This past Saturday I attended a local community forum on the Orphan Works legislation sponsored by Jim Cooper, the Congressman for Tennessee's 5th District and John Hall, a New York Congressman and singer/songwriter of The Orleans fame. Lucky for me living in Nashville means we get to be on the front row of intellectual property issues because of the music industry. Most of the people attending were songwriters or connected to the music industry but there was a scattering of visual artists in the group.
The group started by airing everyone's concerns regarding the legislation. Most everyone had the same complaints already heard about the bill; possibility of making everyone's work an orphan, flimsy language detailing what counts as a 'diligent search', financial hassle of having to re-register your work with an unknown amount of databases. For a full re-cap of problems go here. If there was anyone in the crowd supporting this bill they never spoke up. Then Cooper and Hall spoke on how they stand on the issue. Hall told an amusing anecdote about how the McCain campaign tried to use one of his most famous songs, You're Still the One, without compensation by claiming that the campaign couldn't find the author of the song. Since Congressman Hall appears as both a songwriter and performer in the song's credits and works just across the building from Senator McCain, Hall was a little surprised they couldn't find him. At any rate here was the big information we learned about what's happening with this on Capital Hill:
• Neither Cooper nor Hall support this bill. Cooper said he would "do anything he could to stop the bill."
• The bill is NOT being fast-tracked. This is a very good thing as this had been a concern that it would try to be passed by summer. Cooper said everyone is now tied up with appropriations.
• Cooper said the bigger fight on this would come next year when Congress reconvenes after the election.
• Right now no one in DC is talking about this, so clearly we need to step to the fight. There is the possibility of procedural maneuvers being used to bring the bill to a vote without debate but Cooper and Hall doubted that would happen especially since they could see that there was a groundswell of opposition to it even if its not being the hot topic on the Hill at the moment.
• Hall suggested the possibility of having a Judiciary Committee field hearing regarding the bill. He felt that in cities like Nashville where intellectual property is a significant part of our economy that the Committee could benefit from hearing the people's complaints first hand. I think this would be a good idea, and personally I'm all for getting this to happen.
• Neither Hall nor Cooper really knew what was happening in the Senate with the bill. Both said usually you can count on the Senate to not do much, however one of the bill's Senate sponsors is Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) and he tends to be a mover in the Senate. Anyone with ties to voters in Vermont needs to get on them about contacting Leahy to get off this bill.
Personal blog of Mary Reaves Uhles, fabulously tired illustrator and mom
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Illustration Friday - Forgotten
My first Illustration Friday post. After reading about for a while about Illustration Friday, the creative mind expanding blog, I finally decided to try my hand at it. I hope I can keep up what with dividing my time between being a mom and cramming a 40 hour work week into 3 mother's day out days.
Anyway I sketched this about a year ago from the window of the Great Reading Room in the Nashville Library. You are pretty high up at that window and I noticed looking down on the roofs below that they would be a great place to come and get away from things. The girl wasn't there that day, but the shadows of pigeons as they swooped over the crumbling roof moldings gave me the sense that the space was waiting for something..... or someone.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Orphan Works
So its been a while since I posted and there's a very good reason for that, although its not the subject of this post..... but I might as well get it out there: It looks like the Fabulous Illustrator is working on a whole other kind of project - the kind that take 9 months to complete and makes you lose sleep afterwards. The deadline for this particular project is sometime around Christmas so that ought to be real interesting.
At any rate I have been meaning to post for a while about the Orphan Works Bill catastrophe that is striking visual artists currently. Simply put the Orphan Works Bill is a proposed legislation that would allow anyone searching for a copyright to a particular creative work and not finding it, to simply declare it an "orphaned work" and use it for whatever personal or commercial use desired. Should the owner of the copyright discover that his work has been thus pilfered, he would have to bear the burden of proof that the work was his and not the infringers. This is the opposite of the way copyright law reads currently. I strongly recommend listening to the interview with Illustrator's Partnership co-founder Brad Holland about this for a more in-depth view.
I had promised to post updates of the bill as it made its way through Congress. There have been several calls to write and call representatives and recently several visual artists as well as representatives from independent record labels convened on the Hill to express their displeasure with the folks that work for us (i.e. the politicians). Below is the report I just received on this:
At any rate I have been meaning to post for a while about the Orphan Works Bill catastrophe that is striking visual artists currently. Simply put the Orphan Works Bill is a proposed legislation that would allow anyone searching for a copyright to a particular creative work and not finding it, to simply declare it an "orphaned work" and use it for whatever personal or commercial use desired. Should the owner of the copyright discover that his work has been thus pilfered, he would have to bear the burden of proof that the work was his and not the infringers. This is the opposite of the way copyright law reads currently. I strongly recommend listening to the interview with Illustrator's Partnership co-founder Brad Holland about this for a more in-depth view.
