My Ounce of Prevention

© Mark W. Pettigrew
It's been said that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". Today, I find myself meditating on the meaning of that saying, particularly with regard to its relevance to the issue of homelessness.

If you're a Christian, you probably find yourself thinking from time to time about what heaven will be like. You may be one of those who bought Randy Alcorn's book "Heaven", or the more recent book "Heaven is For Real" by Todd Burpo and Lynn Vincent. You may be convinced by Colton Burpo's childhood story of having been taken to heaven (in the midst of a medical crisis where his father thought that he might die). Or you may have your own ideas about what heaven will be like.

You may even disbelieve in heaven, if you are not a Christian believer. But even if that's the case, I think that the chances are extremely good that your vision of what heaven is like, or might be like if only you could believe in heaven, does not include homeless shelters.

You may prefer to shut your eyes and pretend that homelessness isn't an issue, but wishful thinking will not make the problem go away. In fact, the more you try to ignore the problem, the more likely the problem is to persist.

According to the Bible, there will be no homeless shelters in heaven, for the simple reason that there will be no homeless people in need of such shelters. . According to John 14:2, Jesus is preparing "many mansions" for those who will destined to go to heaven. Who needs a shelter, when you have a mansion?

The Bible describes Christ as our "hope of glory". Heaven will indeed be glorious! But lest we forget, we're not there yet. Here on earth, poverty remains a big problem. Homelessness exists because poverty exists. Some personal problems (such as substance abuse) can increase the likelihood of becoming homeless, but the truth is that no one is immune. Not even Jesus, who was perfect, was immune to homelessness when he walked the earth. Speaking about Jesus, the Bible tells us the following in Luke 9:58: "Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to rest his head."

In his song "You Did Not Have A Home", Christian singer Rich Mullins sang:

Birds have nests, foxes have dens
But the hope of the whole world rests
On the shoulders of a homeless man...

Compared with unbelievers, Christian churches and parachurch organizations have been relatively good about ministering to the needs of the poor, the homeless, and the down and out. Even so, I can't help but think that we believers aren't doing nearly as much as we ought to do.  "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven" says the Lord's prayer. To pray the God's will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven, is to hold extremely high standards (as we ought to do). It is sheer hypocrisy to pray that God's will be done here on earth, if one is not doing God's will here on earth!  

God has has already done far more than any person could reasonably expect him to do, and he continues to do so. Now it's time for you to do your part. Prayer is good; but if that's all you are doing for the kingdom, then I say that it's time for you to get off you butt, and start doing! I call it the Prayer Plus Plan. Prayer plus meaningful action beats prayer alone almost every time. (The book of James affirms that such is the case.) There are occasional times when one can't really do much but pray, but such instances are surprisingly rare. We often have a lot more power than we realize, especially if we all join forces in pursuit of common goals. Time's a'wastin'; let's get crackin'.

Homeless people very rarely become homeless overnight. They become homeless, usually, after a prolonged period of begging fruitlessly for help. I wish that it were not so, but my personal experience as made me aware that the church is full of a lot of believers who are as dense as lead when it comes to understanding how much their own indifference to the material needs of others helps to contribute to the problem of homelessness.

A lot of folks would rather make excuses than get things done when those things need to be done. Instead of worrying about who gets the credit, we need to focus on helping people and giving God the glory.

I'm not saying that I don't appreciate those who contribute their finances and their volunteer hours (or professional services) to the homeless shelters in their communities. But what I am saying is that it doesn't even come close to what ought to be done. Even the best homeless shelters are stopgap measures at best.  (The American Heritage Dictionary defines the phrase "stopgap measure" as "an improvised substitute for something lacking; a temporary expedient.")

We need a whole lot more than token gestures and stopgap measures. If a stopgap measure is "an improvised substute for something lacking," then what we ought to be asking ourselves is, "What is lacking? Why are we willing to settle for an improvised temporary substitute, when we should settle for nothing less than what we really need?

Maybe the reason we so often settle is that many of us have managed to delude themselves into thinking that we aren't at risk of homelessness. It's "not our problem", we think, so we tend to put it on the back burner of our priorities.

If you're ever lost a job, or experienced a natural disaster (such as the tornados and floods and hurricanes and earthquakes which have laid waste to numerous communities, just in this year alone), then you realize (if you are a thoughtful person) that you are vulnerable to homelessness, no matter how self-sufficient you may think you are. If it's not a natural disaster, or a medical emergency (such as the stroke I had in June, 2011), it's a corporate layoff or any number of other things which can cause one to be unable to stay paid up on one's mortgage or one's rent.

