RedBubble

Great, how true.

Amen too!

it’s a great thing!

It’s the way of the world, for all those who strive to oppress, there will be an equal amount striving for rebellion! (non violent meaning of course) Never fear, for those of us who want to see all, the boundaries are just doorways :o)

having just begun a huge venture of this nature I can’t help but feel this is timely encouragement and advice from an internet veteran Martin… having the honour of meeting you was an inspiration to me and I have decided to take a gamble I guess… could end in tatters… but there is nothing to lose when it’s about education i reckon… thanks for the support you have given me too… it’s been a journey over the last year or so…

Welcome to the age of expression!

Hallelujah!!! Um, I mean, hooray!!!

najeroux

haha true

the old composer / minstrals audience would be determined by his horse!

I love this micro audience and active seeking of music / art that is to your taste – instead of listening to the radio and hoping through all the pop you will hear a gem etc

I love the fact that the internet is slowly moving to empower the little artist / musicians etc with self publishing and publish on demand type webstores…

Wooh!

I am 61 years old, and still have the imagination of a child.
I am 61 years old, and still feel the same way I did when I first started to play music.
I am 61 years old, and still do things with my hands, including growing my own vegetables.
I am 61 years old, and I will not go without a fight.
And say so all of us…......

The internets has powers that no-one can predict or control.

Three cheers for the internets.

I think in a lot of ways it is a matter of efficiency. People are now able to weed out things they are not interested in and focus. What we have is the luxury of both the speedy massed produced and the specialized. The difference is now the individual is able to make the choice of what to spend the time focusing on.

we’ve finally taken music back – I was worried for a while there

Bands like the Fleet Foxes would not have broken through, without a microcomunity that morphed into worldwide indie buzz.

As a music photographer, I am a lot more optimistic about the music scene now, than I was even 6 months ago. Music is the biggest winner from the 2.0 styled revolution. It’s marvelous chaos

Life moves in cycles. The ebb and flow of the tides.

DOUBLE AMEN!!!

I definitely agree with you that it’s happening and also that its a good thing. I lived for 20 years in Taos, a community made up of artists, craftsmen, writers and musicians. So much of what I bought, including furniture, art, books and food were made locally.

We had the D.H. Lawrence Foundation for writers, The Wurlitzer Foundation for musicains and hundreds of galleries for artists and photographers and we were blessed to have Georgia O’keefe with us in her later years and Ansel Adams and Alfred Stieglitz – Georgia’s husband. It was a great place to be in my 20’s and 30’s. The kind of life that brought us all together on so many different levels. It gave us an opportunity to share are creations and thoughts with others that we knew. It gave value to what we had and shared.

I think that we are involuting… We are reevaluation the importance of our individuality !!!
Back to basics !

Concur I do! :D

Indeed, Martin!
This particularly pertains to musicians of niche markets such as myself, who (thanks to this microcosm, spanning the globe), am able to make a living from my artistic pursuits Kind of like a travelling minstrel, only this time it’s the music that travels, and i get to stay here and spend time with my family. How sweet it is!

All hail the Philosopher King!
Well spoken.
Keith

YES! YES! and YES!

One of the interesting thing about the Bubble is how many of us do multiple art forms. In case you didnt know it Paul (my cofounder) also happens to play bass in an Hawaiian instrumental band – now how niche is that. Our own Xavier is a great ballroom dancer and if you rub most of us you will find we have another artistic skin. For me it is a love of theatre (I will find a way back to doing this again).

Its all good!!

Very well put.

Ahhh Martin – You touched on something that is near and dear to me; personalized, do-it-yourself, shoot for quality (not quantity), home spun… creativity!!! When we ourselves “enjoy and appreciate” our own creations AND have a vehicle in which to allow other like minded creators to appreciate and enjoy our labors of love, the “small audiences are alive and well… it’s just now there are many small audiences appreciating many creators. Thanks for getting it Martin :)

Rog

never let go…

i cant thank the internet enough – without it i would have an audience !

Oh gosh that is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I love the internet too! Rock on Netters!

Fantastic reading…... a pleasure, amen

Yup, the future’s pretty bright for creative content. As we happily ignore the hits on free-to-air irrelevision, we get to share and consume ideas that we really love, even if there are only a dozen other participants. The need for a top-ten success disappears, so we can focus on more genuine expression in the artwork. And I quite like that within these new micro-communites, the producer and consumer are peers (if the distinction between the two remains at all).