I had promised to post updates of the bill as it made its way through Congress. There have been several calls to write and call representatives and recently several visual artists as well as representatives from independent record labels convened on the Hill to express their displeasure with the folks that work for us (i.e. the politicians). Below is the report I just received on this:
Visual Artists Go to Washington, Independent Record Labels Oppose Orphan Works Act
Last week over two dozen visual artists, representing illustrators, photographers, fine artists and the arts licensing trades went to Capital Hill to explain to legislators how the Orphan Works Act will harm creators and the hundreds of thousands of art-related small businesses that serve and are dependent on them. At the same time, independent music labels have joined the opposition to orphan works legislation as it currently exists.
The Illustrators’ Partnership has stressed that Orphan Works legislation should be limited to true orphaned work and not act as an unwarranted compulsory license imposed on commercial markets. IPA, the Advertising Photographers of America and the Artists Rights Society have joined to offer amendments to that effect.
Excerpted from the Washington Internet Daily/Monday June 09, 2008:
The visual-arts community hit the Hill last week to protest what it portrays as a hijacking of the orphan-works issue as it was presented in a 2005 Copyright Office report...
The Copyright Office ran a bait-and-switch from its 2005 notice of intent, which focused on facilitating libraries', museums' and other nonprofits' efforts to digitize collections to improve access to them, [Illustrators’ Partnership co-founder Brad] Holland said. Artists want the issue narrowed back to that focus, scrapping commercial use, he said...Copyright Office roundtables on orphan works never addressed alternates to registries, an "untested, untried, unaccountable market system" favoring Google, Getty, Corbis and other commercial aggregators, Holland said. [Cynthia] Turner [also of the Partnership] said artists would incur high costs registering works, and they hesitate to hand over high-res, commercial versions to Google or others.
In the same article, Washington Internet Daily also reports that the leading group of independent music labels has broken with the corporate music trade associations. The American Association of Independent Music has published a position paper opposing the current orphan works bills. The article quotes a music industry executive: "I can tell you that nobody in the music business" sought the bill.
... the executive said the bill is "de facto... establishing a new compulsory license" by putting unregistered artists at a legal disadvantage in court. The law can't explicitly require registration or it will violate the Berne Convention, TRIPS and other treaties the U.S. has signed, the executive said. Book publishers and music executives in the U.K. think the U.S. will be in trouble, the executive said, citing a recent visit: "I can tell you there are European commissioners that are looking at this right now."
-Excerpts from “Orphan-Works Bills Scorned by Visual Arts, Indie Labels” by Greg Piper, Washington Internet Daily June 09, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
My First Ten Years
Today, May 8th, is kind of a big deal to me. Ten years ago I walked out of my job as a designer for a printing company never to walk back through any business' doors as an employee again. The story unfolded like this: about a year prior to this I had left a horrible, terrible job at a company that shall remain nameless (though, mercifully, it is defunct now) and had taken a part time job at this printing company. I was determined, at the age of 24, to start working for myself, to be able to support myself as a freelance illustrator. Frankly I never wanted to work at a horrible, terrible place ever again and I figured the best way to do that was to always be self-employed. So I started working part time and shopped my portfolio around on my off days. I stayed up late at night doing pieces that I thought would get me jobs and ever so slowly but surely the jobs started to trickle in. However at the same time I was doing such a swell job at the printing company that the owners, who were really nice people, began hinting that they needed me to be full time. I resisted. Then in the early spring of 1998 I was offered a contract to illustrate a book for a small local publisher. How exciting! I remember thinking I can't believe this is happening already! A couple of days after this Joe, the owner of the printing company sat me down and said "we really need you to be full time." I replied "well, uh, the thing is I just got this contract and its what I really want to do, and uh if I work full time I'll never be able to meet the deadline, and the thing is I really don't want to work for you full time." He gave a me look and said, "this is your dream isn't it." I nodded. I put in a month's notice.
One week later the publishing company canceled my contract citing the author's desire to go with a previous illustrator.
That day was not the best day in my life, and I suppose I could have gone back to my about-to-be-former employer and ask to stay on. But I felt like there was no turning back at that point, sure I was scared, but I had come this far right? I had a little money saved and I had a few other jobs coming in, so on Friday, May 8th 1998 I left the second of only two jobs I've ever had. The following Monday MER Images was open for business.