Homelessness is utterly incompatible with God's kingdom. If you call Jesus Lord, and you're content to turn a blind eye to the needs of the poor and the homeless, then you, my friend, are lying to yourself and (probably) to others.

God's kingdom begins here and now (on earth, as it is in heaven), in your own mind and heart and manner of responding to the needs with whom you are surrounded. You have a personal vested interest in doing all you can do to make a positive difference in the lives of the homeless or nearly homeless people in this world, because you are not nearly as invincible as you may think that you are. It isn't just a matter of doing the morally right thing. It's also a matter of enlightened self-interest.

Don't wait until you have been made aware that your next door neighbor is about to lose his or her home or apartment. If necessary, open up your home, in a display of true Christian hospitality. Jesus not only took a risk for you, he sacrificed it all. So stop worrying about how "risky" it is for you to care for others. A much bigger risk, my friends, is that you will stand before God on judgment day, when you will most assuredly have to answer for how you have treated the "least of these" in their moments or hours of need. In fact, that's not a risk so much as it is a certainty.

Supporting your local homeless shelter is admittedly better than nothing, but I want to encourage the readers of this blog post to take the next logical step. Stop passing the buck to the "professionals", and start becoming part of a real community of your own making. Use the brain and the resources God gave to you for a reason, and start working towards the goal of helping other people (and especially other Christians, if you are a believer) to truly prosper, so that they can likewise bless other people in your community (which, FYI, is now the entire world, but especially includes your nearest neighbors).

I understand that there are some people who are homeless as a result of unwise decisions they have made, particularly with regard to substance abuse, but that is not the entire story. Was Jesus addicted to alcohol or drugs? Was he guilty of any crime? On that contrary, there was no fault to be found in him. Yet, he was still homeless, according to the scriptures. So instead of playing the blame game, take ownership of your own actions. Show the same grace and mercy God has shown to you to other imperfect human beings. Be an instrument of hope and healing. Dispense with the self-righteousness, and choose instead to show some compassion and humility.

I myself am very limited in what I can do, in terms of material things, but what I can do, I pledge to do  (with the resources of the ArtisticRescue Project, and my related project, the Chapel Network News), for as long as God gives me breath. Please partner with me in that effort of mine.

If one ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, imagine what all of us can do when we add all of our little "onces" together into one massive pile.

A Sample Image

© Mark W. Pettigrew

The following image is a sample of the original photos I hope to sell here, in the form of prints, for the purpose of raising funds for charitable causes such as World Vision and Convoy of Hope.

When ordering prints of this photo, you should ask for Image 019 in the form of an 8x10 print with an Inset Image.

About Chapel Network News

© Mark W. Pettigrew

If you've read some of the articles in this blog, you know that the Artistic Rescue Project exists partly out of my desire to raise funds for existing reputable organizations and charities .

Such organizations do a lot of good in the world. But there is also a need, it seems to me, for people to have a means of directly communicating their needs with people (and especially with Christians) who might be willing and able to help to meet those needs.

Relying solely on big organizations and big projects is a pretty easy way to insure that some people will always fall through the cracks. One size rarely if ever fits all.

Therefore, I have long had a dream of creating a classified ad publication specifically for the purpose of enabling Christians to directly communicate their needs, projects, ideas and more with other Christians.

The concept itself, in its most basic form, has been rattling around in my brain for 20 years, or even longer. But the vision has undergone significant modifications over the years, thanks in large part to improvements in technology.

The option of publishing documents in the form of downloadable PDF files and eBook files did not yet exist. In the early years, I could not see how I could create my publication without getting substantial funding for printing and distribution purposes. It would have been extraordinarily expensive to print physical copies and  distribute them via all of the churches in any given region. Worldwide distribution wasn't even conceivable to me.

But the Internet changed the paradigm. These days, worldwide distribution should be no more difficult or expensive than distribution to a church located right down the block.

Tonight, I just registered two new domain names, specifically ChapelNetwork.com and ChapelNetwork.info. I intend to use those web addresses in order to take people to web pages, or a dedicated web site, where they will be able to download the Chapel Network News in the form of PDF documents. I hope that Chapel Network News will develop into such a popular resource for various believers that new editions will be issued frequently, possibly even in regional editions which focus on different areas of the nation. But the nice thing about PDF publications is that they can be revised as often, or as seldom, as circumstances and needs require.

