Here Be Treasure

"I hope you were not offended by our offer."

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 18:39:00 +0000

Today I was offered €50 for a 2 hour workshop.

My reply was that wouldn’t even cover my petrol.

I got this in reply: “I hope you were not offended by our offer - I realise that the amount is very small indeed - I’m afraid the [venue] is under considerable financial pressure - as I know everyone in Ireland is! - and so we sometimes ask artists to offer workshops for a token fee and try to provide in tandem an opportunity to publicise their commercial work and professional practice.”

My reply.

“Dear [curator],

Frankly I am offended. I’m a full-time professional cartoonist and I’ve given lots of workshops nationwide. I’ve never been offered €50 for my time before because my time and my skill are obviously valued by the people who hire me. I’m sure the [venue] wouldn’t offer an electrician or a plumber €50 and the offer of exposure of their work because it’d soon be the subject of disbelieving banter on building sites as well as sitting in the dark being slowly flooded from leaking pipes.

For a venue purporting to support artists, the offer of fifty quid for a two hour workshop passing on skills that have been honed in a career spanning nearly two decades is bizarrely dissonant.

A two hour workshop would include at least half a day’s preparation involving research, planning, written materials, timing of delivery, rehearsal and so on. [Venue] is a 4 hour round trip from Galway and €50 would just about pay for the petrol. Take into account parking fees & feeding myself and I’m actually paying to give a workshop, rather than being paid for giving one.

If I want exposure I can run ads on Google without leaving my desk. I certainly wouldn’t need to give up two days I could be working on commissions from paying clients who appreciate the time that goes into creating art.

I’m wasting more time on this now purely on principle to suggest in future the [venue] not waste artists’ time in the knowledge it hasn’t got the ability to pay for our services.”

If you’re an artist please don’t work for free, no matter what they say about exposure. You devalue the worth of your own work and everybody elses. If you’re a venue don’t contact artists unless you’ve got the funds to pay because otherwise you’re nothing but a timewaster.

Remember, “people die of exposure.” (Some dude who got paid.)

A GUIDE TO FACEBOOK PAGES

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 20:29:00 +0000

I’ve moved this post on using Facebook for business to my blog, if you’re looking for it.

It will always happen again.

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 19:11:45 +0000

It will always happen again.

The new cover of @MargaretAtwood’s The Handmaid’s...

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 17:04:35 +0000

The new cover of @MargaretAtwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

JJ Abrams’ Star Wars.

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 23:46:00 +0000

JJ Abrams’ Star Wars.

Yeah but if the people don’t have the guns to kill...

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 22:45:14 +0000

Yeah but if the people don’t have the guns to kill people…

#Savita: Rally in Galway for X legislation Sat 1 Dec at 2pm,...

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 16:13:31 +0000

#Savita: Rally in Galway for X legislation Sat 1 Dec at 2pm, starting Spanish Arch.

Enda Kenny on the cover of SHAME. #savita Take this with you...

Sat, 24 Nov 2012 19:50:00 +0000

Enda Kenny on the cover of SHAME. #savita Take this with you when you’re going to the Dáil on Wednesday, show the world what we think of our poster boy’s procrastination on legislating for X.

“I think that this issue [abortion] is not of priority for government now,” Enda Kenny, Time Magazine interview, September 2012.

“I think that this issue is not of priority for government now,” he said.

Read more: http://world.time.com/2012/11/12/irelands-abortion-debate-heats-up/#ixzz2DAet7WBQ

keepyourbsoutofmyuterus: Her name was Savita Halappanavar. She...

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 15:55:40 +0000

keepyourbsoutofmyuterus:

Her name was Savita Halappanavar.

She was 31.

She was a dentist.

Her husband was Praveen Halappanavar, 34, an engineer at Boston Scientific.

She was 17 weeks pregnant in Galway, Ireland.

She presented with back pain at University Hospital Galway on October 21st, was found to be miscarrying.

She asked several times over a three-day period that her pregnancy be terminated.

This was refused because the foetal heartbeat was still present and the doctors told her, “this is a Catholic country”.

She spent a further 2½ days “in agony” until the foetal heartbeat stopped.

She died of septicaemia a few days later.

Mr Halappanavar took his wife’s body home on Thursday, November 1st, where she was cremated and laid to rest on November 3rd.

There are now two investigations are under way into her death.

[This info via this link. For more.]

_________________________________

According to the World Health Organization, 26.1 million people seek unsafe abortions every year in the world because they do not have access to safe ones. 47,000 die from those unsafe abortions.

I have been unable to find a stat of how many people, like Savita Halappanavar, die because they are denied abortion as a medical option.

_________________________________

Her name was Savita Halappanavar.

So many people will die in situations similar to hers and we will never know their names.

This is unacceptable. It is morally bankrupt. It is the definition of tragic.

Her name was Savita Halappanavar.

Street harassment. Don’t tolerate it.

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 19:44:02 +0100

Street harassment. Don’t tolerate it.

This theme is kind of disturbing Steven.

Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:22:56 +0100

This theme is kind of disturbing Steven.

Meanwhile in the Epson design department…

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 20:44:26 +0100

Meanwhile in the Epson design department…

THAT FETA BASTARD

Thu, 31 May 2012 12:21:01 +0100

THAT FETA BASTARD

Austerity explained. #EUref

Wed, 30 May 2012 20:07:36 +0100

Austerity explained. #EUref

Iranian and international cartoonists respond to the sentence of...

Sun, 13 May 2012 21:52:00 +0100

Iranian and international cartoonists respond to the sentence of 25 lashes handed down to one of their colleagues. Mahmoud Shokraye was put on trial after an Iranian MP, Ahmad Lotfi Ashtiani, took offence to a cartoon he drew of him.

Update: complaint withdrawn.

Batman’s arch-nemesis.

Sat, 05 May 2012 18:59:58 +0100

Batman’s arch-nemesis.

The inverse plot relationships of Scooby Doo and Doctor...

Sat, 05 May 2012 18:21:57 +0100

The inverse plot relationships of Scooby Doo and Doctor Who.

samdraws:

Now with colour!

‘Doctor Who’ is sort of the opposite of ‘Scooby Doo’- everyone thinks that nothing’s up, but it’s always actually aliens.

…Also instead of a bunch of teenagers, it’s just this one really old guy.

Man, just for once I want the Doctor Who villain-of-the-week to end up being a guy in a suit trying to to scare people away from buried treasure, or attract customers to his amusement park or something

When Tony Stark was a boy, he fell into a very strange cave.

Wed, 02 May 2012 00:52:31 +0100

When Tony Stark was a boy, he fell into a very strange cave.

conorjh: When I’m asked how many children I have I answer three, but I think...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 22:26:34 +0100

conorjh: When I’m asked how many children I have I answer three, but I think...:

conorhoughton:

When I’m asked how many children I have I answer three, but I think four. Our second child, Aoife, was triploid, she had three of each chromosome instead of the usual two. This is different to trisomy, an extra copy of a single chromosome, Aoife had an extra copy of every chromosome. A baby with…

I’ve solved the Children’s Hospital issue, and a...

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 14:30:05 +0000

I’ve solved the Children’s Hospital issue, and a couple of other things besides.