Looking back now I have no idea how I survived the first couple of years. . . the grace of God is what I think now. Obviously I owe a debt of gratitude to my clients, some of whom have become good friends and whose work has made me not just a better illustrator but a better artist (Keith and Jill you can pat yourselves on the back now;). The worry and stress of the early struggling years has given way to the thrill of getting a call from an art director in New York or Chicago, who I've never met, though they've been following MY work. There are still slow times, there are still times when I'm frustrated because I haven't attained every goal of my career but I try to keep that grateful attitude. Not everyone can say they do what they love for a living and that they've been doing it longer than anything else. I can. And no matter what happens there's no turning back, I mean I've come this far right?
See you in another ten years.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
As promised here is my illustration celebrating 10 years! Click on it to get a close look:
OK now that you've seen it, keep an eye out, it will be appearing as a printed poster later this year. Some questions to ponder: Is the dark rate saving the white rat or letting go? What's up with the diamond ring, and why are they in a circus? Is this some sort of bizarre rat proposal? Stay tuned for the answers and commentary in a later post.
One week later the publishing company canceled my contract citing the author's desire to go with a previous illustrator.
That day was not the best day in my life, and I suppose I could have gone back to my about-to-be-former employer and ask to stay on. But I felt like there was no turning back at that point, sure I was scared, but I had come this far right? I had a little money saved and I had a few other jobs coming in, so on Friday, May 8th 1998 I left the second of only two jobs I've ever had. The following Monday MER Images was open for business.
Looking back now I have no idea how I survived the first couple of years. . . the grace of God is what I think now. Obviously I owe a debt of gratitude to my clients, some of whom have become good friends and whose work has made me not just a better illustrator but a better artist (Keith and Jill you can pat yourselves on the back now;). The worry and stress of the early struggling years has given way to the thrill of getting a call from an art director in New York or Chicago, who I've never met, though they've been following MY work. There are still slow times, there are still times when I'm frustrated because I haven't attained every goal of my career but I try to keep that grateful attitude. Not everyone can say they do what they love for a living and that they've been doing it longer than anything else. I can. And no matter what happens there's no turning back, I mean I've come this far right?
See you in another ten years.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
As promised here is my illustration celebrating 10 years! Click on it to get a close look:
OK now that you've seen it, keep an eye out, it will be appearing as a printed poster later this year. Some questions to ponder: Is the dark rate saving the white rat or letting go? What's up with the diamond ring, and why are they in a circus? Is this some sort of bizarre rat proposal? Stay tuned for the answers and commentary in a later post.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Sketch Time
Since I became a mom I have noticed that I can sketch a child's figure much faster and better than I used to be able to. By this I mean I can usually get the pose I want down in the first few tries as opposed to sketching, erasing, sketching again. Being able to do it quickly results in a sketch that is much more "alive." Not only can I get a body pose the way I want it, I can usually do hands, feet and expressions just as quickly - these used to be some of the harder parts for me. I don't know, is this just from a few more years of practice or because I'm constantly seeing little hands and feet and mouths and eyes all around me all the time? I don't know.... I like to think maybe a little of both. Here's a couple of unused sketches from a project that I just started, these feature some good hand movements I think:
In other news I'm just about finished with my promo illustration for my 10th year of freelancing. I'll be posting it shortly, but here's a teaser sketch:
In other news I'm just about finished with my promo illustration for my 10th year of freelancing. I'll be posting it shortly, but here's a teaser sketch:
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Adventures with Small Fry
The Friday before Easter, Small Fry and I trucked down to mommy's hair dresser to tame his locks. The following are just a sampling of the near total photographic coverage of the event:
The Before picture:
Miss Patty cuts away, check out his mousse mohawk
The After picture. What a handsome little boy! This is right before Miss Patty handed him a blue lollipop.... mommy knew that white shirt was a bad idea.
Since this is supposed to be a blog about the adventures of an artist it is only fitting that I share some images of Small fry being an artist, of course he just the most brilliantly creative genius to sit in a high chair. Think I'm wrong? Watch the video and see how patiently he handles the art director's mundane requests to "put it on the paper."
The Before picture:
Miss Patty cuts away, check out his mousse mohawk
The After picture. What a handsome little boy! This is right before Miss Patty handed him a blue lollipop.... mommy knew that white shirt was a bad idea.
Since this is supposed to be a blog about the adventures of an artist it is only fitting that I share some images of Small fry being an artist, of course he just the most brilliantly creative genius to sit in a high chair. Think I'm wrong? Watch the video and see how patiently he handles the art director's mundane requests to "put it on the paper."
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Face Space
A couple of months ago 60 Minutes did a show about how wonderful creation known as Facebook.com. We saw this embryonic billionaire CEO describing how great his creation is and how much (as yet ungenerated) money he will generate with it. Jim Dear and I sat and laughed at the TV, saying"its just a souped up version of e-mail!" and "who has time to do that stuff."
who indeed.