I have friends trying to get played on radio and maybe one day get a (totally backward) record deal, and perhaps even a film clip on tv. Maybe I need to organise an intervention :]

Agreed Grant!! And you are so right Martin!!! The way to go!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. It is really amazing to see that the whole DIY ethic is being employed more and more these days and the internet is a key part of that!

Wow, I’m actually writing a paper on this very topic; have been mulling it over since March. I’m in search of artists (photographer, painter, designer, digital, musician, writer, sculptor, etc) to interview and research. Please contact me if you’re interested in participating. I would be honored to work my fellow bubblers! ~Thanks.

Great stuff Martin!

and you don’t seem to have stired up a hornets nest this time.

Thank goodness for UNITY in COMMUNITY! May authentic art and craft practices flood the global consciousness with astounding force … let us passionately encourage the next generation NOT to veg mindlessly in front of their television sets but to rage against the dying light of their own phenomenal creativity! AllyJ

So true! And it has been fabulous to see the resurgence in art and craft over the past few years.

Interesting, thanks for sharing! ;D

Absolutely right sweetheart ;} Val hugzz

So true – so true. I can’t wait to see how our world unfolds. We are all going to become more responsible and knowledgeable people on our precious planet. We’re learning about sharing ideas and spreading understanding among people that really want to hear us.

It will be our saviour. We are the cure.

Well said,and I really enjoy being part of the redbubble community

This is so true and wonderfully put

very, very true!!

The future’s so bright… i gotta wear shades.

Television is still relevant, believe it or not. There is a lot of content on TV that the web simply cannot compete with.

Long live cyber culture!

I agree, anything that get peoploe engaging with people has got to be a good thing..

Agree…but then some of us never did let go….lol…time warps happen constantly, as the world goes round things are reintroduced…music, art, fashion etc….good thing is that the creative process is constant…or we might not be :)

Couldnt agree more I see this even more after founding M.I.A
We grew from 2 to 27 over a weekend, so the need was there.So many wonderful creative people and so easy to make good friends.
Our rules give both artists and musicians the same opportunities:
Group Rules:

Only art / photography that is submitted with a link to a music file or video and / or lyrics will be accepted.

Nice if you add in the description how the actual piece of music inspired you.

Musicians can submit their own music ,just accompany it with an inspiring image.
Paul

Oh I so agree!

So true, and so well said.

Dear Martin,

I do agree with you. It is awesome that the individual can now decide whether or not the fruits of their creative labour are fit to be shared, rather than be filtered through the hands (made grubby by the handling of money) of a paid eye who would decide based not on the merit of the work, but by the commercial prospect of a piece.

However I am a man addicted to balance and as much as I love the versatility of the internet, I also fear that it is slowly eating away at something special.

Would we gladly surrender up the minstrel ridding into town to play for us his ballad. We would feel the wind on our skin while the song fills our ears and smell the broth that bubbles in preparation for the hungry audience thereafter. What of the humming of the small collective, or that almost disguised sob of one touched too deeply by the song? None of this can be found in the MP3 format.

I also want to walk into a gallery and be seduced not only by the work displayed, but by the reactions of others, standing at my shoulder, not knowing my name but in that moment sharing an admiration for a clever hand and cunning eye.

As an aspiring author, my biggest fear is for the book. Would we embrace this electronic age so thoroughly as to remove the dog eared copy of a classic, passed from friend to friend? Will libraries become halls of flickering screens rather than shelves of immaculately ordered treasures awaiting the seeker of knowledge not yet immersed in idleness?

May the electronic world expand from the magic beans planted, but with our own hands, pick the fruit thereafter granted.

Blessings

And btw, I love being here more than I can express sensibly. Whenever try to tell someone how great being part of RedBubble is I quickly run out of words, and fall back on a full-face smile.

“Back to the Future” :)Thanks for the thoughts Martin.

you betcha! its a great thing – thanks to redbubble for allowing us to share

Well its all very nice to want the past,but without progress we would not be doing this.
Somehow I much prefer the future,I really don’t want to go back to a piece of charcoal and a cave wall.
Progress got us to the moon,let us see the surface of Mars,made our lives longer,we are now able to communicate on a grand scale,If I sent this message it might take long years to arrive.
I’m 66 years young,and I welcome with open arms all that progress can throw at me.
It is an age of greatness.

And Martin I think our “humanity” will always be with us,it never was lost,it just turned its face to the future.

