of Driftwood art.

Oh yea, my mother is also a huge fan of horses!

Todays Artist

Todays artist is Heather Jansch, she is an amazing sculptural and visual artist. I do not know Heather but she works out of her beautiful studio in her home in the West Country of England. As far as I can gather Heather sells her original art works of Driftwood sculpture. Some of these sculptures even get a coat of bronze! To further her reach, heather photographs her sculptures in beautiful scenes and sells the prints. I will be getting one of these for sure!

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Art Pick of the Day

This is why I love doing these segments of blog posts! The artists featured today have what I would call the ultimate imagination. They literally turn scrap into gold! You’d never know by looking at the piece itself, but when you shine a light on it…the art becomes apparent.

Slightly Warped features the art of Tim Nobel & Sue Webster. I hope this brings you to open up your mind next time you look at a pile of junk!

Public Goals!

My Public Goals of winning best of show at one of my two art fairs is coming along. I have been turning as much as I can, seeing that I have a day job and planning out the way my booth will be set up for the shows.

Also, adding to the mix, I am creating a new Video Podcast called Woodturning & Creative Arts in where I will be displaying my woodturning craft as well as discussing and featuring other artists. I will also discuss where my inspiration comes from in creating my works. A special thank you to John Meadows who will be aiding in the video editing portion of the process.

Please let me know what you think of these Art Pick of the Day articles. If there is a certain genre that you would like to see please leave it in the comment field below.

Thank you
Keith Burtis

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Todays Art Pick of the day lies in it’s simplicity.

Culture

Same

We are all one earth people. Lets act like it

Thank you,
Keith Burtis

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Cool Art Site #2

Today I found a site that was really cool! The art on this blog/website called Zuza Fun is everything that art should be. The pictures get your brain working, they are truly unique and some create an auditory response in my brain. When you check this site out, you’ll know what I mean. Elephants with a tuba as a heads is the only teaser I will leave you.

Scroll down….Atlas of Wonder is by far my favorite!

Public Goal

Todays Public Goal - same as my last art blog post.

I hope to win best of show in one of the two art shows that I will be participating in during September and October. Both would be great, but I hope to win best of show at one of the two!

I am working on prep this evening towards that goal. I am setting up all of my turned items, prepping, gluing, and organizing so that by thursday I can just turn, turn, turn wood!

Thank you for your comments & Feedback

Keith Burtis

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Recent Articles
Interactive Web Tools for Artists & Creative Professionals Part One/Part Two

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I am going to be offering a cool site that I have found each and every day for the next 365 Days. Starting today September 1st 2008 going through September 1st 2009, I will share with you my inspirations, and just down right cool art items that I have come across.

Why am I doing this?

The 365 Days of Art Inspiration will be a constant reminder for me achieve the goals that I have set for myself in the next year. I will make frequent announcements of my goals. Sharing these with you in hopes that you might prod me when I need prodding.

What will change?

I will share my goals with you as the year progresses. I will still be utilizing this site for my woodturning. Nothing will change on that front. I will still blog weekly about my woodturning, my passion for social media, and my passion for speaking & teaching others.

Public Goal Announcement #1

I hope to win best of show in one of the two art shows that I will be participating in during September and October. Both would be great, but I hope to win best of show at one of the two!

Cool Art Site #1

The Space Collective - I will say nothing besides you need to check this out! The Gallery is mind blowing!

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Question #2 How do I add interactive Multi-Media Content to my Blog or website…and why???

So Today we will explore ways in which you can simply and easily add quick multi-media content to your Blog, “Home-Base” or Website. When you create multi-media content there are a few things that you need to think about.

1. What kind of content do I want to create?
2. How Long will the copy, video or audio be?
3. Who will be viewing, listening, or reading?

These are the three basic questions to ask yourself when creating multi-media content. Also, as far as this article goes, I assume that you have a topic or subject that you are covering.

1. What kind of content do I want to create?

This question is often answered by what kind of equipment do I have? If your suited up with a laptop, or a desktop you can do most anything. Does your computer have a built in camera or do you have a video camera, or web cam? That can bring you even more options. Maybe your a musician and have a full audio setup with mics, mixer and audio software? Either way…you can create content.

The next thing to look at is the message that you are trying to get across. Are you giving tutorials on how to draw or paint? Are you giving business advice to those just starting out? Maybe you have a book that you have written and you want to create serialized audio content (Podcasting) and try to begin getting your name out as an author.

I will show you some content that I have created based on my woodturning. In this clip you will see here I turned items live in front of an audience using Blog TV. My woodturning is basically a visual medium conducive to video or photography boosted by text. The Blog TV Channel has allowed me to share my craft with a community of people interested in seeing the creative process and engage with me the artist.

Walnut Bowl - Broadcast your self LIVE

I may be leaving Blog TV as a content creator. They are only allowing 10 minute recordings now and I may be looking for a different provider. Google “Live Streaming” and you will find many providers.

Also, I have used photography to journal my process. This gives me the ability to share through an article here on my website, and boost the text content with Photos.

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Thirdly, I have created what I like to call a Dynamic Portfolio. There are a few software items out there that let you do this, but I like Animoto. Animoto lets you create a video that you can add music too and create a video that is visually pleasing as well as engaging. For the sake of this article, this is a short Animoto clip. Animoto offers a premium service that allows you to create much longer videos as well.

