Madison, NJ chamber, art council and schools bring community together with holiday window painting

 

“[Window paintings] will not compete with your window display, but help to enhance it… The window painting will help tie in all the stores and create a beautiful and festive atmosphere throughout our business district for the holidays.”

– James Burnet, executive director, Main Street, Madison, NJ.

I am looking for a similar project in which several stores on a same stretch of a street would have a thematically coordinated, serialized window paintings. If anyone know of a neighborhood community and business organizer who can spearhead an effort like this, please contact Sarah Morrigan.

Five old-fashioned arts to grow your business today

Today it seems as though all what one must do to grow his or her business is to get online, find as many Facebook friends and tweet every other minute.  While social media and Web 2.0 have dramatically transformed the way we do and grow business, it is important never to forget why they have done so: They have moved the marketing from primarily a one-way street (such was the case with broadcast advertising and older web-based marketing) to a moderately unregulated and decentralized relationship, or conversation, coming and going in all directions.

This brings the business back to the spirit of a more traditional age, when most shopkeepers and salespeople grew their wealth out of conversations, relationship, words-of-mouths and their reputations in the wider society.

It does not take an expensive campaign or a rocket science to cultivate such a beneficial relationship. Here are five easy and inexpensive ways to move your business from purely a pursuit of sales figures to a solid foundation for a long-term prosperity.

Read more on Biznik.com: http://biznik.com/members/sarah-morrigan/articles/five-old-fashioned-arts-for-your-business-today

See live window painting in action on Nov. 19

I will be working on a relatively large window painting project on Thursday, November 19 from around 9 a.m. till done (in about 3 hours) in Johns Landing, South Portland.

This is a chance for those who would like to see how it is done. I will also be giving out 25% discount on anyone who stops by and makes a reservation for their own location on the spot.

The method I use for window painting eliminates the need for toxic chemicals or possible damages to the windows. The non-toxic paint, durable for about six months once dry without discoloration, can be washed off with soapy water and typical consumer window cleansers (such as Windex) albeit with some patience, so there is no need for paint thinners or other volatile chemicals that can harm people’s health and the environment. It also reduces the possibility of damages and scratches to the windows.

It will be at the Water Tower Postal Annex on Southwest Boundary Street between Corbett and Macadam on November 19.

How to make your own stylish business card with free software

As many new business operators soon discover, there are simply never too many business cards once they get serious about promoting what they do and have to offer. From local networking groups to coffee shop bulletin boards, there are many places where handing out or exchanging business cards is a must in creating leads and gaining clients.

Some business operators would still like to make their own business cards with their own computers and printers for a variety of reasons: scalability in expenses, flexibility and speed.

Read more at http://biznik.com/articles/stylish-do-it-yourself-business-cards-on-the-cheap-and-quick

Recommended software:

• Scribus
• Inkscape

What else you need

• Pre-perforated business card stock paper such as Avery 8879; or
• Nice hard card stock paper and paper cutter (desktop rotary cutter is good).
• This template

a big white fluffy cat.

Inkscape 0.46

Download this image (Scalable Vector Graphic format)

Turn your cat picture into a vector file clip art — there are hundreds of uses for it. Now for $40 for one picture, or $100 for three. Contact Sarah for details.

Iridia Creative website glitch with some browsers

It appears that some browsers have difficulty displaying the Iridia Creative website correctly. I have been testing the site with a number of browsers on multiple operating systems, including the latest versions of Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera, Microsoft Internet Explorer, K-Meleon, Amaya, and Epiphany.

This may be due to some browsers not interpreting CSS as it should.

If you cannot see the text, if the text goes invisible or instead shows Unicode numbers (small numbers in boxes), use the no-CSS, lite graphic version below:

• Iridia Creative home
• Iridia Creative graphic designs
• Iridia Creative fine art
• Iridia Creative window paintings and signage
• Iridia Creative contact (the webmail form may not work in this version)

Also the problem may be resolved by forcing your browser to ignore CSS and use fonts of your choice (Arial, Helvetica and FreeSans should look okay). Since this problem is largely limited to Firefox and other Firefox-derived browsers in Linux, try this if you are using Linux:

Edit (Alt-E) > Preferences (n) > Content tab > Fonts and Colors > Advanced button > de-select “Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of my selections above”

Press OK, go back to Preferences > Content

> Fonts and Colors > Colors button > select “Use system colors”, deselect “Allow pages to choose their own colors…”

Additionally, Opera 9.64 for Linux displays the site correctly but it may not be in your distribution’s repository. You can download the installer file from Opera’s website. (This will involve a knowledge of unpacking a .tar.gz file, then running the installation shell script by using chmod and ./ inside the shell.)

Art show opening Sunday, June 28

The Five Rogues plus One

a group show

featuring
Darren W. Alexander | Troy Ennis | Larry Patrik May | Rick Miles | C. J. White

with

Sarah A. Morrigan

June 28 – August 17, 2009

Opening Reception: Sunday, June 28, 2009 – Noon

First Presbyterian Church of Portland

1200 SW Alder St

“Green Iris”: Environmentally sustainable practices at Iridia Creative

Iridia Creative Productions is committed to a “green” business practice in purple iris style!

• Low-power computing equipment. The newly purchased computer consumes on average 20 to 25 watts, about a half of a typical computer, to reduce the carbon footage and thermal emission.
• Non-toxic paints. Whenever possible certified non-toxic paints are used — especially for window painting
• Electronic, paperless billing. To reduce paper use all invoices are sent and processed electronically.
• Sourcing recycled art supplies. Many of fine art works are made from recycled or reused supplies to reduce waste in landfill and to save energy needed in production of new art supplies.
• Commitment to open-source computing platforms and commercial application of open-source software. GNU/Linux and other open-source projects help people reuse older computers. At Iridia Creative Productions almost all work is done on open-source platform.
• Encouraging bicycling and public transit use.

Summer creative IT crash course series, 6/23-7/28

This six-week series of free workshops will focus on practical application of intermediate computer skills for career development and personal advancement.

When: Mondays, June 23, 30, July 7, 14, 21, 28; 1:30 p.m.-3:15 p.m.
Where: Julia West House Workshops (www.juliawest.org), 2nd Floor Computer Lab, 522 SW 13th Ave, Portland 97205 (TriMet #15, #20; Portland Streetcar; MAX) — The location is not wheelchair accessible; there is a steep and narrow staircase.

Instructor: Sarah A. Morrigan (Iridia Creative Productions, www.iridiacreative.summerhost.info)

Course outlines
Weeks 1-3: Basic website building and maintenance, with focus on HTML 4.01 and new HTML 5.0; how to use File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to upload contents; online privacy; search engine optimization (SEO); integration of website with weblogs and social networking applications.

Week 4: Experience the world, expand the horizons – finding multicultural resources and non-mainstream media from around the world; making use of no-cost educational opportunities such as Open Courseware (OCW) offered by many universities; free classic literature and reference materials on the web.

Week 5: Digital Creativity – Introductory, hands-on exploration on open-source creativity software such as Inkscape (vector drawing), Scribus (desktop publishing), Audacity (MP3 editing/podcasting), Skencil (image drawing), GIMP (graphic image manipulation/photograph editing), etc.

Week 6: Mindful, meaningful social networking – How to use popular social networking sites for career advancement and community building.

All six sessions are free. Due to limited space available pre-registration is highly encouraged. Contact Patty Warman at 503-222-6564.

Free public domain clip art by Sarah

Check out Sarah’s new clip art… and best of all it is free for you to use. These pictures are all drawn with Inkscape 0.46 on ASUS Eee PC 900 running on Easy Peasy.