===========================
July 13, 2010

Hackers infiltrated my virtual life last night around 3am. They broke into my email account and sent the following awkwardly worded message to everyone in my address book:

My Plight!!!

I'm writing this with tears in my eyes,my family and I came down here to London, United Kingdom for a short vacation.unfortunately,we were mugged at the park of the hotel where we stayed,all cash and credit card were stolen off us but luckily for us we still have our passports with us.

We've been to the Embassy and the Police here but they're not helping issues at all and our flight leaves in few hours from now but we're having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won't let us leave until we settle the bills. Well I really need your financially assistance..Please, let me know if you can help us out?

% Am freaked out at the moment!!%

Gmail is fairly adept at saving addresses, so the message went to, I imagine, everyone I have ever messaged about anything. Customer service lines, craigslist ads I have responded to, the Research Club blog, prospective bosses at jobs I never got, the law office I used to work at. I don't have an alternate email account any more (Yahoo sensibly deletes you after [x] years), so I have to wait 24 hours for Google to ask me my magic questions and hopefully then I can begin the task of taking back my life.

VARIOUS INTERESTING POINTS ABOUT THIS

1. As far as I know Facebook is not the same company as Google (although it's SO HARD TO KNOW THESE DAYS), so I was a little weirded out that Facebook was hacked as well. Even more upsetting is after I attempted to reset my password (which you cannot do without an email address. Blast!) I think I have been deleted entirely from the network. I am quite upset about that though I'm not really sure why. Why does it bother me? I can just start again. Most of my "friends" really are my friends, they will not be difficult to find.

2. My bank, flickr/yahoo, twitter, this here website and etsy are all okay. There was no (as far as I can tell) virus attached to the message, it was just a pathetic attempt to get funds...somehow. The email didn't really specify how people should go about doing that.

3. I was able to find this out quickly for two reasons:

3a. I have A'non's email account at hand to make sure nothing important happens while he is away at the hippie fair. So I was able to read the plea and examine it for the syntactic eye sore that it is, and note (at least from where I'm sitting) that there was nothing attached.

3b. Because my "smart" phone had a bunch of errors that told me that my Google account had a password problem. It did indeed have a password problem. The problem was the password had been reset by someone who WAS NOT ME.

4. I can't decide what makes me more frustrated: the people who have called to let me know that my email has "probably been hacked", or the people who have called to ask worriedly why I'm in London and if I'm doing okay. I have thanked the former, because I really do appreciate the concern, but I am vaguely insulted that people fell for it. Honestly. If I were in a foreign country and had something bad happen to me, I would deal with it and the carry on. You know. Like I did in Vancouver when my car window was smashed in and everything was stolen. It sucked, and I needed money, but I did not "with tears in my eyes" email my entire address book with three exclamation points. I did what any sane person would do and called the police. Also my mommy.

4a. I can't reassure many people of this, because most of the people I connect with online are done so primarily via facebook, email or my blog. All the things I do not have access to until (hopefully) tomorrow.

5. Is it weird to feel violated? I think it might be yet I can't stop feeling that way. Technically all the hackers did was create a lot of chaos for me and some confusion for people I know. I had my "identity" stolen in the bank account sense of the phrase, years ago, but I've never had my "identity" as far as my virtual self compromised. It's much more complicated in a way. There is no 1-800 number to call and cancel my existing identity, no sympathetic CSR to assure me that this happens a lot, and that are procedures to fix it. I won't be sent a replacement identity in 5-7 business days. I have to go myself and frantically change all the passwords to all the places I CAN access. I have to think hard about the places I might have missed. And that takes time, and must be done after work, but it's not a crisis. Even though I believe firmly that potential illustration clients are swayed by competent web presence, most web-savy people understand that pleas to have money wired overseas have BOGUS written all over them and will be written off as "bummer she got hacked" rather than "that person is not trust worthy".

So I'm not sure what I'm so upset about. Is it that my morning ritual of coffee and drawing was commandeered by having to do a lot of dreary INTERNET stuff? Is it that I can't double check my work schedule or my self-inflicted art schedule, since both of those live in Google docs? Is it the sad fact that after being able to carry the internet around with my in my pocket I have to abstain from a few select virtual areas for ALMOST ONE WHOLE DAY? Sheesh. I think it's time to take my shoes off and stand in some mud, or feel the difference between redwood bark and douglas fir bark. Something. Something else. Something unrelated to this silly cyber world.