If you are interested in the Animoto service I have a discount code by using this Animoto Link. This will give you five dollars off the cost of the service. Animoto will take photos and music uploaded from your computer or will also sync up with a Flickr photo set. Animoto also has music in it’s librry that you can select from as well.

So I have shared some items here that I have used to share my Woodturning with the world. below I am going to give you some other ways that artists and creatives have used multi-media to promote their craft. Also I will give you some links where you can learn more about inserting this content into your blog or website.

Barb has created a video on YouTube and embedded it on her site to help promote and create awareness for the Handmade Harpsichords made by her family.

Embed Video - This link will teach you more about embedding or adding video content that you have created through a free or paid third party provider.

Scott Roche is promoting his book Spiritual Tramp, through free audio content that can be easily subscribed to through iTunes or e-mail.

RSS Subscriptions - Real Simple Syndication. This teaches you more about how RSS works and how you can use it to provide content to subscribers.

Audio Podcast - A simple description of Audio Podcasts.

CAT shares her knitting with the world through her video podcast.

Video Podcasting - A simple explanation of video Podcasting.

I hope you have gained some awareness in creating and using multi-media content for your site. Hopefully you will take this information and GET CREATIVE.

Feel free to contact me keith at magicwoodworks dot com for any questions that you might have or please leave a comment in the comments feature below. I would love to hear from you. Be sure to check back tomorrow for part three of my series on Mluti-Media Tools for Artists and Creative Professionals or subscribe to my blog via RSS. If you missed part one you can find it here.

Keith Burtis

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Learning Interactive web 2.0 tools for artists can be a really Daunting task!

Recently, in the past few months I have been emailing back and forth with a world class woodturner named Terry Scott. Terry is a truly gifted artisan and has years of woodturning experience under his belt. The reason however that he and I started talking was because I was looking for some photos to use on my site, and I had asked him for permission. Terry gladly obliged. Since then I have learned that he and a friend, fellow woodturner Gordon Pembridge were starting a new website to showcase their amazing talent. Terry has since emailed me and even sent me a box of amazing wood from his homeland of Auckland, NZ.
Terry tells me a true tale of which he and Gordon payed a lot of money to get this beautiful site up and running, but the folks who designed it sort of took their money and went up and running as well. This is very common in the internet design space and has led Terry to ask me questions about blogs and other tools that might help out their cause.

So this is the reason for this article. There are many, many ways to get your work out there, and if you have looked at their site you know that this work deserves to be seen. But, how does someone who pours all of their time, heart and passion into their craft have time to share it with the world? Thats where the easy to use web 2.0 tools come in. In years past we put up static websites that were nothing more than glorified brochures. These days we create interactive, engaging, and ever changing websites that allow us to form community around. So lets answer the question; “How do you learn about these tools, and how do you choose them?”

Tools of the Trade & Why use Them?

So, like any other project you need a list of tools. This by all means is not all of the tools you can use, but is the list of tools that I use the most.

The Blog - The blog comes first. Why? Because it’s Home-base. It’s the place where you want everything to funnel to. This will provide you with the google rankings that are so needed in getting your site views. If you have a site already existing, a blog is very easy to add. If you don’t want to play around with the technical side of setting it up, email my good friend Tommy Vallier and he’ll be glad to get you started. The Blogging software that I use is WordPress. Wordpress is super easy to use, even for a dummy woodturner like me. The Wordpress platform allows you to add text for articles, photo’s for a photo journal, video for video presentations, and just about any format of media you could think of.

So Why? Why a blog? Why not just a static website that shows and informs about what I do?
Three Reasons, and again these are simplified reasons to why a blog.

1. Recency - Google and all of the search engines love you to be recent. Google sends it’s spiders out to crawl your site every time there is an update added. Updates can be articles you write, photos you’ve posted or comments that others have left on your site.

2. Relevancy - Again, getting listed well in the search engines requires you to be relevant. You become relevant by posting and writing articles that are relevant to the site that you have. If I write a post on cooking, this may not help me much in fact it might even confuse the search engines. When I write about woodturning though this adds relevancy to my site. Google looks at me as a person adding to the good and relevant content available on the net. The other way to add relevancy is by building up links. When folks link to you, or you link to them this adds relevancy points in the mind of the search engines because you are linking together points of good information. To be relevant you have to be giving.

3. Community - There are many benefits to community. Community adds value to your site through comments. Community gives you word of mouth. Community supports you in your efforts in getting your name out there! A blog is a great place to build community if you work a little at it. When someone leaves a comment on your blog, be sure to email them a thank you. Be heartfelt in your community building and you will find others talking about you all over the place. Type Keith Burtis into google and you’ll see what I mean. Give to your community and they will give back. In fact, if you re reading this blog right now and you have other reasons to set up a blog for artists and creatives please leave me a comment in the comments box below. Thank you.

These are the basic rudimentary reasons for having a blog attached to your web presence.

Question #2 How do I add interactive Multi-Media Content to my Blog or website…and why???

This will be the basis for my next article. I will do a series of daily posts for the next three to four days outlining the ways an artist or creative professional can take advantage of easy to use interactive web tools to help their online presence. In the mean time here are a few links of things that I have done while sharing my passions with the community.

Creating a Dynamic Photo Portfolio
Sharing my Session on web tools for artists at Harvard, Podcamp Boston 3.

See you Tomorrow!
Keith Burtis

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