Posts Tagged ‘help!’

There’s a wealth of resources to help creatives give and receive help, but where do you start? We made a list.

Chris Robley of The DIY Musician wrote up a great piece about alternative venues: these are types of places–and he lists thirty of them–where your music could happen. Because you don’t have to be at the mercy of music clubs If you live in a small town with few (or zero) traditional music venues, or Read more ›

I would not be where I am today without asking for help, and my whole life is a domino effect of the positive outcome of this.

What kind of attitudes—inherent or cultivated—can help you succeed as an artist? And what kind of attitudes can help you fail? Hilary Harkness outlines a few here: It’s a time-honored joke: M.F.A. actually stands for Mother F%#king Attitude. I’ve had that outlook, and it’s seen me through some rough and dispiriting times as an artist. Read more ›

Califone created a music video for its song “Stitches,” using a scrolling series of images inside tumblr. The effect is haunting and awesome, and uses Tumblr.com in a completely (as far as we know) novel way that matches perfectly with their music. In a unique approach to a music video, Califone worked with filmmaker Braden King and programmer Jeff Garneau Read more ›

Here is the story of how a Senegalese rapper used her experience as a musician to help put an end to female genital mutilation. VoxTalk reviewed this award winning documentary: Carefully entwining music and motion picture, Sarabah follows Sister Fa, a rapper/activist from Senegal, on her campaign to end female genital cutting, or excision. Activism is Read more ›

You might think you can do it all, but your back, shoulders and psyche beg to differ. Do you know when it’s time to ask for help?

In 1987, Patricia Thompson wrote an article explaining how she opened a gallery co-op with several fellow artists. In this article there is (refreshingly enough) no mention of things like social media strategies. Instead, this is a solid introduction on how to get a bunch of your artist friends together and open a gallery. How Read more ›

Need some help plotting your novel? If you’re stuck, these can help. These are dice for writers, storytellers and gamers! In addition to the normal 1-6 pips, these dice are etched with six words packed with meaning: BUT, SO, AND, AS, OR, IF. Use them to plot your next novel! Roll them into your role-playing Read more ›

Do you need some help organizing your studio or workspace? At least two of us here at Pyragraph have moved recently and we can say for sure that we’re stuck in an organizational dilemma. Thankfully, Live Simply by Annie has some ideas for us. Storage Set Up: Shelves & Bins Because there are so many Read more ›

Musicians! Check out this resource of networking sites that musicians LOVE. There seems to be more social networking sites for musicians springing up every day, but which ones are worth your time? Share your success stories about promoting music on social networking sites and see what sites have turned in great results for your fellow Read more ›

Amanda Palmer, the musician who famously made over a million dollars with one Kickstarter campaign, joined the TED conference earlier this year to talk about how to ask people for help. Lots of artists, myself included, have found inspiration in her talk (with over 3 million views as of this writing). Don’t make people pay for music, Read more ›

Open office layouts were meant to foster creativity and collaboration. They were meant to make it easy for people to help and work with each other. Has this happened? Not necessarily. Because everyone is trying to focus and crank out their work in peace, we have become long rows of people wearing headphones all day–the Read more ›

Freelancers Union put together a great infographic that sheds some light on the state of our current healthcare system and proposes a new, more cooperative healthcare model – one that we think artists, career creatives, and the self-employed will be especially interested in. It’s a model where people can get the healthcare help they need. Read more ›

The first thing I teach young people is that if you dream, you can draw. Everyone can draw, and everyone should.

“Do you have a dentist?” my filmmaker friend James Glover asks. “Your dentist has money, why don’t you ask him for some?” Once you have the money, getting everyone else is easy.