Hmmm. It occurs to me that I may need to call my project Chapel Network News International (CNNI), in order to distinguish between my project and CNN (Cable Network News). Or maybe I'll just use the web address, ChapelNetwork.com, as the name of the company itself.

In any event, inasmuch as I am currently attending Hillcrest Chapel (an Assemblies of God church in Bellingham, WA), I have decided to call the publication Chapel Network News.

However, I've left off the word "Hillcrest", partially because I don't want to expose myself to legal liability (since this project is not an official project of Hillcrest Chapel (although I am hoping that Hillcrest Chapel will both endorse and use this classified ads publication), but also because I don't want to limit the applicability of this project to my own church. I really see it as being applicable to the needs of all Christian churches and their members. I want people to see Chapel Network News as a transdenominational means of communicating with other Christians in town, or in the region, or even clear across the world.

Even if most individual churches offered the means of easily communicating with individual Christians within those congregations (and it's a demonstrable fact that many of them do not do so), the fact would remain that it is often needlessly difficult to publicize various needs and projects in an efficient manner which reaches really large numbers of believers, without regard for geographical barriers or denominational barriers.

I figure that Chapel Network News is a perfect match with the Artistic Rescue Project. In addition to offering a means of publicizing a wide variety of Christ-centered opportunities to meet the needs of others, the Chapel Network News will also enable me to more effectively publicize the Artistic Rescue Project and various other related projects and needs.

Conversely, sales made in connection with the Artistic Rescue will help to raise funds for my basic living expenses, and that will somewhat reduce the need to monetize Chapel Network News in other ways.

Eventually, I'll have separate websites and subsites focusing on each project, but in the short term, the two are so closely related that I'm going to use this blog site in order to furnish information pertaining to both projects.

Stay tuned.

What Will Set Us Apart

© Mark W. Pettigrew

When planning The Artistic Rescue Project, I've found it very helpful to do research pertaining to the things various nonprofits and charities are already doing for fundraising purposes.

Sometimes, I've gotten some very good ideas, which might be adapted to this project, in various ways. In other cases, however, I've gotten more ideas with regard to how not to do things.

That's not to say that I think that such strategies are horrible. Usually, they aren't. Such strategies may even be effective, to some extent, as long as organizational objectives and goals are fairly modest, and as long as efficiency is low on the list of priorities.

If that's the case, one's particular fundraising strategy is almost irrelevant, as long as money is occasionally changing hands. One can even raise funds by setting up bake sales at local churches, if one's expectations are modest. One probably won't make very much money, and such events are often more trouble than they're worth, but they do sometimes make money, and maybe even a modest profit which repays the cost of the groceries needed to make those products. (It really isn't true profit, if the fundraising event merely breaks even, but that's usually enough to make such people happy, since the real objective is often to keep the organization in the public eye, in the hope of getting additional support later on, in the form of straight-up donations.)

However, most professional organizations want to be able to rely on professional methodologies, not on luck.

Helpful Churches Needed

© Mark W. Pettigrew

This isn't the time or place for me to publish an entire autobiography, but I'd like to share a few relevant facts which would help to explain the relationship between my life story, my new project The Christian Arts Initiative (of which the Artistic Rescue Project is one very important component) and the Artistic Rescue Project.

MY EARLY YEARS

There was almost never a time in my life when I wasn't involved with the church in one way or another. Thanks in part to the numerous hours I'd spent as a child, sitting in the front pew listening to my father's sermons, I already had some sense of the importance of morality by the time when I was in grade school. I should give him credit for that.

But there were already some serious discrepancies between my father's public professions of faith and the manner in which he lived life when he was not standing behind a pulpit.

To this day, even after his death in 1999, I still wonder how much of his preaching was a reflection of what he genuinely believed, and how much was an example of his skills in the art of mimicry. He was always very good at saying what he knew other people expected him to say. As a public speaker, he was skilled enough to easily impress the farmers and rural people who attended the small Methodist churches where he "served". I was also easily impressed, of course, since he was mostly the only "pastor" I'd ever had for any length of time, at that age. (Also, I was at an age when I was still inclined to want to admire him.)

