New mini collages and the Zazzle products I made with them

For the past few months, I've been deep-cleaning and reorganizing my art studio. In that time, I've unearthed so many magazines and catalogs that I saved for their collaging potential. I've finally reached the point where I've been able to spend more studio time creating than cleaning. Here are some of the collages I made recently:

Earlier this week, I scanned them and made a whole lot of new Zazzle products that feature them. You can see some of the designs below:

I'm really happy with the way they turned out. It's always exciting to have something new to share on here. I've also got a couple deals to share. Get 30% off your first Zazzle order of $25 or more at this link: https://refer.zazzlereferral.com/Tiffany12805011

or

Get 40% off cards with coupon code JUNESAVING4U. 

Here's the link to my abstract art Zazzle store:

https://www.zazzle.com/store/mixedmediaartdesign

Happy shopping!

NFT = Not for Tiffany

The more I learn about NFTs, the less I like them. This is not an invitation for anyone to "educate" me on their supposed virtues; I don't see them. They leave me cold. The concept turns me off. It doesn't move me. 

I am convinced that anyone who has tried to convince me that I should make NFT art doesn't understand my work at all and probably hasn't even read my artist statement. How could I make art in a way that has such an enormous carbon footprint when my whole premise is based on using recycled materials? It would undermine everything I'm doing.

Beyond the philosophical/conceptual aspect of things, the aesthetics are another consideration. My work is sculptural and it isn't as impactful when rendered 2-dimensionally.

As I've said before,

photography will never do justice to art that is textured and painted with metallic, iridescent, and fluorescent pigments. You have to see it in person. You have to see the way the light hits it from different angles, and the variety of shadows it casts on itself and on the wall. It has to be experienced.

I won't judge other artists for doing what they feel they need to do to survive. I don't feel like it's my place to do so. But I do have a question for prospective NFT collectors:

Do you really want to collect art, or do you just want a widget to bet on?

If you've managed to make a fortune from your cryptocurrency endeavors, why not cash some of it out and buy some physical, tangible art from me that you can display on your wall? Go ahead. Just remember that I take US dollars, not Bitcoin.

Further reading:

What do NFTs mean for art? And for the Earth

Here is the article you can send to people when they say “but the environmental issues with cryptoart will be solved soon, right?”

NFTs are not utopian, not environmentally friendly, yet seductive to many

The Future Is Not Only Useless, It’s Expensive

Who Goes Crypto?

Why Does NFT Art Look So Bad?

The NFT's Aura, or, Why Is NFT Art So Ugly?

Why Traditional Artists Should Ignore the NFT Hype (For Now)

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Don't threaten me with a good time

 In 2016, a Black man named Larry Mitchell issued a challenge to the racist trolls who had been leaving "Go back to Africa" comments on social media posts. 

"Put your money where your hate is," he told them on the GoFundMe page he set up to raise money for a trip to the African countries he was interested in visiting.

Unfortunately there are still plenty of trolls telling anyone who's not white to go back to where they came from (even if they were born in the USA), and telling anyone who wants to change America for the better that if they don't like it, they should leave. Now, thanks to the pandemic, there's a new troll epithet that comes up whenever anyone expresses dismay at the prospect of ending mask mandates: "if you don't like it, just stay home."

Just stay home? Don't threaten me with a good time. I have a beautiful home. Home is where my sewing machine, craft supplies, doll collection, and windowsill garden are. I would much rather spend my time there instead of struggling to find an elevator that I can take alone since most of the people who work in my office building don't wear masks anymore now that the city's mandate has been lifted. And do you think I enjoy eating my lunch outside, even when it's snowing or raining? I don't! But I also don't want to get COVID! And right now, despite however the CDC wants to spin it, the transmission rates are looking like this in Chicago:

When I've shared my concerns online, they have often gone unnoticed. The sudden ending of the mask mandate for public transportation didn't come out of nowhere. I saw an article about it at the end of March, but when I shared it on Twitter, nobody paid attention except for a troll:

And now that an incompetent, unqualified, Trump-appointed Florida judge has ruined any prospect of safety on the public transportation I rely on to get to work in a city where the cheapest parking by my job is $15 and gas costs almost $5 a gallon, at a time when misguided environmentalists are plotting to deflate SUV tires, I wish that I could have a grant so that I could be an artist-in-residence at home until the pandemic is over. So if my posts make you uncomfortable and you wish I would just shut up and go away and stop talking about the pandemic and the importance of wearing masks and just stay home, pay me and I will stay home. Here's my PayPal. $250,000 should be plenty.