“Art scene in Indiana? Who knew. LOL” This was from a conversation last year with a friend of mine from art school. Yes, there is an art scene here. It’s a quiet art scene, but it’s here. We get overshadowed by Chicago, of course.

When I started creating artwork again, after nearly a dozen years of no art, “a real job” and raising a family, I felt like I was the only artist here. When I started searching for places to show my work, I found them. The artists. Quietly toiling on their own work. And I started meeting them. And most of them are not so quiet. There are lots of artists here in NWI, at all different levels of skill and profession, working in a wide range of media. And there is, among many, a camaraderie, a network of support.

Local towns and cities are beginning to see the opportunities to enhance their communities through the arts. Crown Point has the Arts Walk around the square. Several towns, Highland, Whiting, Dyer, have organized Arts Committees or Councils. Looser organized groups are meeting in coffee shops and breweries finding ways to show their work outside of mainstream galleries. SideCar gallerist Michael Kaysen thinks the Hammond Art scene is “young and rife with possibility and opportunity” but that it could use the support of the city. He would like to see the creation of a Department of Cultural Affairs.

Downtown Hammond is beginning to see some positive changes. “There has always been an art scene with SS9 and the Towle Theater,” says Mary McClelland, gallery manager for South Shore Arts. The Hammond Public Library has a long history of art shows. Paul Henry’s Art Gallery has been open for three years and The Blue Room Café now shows art as an extension of Paul Henry’s. Further north is SideCar Gallery, which draws in visitors and media attention, not only from NWI, but Chicago as well. Toss in this year’s arrival of HAC and Merge and there are eight venues along one mile of the Hohman Avenue corridor showing art regularly.

David Mueller, owner of Paul Henry’s Art Gallery, has always felt that cross promotion would help everyone. And with that, the Downtown Hammond Art Tour was imagined. By the first week of April, he had everyone on board for an arts walk. “I am just hoping that the various fans, friends and patrons that we all have developed will come out and view the rest of us as a group. There is no doubt in my mind that a “district” is more powerful than single entities in drawing interest from those who hold potential value to our goals.”  Dan Whiteman of HAC agrees, “We echo the existing sentiment that we are stronger together than we are apart and we’re grateful to be able to work with so many amazing art studios and artists and do everything we can to see others succeed.”

On Saturday, May 19, all eight locations will be open 11am-3pm. Many will have artist receptions during the Tour. If we want to have events and opportunities like this in NWI, then we need to support these venues. Show some love to your peers who are working to create this. What would you need to do to make an arts scene in your own community?

Shameless plug: I’ll be at Substation No.9, for the opening reception of my drawing show History Repeats so stop by and say hello!

 

Thus, I dare you to guess all 15 of the famous logos in black and white below and remember… the rule is to guess, not go on Google images and cheat. If you happen to know who the designer/firm of a particular logo is, feel free to add that to your answer for extra brownie points. Please leave your guesses in the comment section.

Logo 1:

Logo 2:

Logo 3:

Logo 4:

Logo 5:

Logo 6:

Logo 7:

Logo 8:

Logo 9:

Logo 10:

Logo 11:

Logo 12:

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Logo 14:

Logo 15:

 

Below is a collection of 14 blank templates that you can use to mock up your work. Use it for your portfolio, client presentations or your own personal work. It’s a great way to see your work as a system and how each piece interacts with the next. All the files are high res and free to use however you want. If you have templates like this and want to share them please let us know at info@nwicreative.org and we will post them for others to use. Post a link in the comments below and show us how you used these templates. Have fun.

DOWNLOAD 76.9MB

 

Over Here! Announcement:

I’m pleased to announce that we have an additional curator to our publication. Fabio Sasso is the founder of Abduzeedo. A creativity blog packed with great work, tutorials and more. Check it out and follow them on twitter if you are not already doing so. Link

W is for…

The excitement of our last N is for… post has brought me to thinking what else can we use this awesomely made letter forms in. I’m going to continue the series N, W, and lastly I. And then feature some of the combination of the letters in our Over Here publication. This would be a great way to extend the love. All you have to do is create a W with out using a font. So no running to the computer and typing something out and submitting it. These letter forms have to be made by you. Paint, drawn, photograph whatever. Then submit your custom made letter to info@nwicreative.org as a 600×600 72dpi, .jpg. Along with your name, twitter and link to your website, if you have one. Look forward to what you guys come up with this time. Deadline to submit is Sunday, May 20 and posting Monday, May 21. Any questions post them in the comments below.