Love,

Maggie, the REAL kumquat.

===========================
July 1, 2010

Some exciting things to report. First, I have (finally) started painting pictures from my sketch-notes I took on my most recent vacation. I will be sharing them, as they get finished, over at my blog so make sure you check it out. I am pretty pleased with how those pictures are turning out, I am trying some new things and it is all terribly exciting to me. Sally forth! Take a look!

Second, I am proud to announce that I have been featured in the latest issue of LiteracyHead -- an online magazine dedicated to reading and education. I am one of several images with a writing prompt, to get kids (well, or anybody really) thinking about where and when and what they read. Look under current issue > Write stARTs to figure out which picture fit the bill.

===========================
June 22, 2010

I always forget how LONG it takes to list things on etsy -- it's really simple, but it does take time to get everything neat and tidy.

1. First I have to psyche myself up to it, which honestly takes some doing. It's not like the individual listings are THAT expensive, but it gets me down to remember that it costs money to list things, particularly since I have a bad habit of waiting until I have about ten things to list. Silly Kumquat.

2. Then I take pictures of things. Sometimes. Sometimes I just rely on the scanned digital slide, but for things like zines and greeting cards that really doesn't work because natural light on a real object is much different than computer light on a flat object. When I have my wits about me I even like to have both scanned images AND real-world images of my paintings, so one can get a sense of what something "really" looks like. It's so hard with different computer monitors giving people different ideas of what an image's color is. So far (bless my soul, knock on wood) etsy people seem to understand that with the handmade and rough hewn comes a certain amount of variance, but I'm always worried someone will give me negative feedback because something wasn't explained well enough. (That alone can keep me from moving forward at step one, honestly.)

3. Then there's the photoshop session of weeding out the bad pictures, editing the good ones. Making sure they aren't huge, making sure the colors look as real as they can.

4. Then there's the listing itself, which is a five step process of drop down menus and tags and descriptions. I usually write my descriptions in a text file first so I can read it and make sure it flows okay. I also work out the pricing of things in a text file, taking into account what it cost to make the thing in the first place. Those text files get saved in the big ETSY LISTINGS 2010 folder on my hard drive, so if I list something similar later on I can pull up my notes and make sure I am staying consistent. It's all about consistency, people. And I have better things to do than remember what I priced my bird postcards at last year. I'm sure you do too.

5. Then the big reveal! There it is! I'm so proud! And now there's the running around to the various web-places to tell them that I listed something, because it seems like each new person who stops by to say "hi" stops by from a different place. And I would be embarrassed to leave anyone out.

But it's done! All the new things are listed, including the zines I made for the Portland Zine Symposium last year. I'm sorry it took so long to list them. Perhaps the five items up there will give you a sense of why I haven't, but of course it's no excuse. My humblest apologies, dear reader.

===========================
April 5, 2010

If you are in Portland and find yourself downtown, you should check out the Tribute Gallery and gaze lovingly at the art inside. In particular, Meat Lamb and Meat Chicken.

328 Northwest Broadway
Portland, OR 97209

It is a very quick show, I will only be there until the 17th. So hurry on down. And while you're at it visit the Chinese Garden. Make a day of it!

===========================
March 2, 2010

Just a quick note to confess: I have no idea how to check my host's server email. The email address that had been previously listed on my contact page is supposed to forward to my regular address, but I just tested it and it doesn't seem to be doing that. Or at least isn't doing it snappily.

So I changed it to my real address. If you've sent me something via that email and I haven't responded that's probably why, and I'm really sorry. It was certainly not my intent.

===========================
February 21, 2010

You can check my blog for the long version, but the long-story-short version is: surgery went fine. I am still in a lot of pain, but it's different pain than what I had before (swelling and discomfort, rather than nerve pinching).