“May you create well and prosper”

Alienvisitor’s Imagi – Nation

AV

Amen to that, Martin. You are right and thank God for the internet. It connects people who otherwise would be disconnected. I live in the USA, my daughter is in college in Australia. We have instant communication. How awesome is that!
Now back to music, just one area: I have seen many “unkown” people on YouTube doing great things in music, it’s fantastic!

Until Web 2.0 gets its dirty hands on out beloved wild frontier.

All true, & it’s going to be a very interesting ride!

Unfortunately the very people who usually chide people for whining about being ‘technology losers’ and extolling the virtues of ‘choice’ and ‘market forces’ and the very people doing their best to stamp out the forest fire of progress.

Funny how people like RIAA and BPI and Fox change their tunes when it’s them losing out.

Good riddance to mass produced rubbish!

Hello Martin
I do not know if I express a fair concept, but I think that art is now more than ever, an honest and positive means of communication, something that can improve humanity, so I say thanks to you and to all those who work to do it.

A great observation and a positive trend, I think.

I agree wholeheartedly.

You might include micro breweries.

Thanks

Back to old days again with fire and wheel.

Nicely said.

well said i would have never met you all..stuck up here in northwestern ontario

Well said… And the communities you build are stronger and less volatile in their essence

Amen…......

Express yourself…....release that creative energy don’t suppress it…it can only breed an ever evolving style of art; who knows how your portrait, piece of prose or even one of my funky logo t-shirts could inspire lil’ Britney from Boston, Keanu from Kerela, or Ming from Shanghai to become tomorrows Picasso or the world’s next Versace…Rock on Bubblers…Rock on….

Words well written and conveyed! Bravo!Sx

WELL SAID MARTIN !

This site has really,” revved”up my creativity I am kicking off the dust and starting to fly again. Possibilities unlimited! They pulled the plug on local Public T.V station , so I just hang with you guys. There is a world out there1

Right on Dude!

So very well said! Thank you for this post!

I agree; especially the creative community has a need to slow down and not be overwhelmed by the myriads of choices available to us-I really like the way Redbubble has topic groups that help us to find other artists with similar interests to connect to-but at the same time we are not limited! Thanks!

but IS it good? It’s so nice to share images and ideas with a wide audience and global communication has made this quick and easy. Ideas from art and photography to medicine and social change can be shared, absorbed and acted upon with immediacy which can make huge changes for the better in a global context. Yes, small communities are ok but the ability to share those communities and their ability to influence a wider audience is an important part of our time in history.

What’s the old expression, “from your mouth to god’s ear.” Let’s hope.

..and despite all this, this world has never been so full of itself, so superficial, the internet has become totally corrupted by the media, censored by governments and exploited by all.

ALL of you know:
You cannot have the light
without the dark ,the
waxing without the wane,and
its all a circle anyway,and
your choice
of how you play life’s game.
(LOL)AD4P

amen brother Martin, keep on preachin!!

bravo!!! thats the way it MUST be!
cheers for it!

Interesting that Aussieland’s own Rupert Murdoch, a giant media mogul, has stated that he considers the Internet the most important development in several hundred years… and also interesting that the Internet was originally conceived by the U.S. Dept. of Defense to diversify communications into a network so it couldn’t all be taken out by one nuclear strike at a central location…. Ahhh, the irony of it all…

So near and yet so far, Awsome

If there is purpose, there is invention and achievement. Regardless of the state of the times we live in, the core of human nature cannot be altered. It has been said famously that “Necessity is the Mother of Ivention” and at our core we instinctively create out of need. For that is how the world came to be as we now know it. Cheers to this venue for facilitating and encouraging the creation of art… in all its forms. -Len

Wonderful that the internet has enabled the artist to be free of the constraints of elitism in society where who you know is more important than what you know.

Wonderful that artists from all over the world can communicate with their peers, help one another and support one another.

As a painter, I cannot express how much it means to me to be able to share my art with others and to see the beautiful work of other artists.

I am so inspired by what I see here.

I have read all this discussion and am just blown away by the level of engagemetn and passion with this topic. It really is fascinating.

Craftsmanship is the work of skilled people with shared techniques. Unfortunately computer world people hold back their knowledge of subjects or anything worth while for a fee before you can have it and learn. If everyone gave freely in this area we would all evolve much more efficiently don’t you think?

Woohoo, woo hoo hoo! Precise commentary. Thanks.

For real this is the only way to keep it unique and spontaneous with true AESTHETICS by having commentary’s like this we begin that evolution.PaS Y amor.

every album we buy or see, is in fact ‘art & music’
artists’ come in many forms.

music is one of the keys to life