But I also saw what he was like when he had let his guard down. I only rarely observed the fruit of the Spirit in his life. In fact, my father almost never discussed God when he was not in church, and his "prayer life" such as it was, mostly amounted to him saying grace at the dinner table. I can't honestly recall that he ever led or even participated in a family Bible study at home. I guess I should be grateful that he even did what he did, but in hindsight, it seems to me that one ought to be able to expect more from an alleged man of God. I also can't forget the way that he stood in opposition to my efforts to seek God later in my life, after I'd accepted Christ as lord and savior. (But I'm getting ahead of myself slightly.)

It also didn't help much that I often went to sleep while listening to loud verbal fights between my father and my mother. Their marriage was in trouble for years, before it finally ended in divorce.

I was therefore in serious need of emotional and spiritual rescue by the time I had reached the 8th grade. My grades in school were slipping badly. Ditto for my self-esteem and my relationships with my parents.  (All of those things were closely connected.)

Corporate Sponsors Needed

© Mark W. Pettigrew

I'm currently looking at an ad for the SISU Children's Fund (a Bellingham nonprofit charity) on page 46 of the July 2011 issue of Entertainment News Northwest, a magazine published and distributed in Bellingham. A good 85% to 90% of the ad seems to consist of a list of businesses who supported the group's recent fundraising event, according to the ad copy. The list includes a bank, a tire store, a restaurant, a fine art studio, a golf club, and much more.

While donations from individual donors are obviously important components in fundraising efforts for most charities and nonprofit groups, such donations aren't always enough to enable such nonprofit groups to even survive, much less meet all of their fundraising goals. That's why corporate sponsorships are so important.

One benefit to such sponsors, of course, is that there may be tax deductions associated with such sponsorships (provided that the organization has 501(c)3 status, or that it is operating under the umbrella of another related organization which does).

Another benefit may be that the companies which help to sponsor such charities can enhance the perceptions of people in the community, in terms of seeing those businesses as important members of that community, regardless of how large that community might be. When people perceive that particular businesses or business people have helped to sponsor worthy charities and organizations, they tend to think more favorably of those companies, whenever they are seeking to purchase products and/or services.

A third benefit, especially in this age of the Internet, may be that the organizations which benefit from such corporate sponsorships may return the favor by linking from their web sites to the web sites for those businesses. There can be real tangible benefits connected with such links, since web traffic can make the difference between a web site which achieves what is intended and a web site which does not do so. Not every business uses e-commerce in order to do business directly, but for those which do, that's an especially powerful incentive for sponsoring worthy causes and organizations.

Sponsorship can come in many forms. On the most basic level, sponsors can offer written endorsements and/or testimonies (as well as audio or video versions of those endorsements and testimonies), which can be indirectly valuable in terms of persuading people that the nonprofit groups or charities are worthy of their support. That really isn't much to ask. It costs little or nothing to take a few minutes to write such materials, and only a little bit more time to create audio and/or video versions of the same.

At the next level, the sponsors can offer practical help and material contributions, which may come in the form of volunteer work or financial contributions or links from their own companies' web sites to the web sites for the organizations which they wish to sponsor. In the case of the organizations listed in the SISU Children's Fund ad, it appears that their help came more in the form of enabling that charity to hold (and possibly publicize) its fundraising event. My guess, however, would be that each individual business had its own unique contributions to make, depending on the needs of the SISU Children's Fund, and on the abilities and resources of the individual sponsors.

If you own or work for a business which is interested in the possibility of deriving the benefits of  sponsoring the Artistic Rescue Project, please take the time to read the materials which I have posted on this web site so far (and which I intend to continue to post in the future), to see if this might be the type of project you'd like to sponsor. If you think that it might be, I would be delighted to visit with you here in the Bellingham and Whatcom County place of business (or any other accessible location of your choice, provided that I can afford the travel expenses) in order to answer any questions you might have about the project (provided that I have the answers to those questions). If you decide to do whatever you can do in order to help make this project a success, I promise to do everything which is feasible and reasonable to publicize your generous support of this project.

New Options for Printing and Selling

© Mark W. Pettigrew
The other day, I wrote and posted a blog article pertaining to the manner in which I intended to produce products to be sold as a part of the Artistic Rescue Project, and to the manner in which I intended to handle related financial transactions.

One option I mentioned, in terms of who would be handling the printing, was to have my prints made at Gallery West in the Fairhaven neighborhood. But that is not the only option in terms of "on demand" digital printing in Bellingham. Another option is to make the prints at Quicksilver Photo Lab.