This is the last week that my knee-picture will be at Reading Frenzy, so be sure to check it out if you haven't yet. If you haven't I can't really chide you, since what with my physical therapy schedule and trying to squeeze back into work, I haven't even see it. I am such a bad artist. I will go this week, promise. Even if you don't make it down there you should go to buy my meat animal postcards. I am so happy with how those turned out.

I'm in sort of hard-restart mode after this knee stuff. I had some good momentum beforehand, but now after about two weeks of being on painkillers and focusing all my energy on learning to walk it's been hard to reign in the bubbly, distracted mind. We're getting there though. Lots of warm-up doodles that may or may not find their way to etsy or to various undisclosed locations here in Portland. You have to stretch before you can run a marathon. Or ski down a fast hill in Whistler.

===========================
February 2, 2010

If you are in the Portland area you should go see my latest painting ("In sickness and in health") down at Reading Frenzy tomorrow. It is proud to be participating in the 11th annual Valentine Invitational.

Reading Frenzy
921 SW Oak St.
Portland, OR 97205
M-S: 11-7, S: 11-6

It will be there all month, but of course if you are a Team Player you will go down and bid on it tomorrow at the opening. Funds raised will donated to Special Education PTA of Portland, a local non-profit.

You should also go because I don't think I can -- I have a knee surgery scheduled Friday and will be spending much of tomorrow collecting my mother from the airport, getting my art stuff ready to come with me to outpatient bedrest, and generally trying to keep my cool. It's a very minor procedure, all the doctors I've seen have been very bored with my case (which is, I think, a good thing; I will take a boring, run of the mill medical procedure over an exciting one any day,) but of course having a Problem requiring surgery is NOT very minor and boring to ME. So keeping it real is job one. That and recovering. And painting.

===========================
January 27, 2010

There's a new painting in the gallery. There are three other unfinished beauties sitting on my desk.

There are some exciting announcements I will make soon, but I have to wait until everything is completely confirmed. Which is hard for me. I always want to come right out and talk about things.

===========================
January 5, 2010

Good morning, Angels.

A few years ago I was sitting at the classifieds desk with a friend-and-colleague. It was a slow day, not many calls, so we began talking about this new Twitter thing. Micro-blogging. Telling the world what one was doing while one was doing it. It all seemed a bit too meta to me, and trying to wrap my head around it made my head spin. (It still does to be honest.) We both signed up right there and sent each other tweets. Or rather, just made tweets so we could see them. If memory serves, they were simply "I don't know what this is, JG." "I don't either Mags!"

That account didn't last long, particularly since I kept getting "followed" by "people" who followed 345 people but only had one tweet that usually looked like Oh man watch me do something profane on my webcam, also here's a few anatomy references. Creepy. You're creepy, Twitter.

I still get followed by these "people", but now I usually block them so in case they update again I don't have to see it. Or rather, I used to, until I forgot my password. I happily deleted these notification emails for months until some local gallery connections and the Research Club followed me, which made me feel very guilty about being a dinosaur about this whole twitter thing. For heaven's sake. If Scott Simon can twitter, surely I can too.

Thus it was that I went and reset my password. So now you can follow me on Twitter if you want to. simplykumquat. I promise to log in and say some stuff sometimes. I plan on mostly using it for little updates about what I'm working on, any gallery shows I happen to snag, and of course little mundane observations I make in meat-space, because observation is key to the scientific process.

===========================
December 6, 2009

Christmas is coming, the goose is looking thin
Instead of gold and silver we've aluminum and tin.
I'm making all my presents, but send them in the mail
and in case you haven't realized, postage bites me in the tail.

But enough about me.

Are you really going to send your friends and loved ones some sort of fancy electronic gadget? What about all the petroleum used to make the plastic bits on that thing? What about the poor kids in Indonesia who have to assemble it? Worse still, are you sending them yet another gift certificate? Have you no heart?!

Give a guilt-free gift that was made by hand.
Give your loved ones a piece of an artist's soul for the holidays.

There are a few New And Exciting Things coming soon at my little etsy store, but in the meantime, please enjoy slashed prices all around.

(With apologies to my non-Christmas friends. You can enjoy the slashed prices too, guaranteed to be 100% holiday-free.)

===========================
October 7, 2009

Oh there you are. How are you?