Super Secret Lunch Club:

Lastly, I want to announce the start of a new series of meet-ups/lunch/hang out and chill in your hood…get togethers. In an attempt to take NWIcreative to an analog form, these luncheons will only be announced via a super secret email(carrier pigeons are not available). To get on that email list, all you have to do is sign up through the form in the upper right hand side of this site. The first announcement with the location and time will be this Friday. Sign up to be in the know and join us for our first gathering. You won’t want to miss it.

 

Ryan Wake: Troubleshooting dataTable styles and testing Twitter Bootstrap….

Judith Mayer/Keyword Design: Logo Design/Postcard Design for Shoe Renew & Bags Too!

Joe Gonzalez: Drawing type of  a new wall installation
 

Dawn Diamantopoulos: Detail, roots, work in progress, acrylic on canvas

 

I usually keep plenty of drawing pads and notebooks near me so I can write down all of the many ideas that float through my head. It is always a good idea to have a diary of ideas, but lately I’ve noticed a disturbing thing, I have tons of ideas but nothing to show from them. Ideas are wonderful, they are almost perfect, so perfect that many times we don’t want to ruin them by trying to execute them. Or even worse, we might not have the time to actually try them out, or so we think.

There are many days that I just sit back and think to myself, “I don’t have anything to do.” Those are the times that it is important to flip through the many ideas that I’ve been holding on to and just pick one and see what happens. Sometimes our best ideas are the ones that we never actualize. While it might not be possible to do everything that we plan on doing, it is important to at least give it a try.

As an art teacher I see plenty of my students throw away plenty of unfinished pictures that have promise. Most of the time it is because a line is out of place, or they tell me that “they don’t like it anymore.” I know that feeling, but the best way to improve on something is to actually finish something. It is hard to improve if you don’t have anything to compare it to. The same this is for ideas that go unfinished. By picking one project and seeing it through from beginning to end, you can grow. You can see your successes and you can see what you need to improve on. There is no motivator to do better work than seeing something that you have completed.

This post is a great example. I started on this in April and I almost didn’t get back to writing this. But in order for me to get better at writing, I have to have something to look back on. This applies to everything that we do, so don’t forget that an idea is a terrible thing to waste.

 

I love sites like the daily drop cap and a letter a day, great sites to find some interesting type treatments.

Let’s do something fun. Between today and next Thursday I invite you to submit a letter N of your own. It’s fun easy and something you can brag to your friends about. Ok, maybe not the last one.

Here is what you have to do if you want to participate:

Create a capital letter N

Send a 600x600px, 72 dpi image to info@nwicreative.org by Thursday, May 10, 2012

Include your name, website, and twitter handle.

The letter has to be a created by you. nothing that you typed out from a font off of acidfonts.com. Paint it, draw it, photograph it, illustrator it, photoshop it, whatever! It just needs to be created by you.

Look forward to seeing your N’s if you want to tweet about it, use the hashtag #NisforNWI. Happy creating.

 

I will try to stick to these principles moving forward, for the rest of the year…

• Stop being a silo: Get feedback on my work. It’s funny how I do this for students and co-workers every day, except myself. After ten years in the game I still need to be smacked in the face every now and then. Search for that real time feedback. Create a team you can hit up on a whim for instant feedback. Three to four people is plenty.
• Stop clicking on the “60 thousand inspirational pieces of crap that you can’t create”, tweets and blog post. I’m a sucker for those links. It’s like crack sometimes, clear your visual pallet and get back to your own head space and stop trying to find inspiration in what a random link can give you.
• Start a personal project. I do this on the daily. But now my personal projects need to become deeper, richer and engaging. Do a personal project that everyone can benefit from and reap the rewards of completion. Nothing is better in my opinion then to kick out a personal project and see what that idea you had, come to life.
• Stop and think. Thinking is the hardest thing to do, that’s why so few do it. Take time to reflect on life and the meaning of what you do. Creating something meaningful will outlast you and that’s the kind of work you want to leave behind.

I’m not saying this is the way to enlightenment…this is just a theory that I plan on taking a stab at. Please comment below and let’s hear your thoughts and add to the list if you will.

 

he cliff notes:

Submissions for Over Here! went well. More than 40 artist, designer and photographers submitted work totaling  300+ pieces of work.

Sign up for our email list. Huge thanks to Adam Groom for setting up our mail chimp email collection thingy. From here on out all major announcements, updates, and events will go out via that email list. If you want to be in the know and get that info then sign up.

Lastly, just a big thank you to everyone that has supported the Over Here project, everyone that is visited the site, commented, tweeted and retweeted our info. Please also join us on facebook and stay connected on linkedin. Thank you. Drop cap from dailydropcap.com