One thing I like about the Quicksilver option is that they're using the superb Epson 7900 printer, which is one of Epson's newest and best digital fine art printers. Whatever worries might have been associated with earlier Epson models, insofar as metamerism was concerned, have pretty much vanished into the mists of history. That means that grayscale prints (also known as B&W prints) should look equally good regardless of what kind of lighting is used for prints made with that printer. (No more prints with a sickly green tint under certain kinds of lights! Yeah!) Therefore the 7900 is as good for B&W prints (also known as "grayscale" prints) as it is for color prints. That will expand my options, creatively speaking. It won't let me make prints as big as the Epson 9900 would, but it should more than suffice for my printing needs for quite some time. The slightly smaller prints will also be more affordable for my customers, which from my perspective is actually an advantage in some respects. Maybe eventually the business will develop to the point where the costs associated with huge prints can be justified, but for now, the options being offered by the printing services offered by Quicksilver should be fine for me. I see from the Quicksilver website that they still offer prints as large as 24x36-inches.

From the standpoint of logistics, I also like Quicksilver's location. They're only about a block away from the Stewart's eBay Consignment Store.

Now, I have to be candid. I tried selling things a number of years ago, using the services offered by eBay, and I never really enjoyed the online auction process. It requires that the sellers watch their auctions too carefully, and that they spend more time worrying about things I'd rather not have to deal with, like listing fees and opening bids and auction start and end dates and the like. Not really my cup of tea.

Nevertheless, there's no denying the fact that selling on eBay offers certain advantages, not the least of which there are huge numbers of people who like buying products through their services. (And it goes without saying that they are integrated very well with the PayPal service for making and receiving payments online.)

Also, I get the impression that a lot more people are using eBay these days for selling products which have fixed prices, not for auctions. That's what I prefer as a seller, because it enables me to more easily predict what kind of money I can expect from any given product sale. Maybe some folks prefer the "excitement" of auctions, but give me predictability any day.

In any event, selling things through Stewarts should be much, much easier for me. Instead of messing with the complexities of selling things the eBay way, I'll just let Randy Stewart handle those aspects of the business in which he excels, and I'll concentrate on publicizing the business and creating new images to be sold in the form of made-to-order products. That freedom should be well worth the fees Randy Stewart charges to me for his sevices, it seems to me, assuming that I can afford those fees.

Stewarts' close proximity to Quicksilver Photo Lab should mean that whenever a particular sale is made, getting the physical print will be a piece of cake. Instead of having to go clear across town to get the prints to be shipped to my customers, someone from the Quicksilver lab can just take the finished prints (already ready for Randy to ship) across the street to the eBay Consignment Shop.

Randy Stewart told me yesterday, during our enjoyable conversation, that his main stipulation would be that he'd have to be able to assure buyers that their prints would be shipped within 7 days at the very latest (and preferably within 5 days, just to be on the safe side) from the time when customers placed their orders. That's understandable. He has a very good rating on eBay, and he wants to keep things that way by shipping products in a timely manner.

Unlike some consignment shops which sell on eBay, Randy's shop seems to offer a sufficiently wide range of products to enable me to sell my prints through his shop in the first place. Some competing businesses seem to be far less flexible.

I intend to keep adding updated information to this blog site, and to announce any actual sales at Randy's shop, and to link to the product listing pages for those images on his site so that folks can easily purchase those made-to-order products.

Third Day Concert for Joplin

© Mark W. Pettigrew
In addition to selling art and photo prints for the purpose of raising funds for the folks who suffered such heartbreaking losses during the infamous tornado in Joplin, MO, I also intend to use this blog for the purpose of advertising other similar artistic fund raisers, especially those pertaining to the integration of Christianity and the arts.
Third Day, one of the most talented Christian rock bands out there, is currently selling digital downloads of the band's 3/20/11 concert in that town.

Here's a link to the web page where you can buy that download.

Aside from the fact that you'll be helping people who badly need your help, I can just about guarantee that if you like great rock music, you will love the sound of this band.

I haven't yet downloaded the file myself, because I am quite frankly struggling financially myself, but I definitely plan to buy and download this file as soon as I've taken care of my basic needs.

The Salvation Army and The Arts

© Mark W. Pettigrew

I was downtown in Bellingham yesterday, waiting for the bus home, and I bumped into a couple of people from the Salvation Army. They were handing out bottles of water and granola bars. I accepted both, and they were yummy. But there was a greater benefit associated with seeing them there. It reminded me of how much of a role the arts have played in terms of enabling the Salvation Army to attract the attention of those who might potentially donate money to them, so that they might raise the funds they've used for years for the purpose of helping the needy.