Here's a quick list of things I have been up to since last we spoke:

1. Participated in the 9th Annual Portland Zine Symposium, including designing all promotional material, manning a portion of a table at all three days of the event and generally being quietly helpful. It was a remarkable experience overall, I met many helpful people and I learned a great deal from the process. Not to mention all these cool little buttons and stickers I can include in portfolio mailers.

2. Had a ultimately unrewarding commission experience that caused me to rethink self-marketing and work pro-bono. That is, I need to seek opportunities that actually make sense for me rather than just blindly say yes to things that fall in my lap. I think I knew that anyway, but that was a great refresher course.

3. Started to pay more attention to Illustration Friday and began making a conscious effort to participate. Generating material from ideas that are not initially my own is a fantastic exercise.

4. Became involved with the Real Bridge and Tower Club, including becoming a contributor to the Research Club blog. (You'll will notice as of press date I still have not contributed anything. This will change in the next few days.)

5. Reorganized the artwork here, added some new things. Hopefully from here on out the fare here will look very similar to what can be seen on my facebook and blog galleries.

6. Somewhere in there my car window was smashed in during a trip and a Rather Expensive camera was stolen. As none of that was covered by my insurance, I am also sort of trying to organize all the work that is for sale. Probably more things will be available either at my etsy store or directly on this website via paypal. Just so you know. Those walls of yours are looking pretty bare. And I don't think there are enough postcards in your life.

7. I have rediscovered classical piano. I don't know how it's managed to slip by my attention for so long, but at least now I am paying attention. I have two albums from the library that would be wearing through the wax if they were vinyl.

8. I have been reading Paul Klee's journals and it has been very stimulating. I would highly recommend it if you, like me, have lots of uncertainties sometimes about this whole life thing. In and out of the context of being an artist.

That's about it. I have been thinking of doing another run of small art pieces in and around the neighborhood (see previous post). It did not elicit enormous response, but the one message I did get was heartwarming. Maybe I'll wait for the rain and gloom to set in.

Peace, love and a maroon star fish,

Maggie

===========================
April 15, 2009

Okay. Listen up, Portlanders.

I have sixteen small pieces of art sitting on my desk. Very small. Most of them are around two to four inches square. Some are on cardboard, some on mat board. Some are little characters of mine, some are just things I like, and one in particular is an impression of a painting I saw in someone's house the other day. They aren't particularly polished or amazing, but they're sort of fun and would be even fun-er to find mysteriously sitting on a sidewalk somewhere.

You can take a look at what they look like here.

Here in the next few days I am going to go and hide them around the neighborhood and near landmarks. Surprise art!

If you are in Portland, Oregon and find one of these you are welcome to add a photo to the flickr group and help document the fun. But either way I hope if you do see them you will think of them as a sort of vase-of-flowers in the city. Trying to make the world just a little more fun to look at.

===========================
April 14, 2009

Hello friends.

I am cooking up a little hair-brained scheme.

Inspired by Keri Smith's guerilla art advocacy, my love of finding the unexpected, and the millions upon millions of little crevices I pass on my daily walks around the neighborhood, I think semi-regularly I am going to paint or draw tiny little thumbnail pieces and hide them in various places in Portland.

I will show you what they look like before I take them out over at the flickr group.

===========================
March 24, 2009

Hello friends.

Pretty soon, a poster I drew for the Portland Zine Symposium will be out on the town, which is pretty neat. If you saw it, or saw my name on the forum and found your way here, welcome.

PZS this year will be July 24, 25, and 26 at the PSU Smith Memorial Ballroom. I should be there with some zines I've done, plus some postcards and paintings to brighten your day.

===========================
March 3, 2009

Hello darlings.

Starting today, there are postcards of both my Rhino and Bird drawings available at my etsy store.

These things are pretty awesome if I do say so myself. They are professionally printed on cardstock, semi-gloss, blank on the back. And of course, they enable you to correspond to people succinctly and cheaply.

Or, if you're a little more selfish about pretty things, you can keep it for yourself and smile. I won't tell.

===========================
March 1, 2009

Hello there friends.

I just now signed up for this thing, am struggling to figure it all out. So please be patient with me as I move in.