Sure enough, as if on cue, 24 hours after that show aired I started getting e-mail invitations: "So and So has added you as a friend on facebook, click here to confirm that you are in fact friends with So and So." Well this so and so was a friend from church... i couldn't very well NOT respond.... wouldn't that be tantamount to saying you're not my friend? So I clicked ok, created an account, and, with much reluctance, joined the throngs flocking to facebook.com.
My Wednesday lifesaver, Becky, (a.k.a. Small Fry's babysitter) has been telling me for some time that I need to join MySpace. Becky is this cute, 23 year old newlywed with plenty more time on her hands than the Fabulous Illustrator. She persisted in convincing me: It was so hip she said, you can show off pics of Small Fry she said, everyone's doing it she said. I said isn't that the very same website full of 12 year olds pretending to be legal? She rolled her eyes and said "some of them actually are legal, besides you can set your profile to private." My response (as it is for sooo many things) was i don't have time for that stuff. And i persisted in not having time until the Facebook invites started rolling in, because sure enough, right behind them, came the Myspace invites. Now my best friend from highschool, Jules, was telling me "you have to get on there and see who's gotten OLD!" So finally I did it, i joined myspace too.
It was all down hill from there....
A couple of hours, and a few clicks later, there were my profiles, gleefully touting all my accomplishments: marriage, parenthood, 10 years of being gainfully self-employed as an artist. I left jaunty comments on my friends walls like "Hey! whats up!" and "yeah its cold here too!" A couple of days after joining, while Small Fry was at mother's day out, I managed to waste an entire morning looking up people I barely even knew the first time I met them. And it wasn't long before I also convinced Jim Dear to join both Myspace and Facebook. My argument was that all MY friend's husband's had profiles, what if i got hit on by some 14 year old! As for my profiles, so far they are pretty low brow. I haven't added any pictures yet and I don't have a pimped out background. By Becky's standards it falls into the loser category. That's ok, one of these days I'll get around to adding more stuff to it, for now its just kind of nice to be able to smugly type in my password when Myspace says "only members may view this page, please confirm that you are, in fact, friends with us."
Epilogue:
Just for posterity, and for one time only, I'm going to list all the aforementioned Facebook and Myspace profiles here. Read 'em and say what a fabulous illustrator I am:
My Facebook
My MySpace
Jim Dear's Facebook
Jim Dear's MySpace
Becky's MySpace
Jule's MySpace
who indeed.
Sure enough, as if on cue, 24 hours after that show aired I started getting e-mail invitations: "So and So has added you as a friend on facebook, click here to confirm that you are in fact friends with So and So." Well this so and so was a friend from church... i couldn't very well NOT respond.... wouldn't that be tantamount to saying you're not my friend? So I clicked ok, created an account, and, with much reluctance, joined the throngs flocking to facebook.com.
My Wednesday lifesaver, Becky, (a.k.a. Small Fry's babysitter) has been telling me for some time that I need to join MySpace. Becky is this cute, 23 year old newlywed with plenty more time on her hands than the Fabulous Illustrator. She persisted in convincing me: It was so hip she said, you can show off pics of Small Fry she said, everyone's doing it she said. I said isn't that the very same website full of 12 year olds pretending to be legal? She rolled her eyes and said "some of them actually are legal, besides you can set your profile to private." My response (as it is for sooo many things) was i don't have time for that stuff. And i persisted in not having time until the Facebook invites started rolling in, because sure enough, right behind them, came the Myspace invites. Now my best friend from highschool, Jules, was telling me "you have to get on there and see who's gotten OLD!" So finally I did it, i joined myspace too.
It was all down hill from there....
A couple of hours, and a few clicks later, there were my profiles, gleefully touting all my accomplishments: marriage, parenthood, 10 years of being gainfully self-employed as an artist. I left jaunty comments on my friends walls like "Hey! whats up!" and "yeah its cold here too!" A couple of days after joining, while Small Fry was at mother's day out, I managed to waste an entire morning looking up people I barely even knew the first time I met them. And it wasn't long before I also convinced Jim Dear to join both Myspace and Facebook. My argument was that all MY friend's husband's had profiles, what if i got hit on by some 14 year old! As for my profiles, so far they are pretty low brow. I haven't added any pictures yet and I don't have a pimped out background. By Becky's standards it falls into the loser category. That's ok, one of these days I'll get around to adding more stuff to it, for now its just kind of nice to be able to smugly type in my password when Myspace says "only members may view this page, please confirm that you are, in fact, friends with us."
Epilogue:
Just for posterity, and for one time only, I'm going to list all the aforementioned Facebook and Myspace profiles here. Read 'em and say what a fabulous illustrator I am:
My Facebook
My MySpace
Jim Dear's Facebook
Jim Dear's MySpace
Becky's MySpace
Jule's MySpace
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