The guy I met yesterday said something like, "Have you heard of us?" I replied by saying that it was pretty impossible to grow up in America without hearing about the Salvation Army. He seemed flattered, but really, I was just stating the facts. The Salvation Army is as much of a cultural institution as the YMCA or the Red Cross, with a lot more spiritual integrity (from what I've seen) than either one of those other institutions.

Some people think of the Salvation Army in relation to that church's bell ringers (usually dressed as Santa Claus) during the holidays. Others think of their brass bands. Very few people think of them as being particularly innovative in terms of the types of art they typically create. But the fact remains that they've been very effective over the years when it comes to fund raising.

For years, a staple of many movies has been scenes in which characters can be seen at the local mission, usually run by the Salvation Army. I like that aspect of the ministry. They seem to have a heart for down and outers who are often neglected by other, more mainstream churches.

I also strongly admire the organization for standing firm with regard to practices such as homosexuality and abortion, even when many other churches and ostensibly Christian organizations (such as the YMCA) have spinelessly capitulated to the latest trends.

To my knowledge the Salvation Army has never been associated with the kinds of scandal which have given such a black eye to the Christian faith overall. What's more, I get the sense whenever I talk with people from that group that most of them genuinely love God. That in itself is a major endorsement.

Also, the Salvation Army is very widely respect in comparison with other relief organizations, and the work done by that organization is vast.

For those reasons and perhaps others as well, I find that when I think of organizations worthy of the support of the Artistic Rescue project, I find that they are very close to the top of my list. I will be making decisions about who to support on a case by case basis, so I can't promise that I will send the proceeds of sales made at this site on every single occasion. But you can be sure that unless things change in some very negative and unanticipated ways, helping the Salvation Army will be a significant part of this fund raising project.

Startup Costs and the Need for Related Help

© Mark W. Pettigrew

Compared to a lot of businesses, and even compared to a lot of nonprofits, I would say that the Artistic Rescue project will have very, very low initial startup costs and operational costs.

Nevertheless, there will be costs, and I will need financial help (e.g., donations) in order to enable me to start and operate the project. I'm creating this blog post in order to discuss those costs, so that the people visiting this site will better understand why I am appealing to people who might be able to help with their financial donations..

Procuring Art to Sell

Naturally, if one is going to sell art prints and other art products in order to raise funds for charities and nonprofits such as Convoy of Hope, World Vision, etc., one needs to have art which can be sold. One of the reasons my "made to order from digital files" model of operations is preferable to one which involves the sale of traditional art products such as oil paintings is that there will be no need for expensive storage spaces or display spaces for the works of art. One can store digital files on inexpensive media such as recordable CDs, recordable DVDs, or even external hard drives with huge amounts of storage capacity. I recently bought a hard disk with 1 terabyte of storage space for a very small amount of money; and of course, I've seen higher capacity disks able to store 2 terabytes or even 3 terabytes. Prices, even for such disks, are going down all the time.

Of course, creating made-to-order products from digital files will require that any artist with whom I work be someone who is capable of digitizing (scanning or photographing) his or her art, or if necessary, paying a professional to do so. The quality of the digital files will have to be high, because the quality of the printed products will only be as good as the quality of the files from which those products are created. But inasmuch as it is a professional expense which will enable such artists to create salable products, I think it is only fair for me to expect contributing artists to create such files themselves.

But who provides the art for such files? One way to get started, of course, is to create the art and design one's self. Fortunately, I am a photographer and artist, and I've created (and scanned and retouched) some very nice images which, I believe are saleable. In particular, I have a number of photos which I created while still living in Chicago. A lot of those images feature photos of flowers and gardens, in particular, partially because there were a lot of photogenic flowers and gardens in Chicago (the motto of which is "a city in a garden"). For such photos, there's no need to have the types of model release which might be legally necessary for some other types of photography. Certainly, I have created more than enough attractive images to get me started.

I realize, of course, that my own photos will not appeal to everyone (since not everyone likes flowers and gardens), so my goal is to eventually expand the selection of images available on this site and related sites. In other words, I want to get other artists involved in the project. Their incentive for doing so, in addition to the fact that they will be helping other people in the human community, will be that selling such projects will enable them to expand the number of people who are exposed to their art, and to do so in such a way as to share in the financial proceeds from those sales.

