New Music! Kate Havenevik

I'll get back to our normal Working Tuesday post later, but in the meantime there's some new music from a very interesting artist you might enjoy. Kate Havenevik is a Norwegian artist who has had a couple songs appear on Grey's Anatomy. You can hear more about the project by following this link and watching her video.

I first heard of her listening to Pandora - a website operated by the Music Genome Project that groups music by their structure and sound and creates a playlist based on your personal music preferences. (If you've not seen it, you should check it out!) She has also worked with Imogen Heap. I know. Shocking that I'd like someone who has worked with the Heap.

So if you want to be a part of bringing new music to life, here's your chance! It's not often we get the opportunity to be a part of the process and see the birth of new music!

Working Tuesday: Selling your creations

You've found your passion. Maybe it's gluing bottle caps into a wreath for Christmas? Maybe it's crocheting flowers into lapel pins? Possibly hand sewing together tiny little pocket books for use as a journal? Whatever it is, it's your passion. And your passion is rapidly piling up in your living room, your spare room, in boxes under your bed? Or maybe your friends have started to ask you if you'll make them a bottle cap wreath for their doors? Then, comes the dreaded phrase, "You should SELL these!" And the idea starts to grow in your head. And you start dreaming about ways to help finance your passion rather than using up your entire $10 a week in spending money every. single. week.

Yeah, I've been there. I get it. You have that need to create. You see designs where other people see piles of tchotchkes (yes, I had to look up the spelling of that too). But you have a passion and you have to create. So what's next?

We're lucky. In this day and age, there are many options open to us online that weren't available even 10 years ago. And the easiest and best known way I've found is etsy.com. Etsy - I pronounce it et-see (like set without the s and then like what you do when you use your eyes) - makes it ridiculously easy to set up an account. They have easy to follow directions available at the site.

Before you set up an account, however, think about a couple things. Most importantly? Your name. What's in a name? Your identity. This is what gives people an idea of what you sell. It's a way to convey a feeling about who you are and what you do. It's called branding. And though this may change in the near future, you can't change your name once you've picked it. So think long and hard about your name. It'll stick with you for a while.

For me, I wanted a name that conveyed timelessness while provoking emotion. I created a list of names, passed them around to friends who knew me and my work and asked them to vote on the name they thought fit me best. I even got several suggestions that were great. It's like doing market research without paying for a fancy focus group. I decided on the word Swoon because I like what it conveys - a flair for the dramatic, a bit of romance and - I admit it - it's also the name of an Imogen Heap song so the word was top of mind. And if Immi is using it, it's got to be cool, right?? Studios was both easy and difficult. We tried "designs" or "creations" - one was taken and another didn't fit. I ended up with the alliteration of Swoon Studio, that when I looked for the URL, it was taken. And thus Swoon Studios was born.

In the next couple weeks, I'll focus on the process of how and where you can start to sell your creations. In the meantime, start thinking about your name!

*Non-Swoon photos property of NewPrehistory, TheBroochBoutique and Zipper8Design, all etsy.com sellers. Click on the pictures to see their shops!

Inspiration Thursday! Imogen Heap.

In my many, many years of schooling I found the best way to get myself to concentrate was to put on some music. Quite honestly, if I didn't have that music going in my head, I'd be distracted by the many other things I could be doing instead of say, writing a paper or reading that last 300 pages or whatever. I'd procrastinate like crazy. I'd even ~gasp~ clean the house to keep from sitting down to get the studying done. Music definitely provided the distraction that became the focus.

It seems the more complex the subject, the more complex the music needed to be. Just as most art has many layers, so does music. And the best music will inspire art. I suppose that's also true vice versa!

In recent years, the artist I tend to go to for inspiration is Imogen Heap. She layers her music like an watercolor artist layers color. Sometimes it's delicate, wispy even. Other times it's slapstick fun. Sometimes it has a biblical reference complete with samples of locusts. Other times it reminds us of a cause. And there are not many of her pieces I would not listen to every day of the week over and over again. She just doesn't get old for me.

Her newest CD starts with First Train Home, which she says is about being at a party but wanting to be home:

Temporal deadzone where clocks are barely breathing, Yet no one cares to notice for all the yelling, All night clamor to hold it together. I want to play - don't wait - forms in the hideaway. I want to get on with getting on with things. I want to run in fields, paint the kitchen, love someone. And I can't do any of that here, can I?

Her words paint pictures in my mind - what creativity to describe clocks as barely breathing! What about Hide and Seek's, the dust has only just begun to form crop circles in the carpet? Glittering Cloud gives locusts who are about to obliterate more vegetation a voice of reason: Save me, oh save me, save me from myself, Before I hurt somebody else again. And The Walk comes to mind many times in my life (usually when shopping): I feel a weakness coming on.

In recent days, I've been thinking about the "Upcycled Movement" and how we use things others discard to create art. "Immi" has an interesting take on our treatment of this Earth - and it's from the point of view of a mother:

The cold shoulder, folded arms, the looking up. You've never listened and carry on, careless, regardless. This is not a fire drill and if we hold any hope, It's harmonic connection, in stereo symbiosis. These Legoland empires choking out mine, Now you're everywhere, everywhere multiplying around me child. A strain on my heart, This rock can't tolerate anymore. Stop this right away. Put that down and clean this mess up. End of conversation. Put your back in it and make it up to me now.

This really does remind me we've got to be stewards of the resources we've been given and need to be careful to clean up our messes - and I mean that in a purely NON-political way. I love seeing artists who are taking that concept and making art with that in mind. The other day I saw an Anthropologie store window decorated with cut up, spray painted 2-liter bottles that had been shaped into flowers and strung together with old bicycle wheels. From far away, it looked like flowers. Up close, you could see the bottles. How clever!

For me, it's taking buttons that have been pulled off of clothing for generations and making them into wearable art. It's finding the textures and designs that will create a new whole. It's finding colors that are striking and appealing. And I love it. But I digress....


Inspiration can be found in many ways. Music is a wonderful way to find inspiration. Imogen Heap is an amazing artist who often inspires me. And let's face it, who doesn't love someone with the chutzpah to show up at the Grammys with a lily pad and Gary the Grammy Frog? Oh yeah, she's THAT girl!