I will need to learn about art licensing (particularly in terms of how such written legal agreements need to be written) if I am going to work directly with such artists, and I will need to make connections with artists so that I can make them aware of the Artistic Rescue Project as one possible option for selling their art images in the form of made-to-order products. The town of Bellingham, where I currently live, should be a particularly good place to make connections with artists who might wish to market their art in this manner, without signing any agreements which would hinder their ability to continue to market their artistic creations via more traditional options such as physical art galleries. There is a big community of talented visual artists in Bellingham.

It may also be possible for me to attract additional artists to the project, by means of ads in Professional Artist magazine (formerly known as Art Calendar magazine).

Regardless of whether I am trying to attract artists on a national scale via ads in Professional Artist or trying to attract local artists in Bellingham, there will be associated expenses in terms of advertising. But of course, I will try to use "guerilla marketing" techniques (such as press releases and free press release distribution services) as much as possible, in order to limit my expenses.

The desire to expand the project to include additional artists who will undoubtedly want to receive fair remuneration helps to explain, in part, why 100% of the proceeds from art products sold from the organization cannot go directly to the charitable organizations for which it is being created. And of course, there's the fact that I will also need to earn a living so that I can survive long enough to enable me to take the project to the next level! But I am not looking to get rich as a result of my creation and management of this project. I just need sufficient remuneration to enable me to focus all of my attention on this project and on other aspects of the Christian Arts Initiative. Therefore, minimizing unnecessary expenses will be a high priority of mine.

Another option for obtaining salable image files, without the need for me to go through the hassle and expense of contacting artists and setting up proper licensing agreements with each artist, will be to go through a site such as Veer.com. Such "microstock" sites offer their huge catalog of images with various types of licensing agreements, including some which enable one to legally sell printed products made from those images.

Taking one image as an example, if one wished to sell this image in
the form of an 11x17 inch print from their XXLarge file (necessary for a high-quality print of that size) one would need to pay $30 for the file itself, and one would also need to buy their Product For Resale license for $176. For that $206, one would have the right to sell up to 100,000 paper prints based on that image!

That would be a lot of sales potential, even if one were talking about cheap posters created with offset printing. But that's not the type of sales I'm contemplating. I'm contemplating selling such images in the form of high quality frameable (or framed) giclee prints which are likely to last between 100 and 200 years. I've seen such prints selling (at a Chicago art gallery) for as much as $5,000! Admittedly, that was for a very nice giclee print made from original art by painter Frederick Phillips, and that isn't likely with less popular artists. But it isn't uncommon for large giclee prints to sell for several hundred dollars apiece. At such prices, an investment of just $206 would be a very good investment if it enabled one to legally sell a particular image in printed form.

Not all of the licenses associated with Veer.com cost the same. Some images which represent particularly demanding art work may cost considerably more. And some may not be available with "Products for Resale" licenses. So it will be necessary to do some shopping on that site in order to find appropriate images. Even so, it should be a whole lot easier than it would be using some other methods.

The added benefit of selling images in this manner would be that one would have access to the entire Veer collection of images, which (from what I've seen) seems to be huge. And I know of at least two other good microstock companies, and the quality of their images is growing, compared to what they offered just a few years ago.

What I need, therefore, will be investors who will put some money into this project so that I'll have the funds needed for the purpose of legally acquiring the files and licenses I'll need in order to be able to create saleable products, without relying solely on my own photos and art images.

Meanwhile, as stated earlier, my own images should be sufficient to enable me to get started.

WEB SITE AND E-COMMERCE EXPENSES

In order to properly operate this new project of mine, in relation to the Artistic Rescue Project, there are going to be a need for a means of displaying the art available for sale, and there will also be a need for a means of conducting those financial transactions in a safe manner which inspires confidence on the part of buyers.

In the short term, chances are good that I will use a method involving PayPal Buy Now buttons. That isn't as sophisticated as an integrated online shopping cart, but as long as the number of products being sold is fairly limited, that should enable me to get the project running to the extent that money is coming in on a reasonably regular basis.

This blog is the means by which I will set up those Pay Pal transactions. That, in combination with a PDF catalog of products containing instructions for ordering each product shown in the catalog (with the URL for each blog post containing a Buy Now button for each product being sold) should make ordering a fairly simple process.

Let's say (for example) that you find an image, on page 4 of the current PDF catalog of available designs and products. That page may contain text informing you that the Buy Now button for that particular product can be found in a particular blog post with a particular web address. Simply visit that blog post, check to be sure that the product connected with the Buy Now button included in that blog post is the product you want to buy, and then click the Buy Now button in order to place your order and pay for the product (via PayPal, a respected payment method). It may not be a particularly sophisticated way of doing things, but it's more than feasible in the interim until such time as I'm able to set up a more sophisticated e-commerce storefront.

Nevertheless, because I acknowledge the rather primitive nature of this method of e-commerce, I am going to need funding in the near future for the purpose of paying web hosting costs for a more full-featured web site, as well as an e-commerce shopping cart solution such as one which involves one of the new Instant Storefront systems being offered by Chase (where I currently do my banking).

In the short term, this free blog furnished by Blogger.com should suffice for the purpose of offering a lot of useful information about the Artistic Rescue Project. In the long run, however, a more full-featured site will be needed (which is not to say that the blog will go away, since it will continue to serve a useful purpose).

The web hosting plan I'm currently considering for the primary site is the 1&1 Dual Unlimited plan. For that web hosting plan, they charge $10 a month. Not only that, but one gets the first three months of hosting for free.

Not bad! Of course, one does need to read the fine print at this page. You have to agree to prepay for a minimum contract period of 12 months and there are also setup fees. Even so, I find it pretty amazing to contemplate just how much one can get for one's money these days in terms of web hosting.

The "dual" part of the name of the plan refers to the fact that they host the site on two different computer systems, in order to greatly reduce the probability that anyone visiting the site will ever be unable to reach any part of the site because part of it is "down". The "unlimited" part of the name refers to the fact that it offers unlimited storage space, unlimited monthly traffic volume, unlimited numbers of e-mail accounts (with the limitation that each account cannot store more than 2GB of incoming messages), etc. Now, I recently read an article which made me aware that one needs to take care to read the fine print whenever a web services company makes any such claim regarding "unlimited" anything, but even so, this looks very worthwhile.

If you've read enough in this blog post and previous posts to convince you that the project is well thought out, and enough to convince you that it serves a very worthy cause, please send me an e-mail or call me at 360-318-3703 to further discuss the possibility of working together in order to make this project a reality. Thanks!

Convoy of Hope and the Artistic Rescue Project

© Mark W. Pettigrew

Recently, I was talking with my mother on the phone, and I told her about my plans to sell art prints, concert tickets and other items, for the purpose of helping to raise funds for the victims and survivors of the devastating tornado in Joplin, Missouri. I said that I would very likely distribute those funds by sending them to the Red Cross or maybe to World Vision, along with instructions to the effect that the funds should be used specifically to help the folks in Joplin.

Mother suggested that I should strongly consider sending the funds to the folks at Convoy of Hope. I was somewhat less familiar with that organization, but after researching that option, I decided that that would be a very good idea.

Convoy of Hope seems to be one of the primary relief organizations endorsed by the Assemblies of God church. (Hillcrest Chapel, the church I currently attend here in Bellingham, is a member of that denomination, which has played a major role in my life on many occasions over the years, ever since I became a Christian in 1969.)

What makes Convoy of Hope a particularly good choice for this particular project is the fact that the headquarters for Convoy of Hope are located in Springfield, MO, about 70 miles east of Joplin. Logistically, Convoy of Hope is in a very good location from which to manage relief efforts related to Joplin and its needs. That isn't to disparage other relief organizations by any means, but it is to suggest that it just makes sense to keep things close to Joplin, as much as possible.

Springfield is also the location of the headquarters for the Assemblies of God church, and that city is also where I spent the majority of my years as a child. My mother still lives there (which no doubt helps to explain why she's so familiar with Convoy of Hope).

I still remember, as a boy, visiting the birthplace of George Washington Carver, in Neosho, about 22 miles south of Joplin.

For the above reasons, and for the reason that web searches have suggested to me that Convoy of Hope is a very reputable charity (with a four star rating from CharityNavigator.com), I've decided that most of the funds raised by the Joplin Relief Project (which is a subproject of the Artistic Rescue Project, which in turn is a subproject of the Christian Arts Initiative) will be distributed by sending the funds raised by fundraisers conducted by ArtisticRescue.com to Convoy of Hope.

Here's information (found today on the website for the Assemblies of God Church) about Convoy of Hope's involvement specifically with relief efforts in Joplin (and elsewhere):

My New Email Address

For years, my primary e-mail address has been mark_w_pettigrew[AT]hotmail.com. It still is. (One obviously must use the @ sign in place of the bracketed word in the preceding address.)

However, the same company which sold me the web domain names www.ArtisticRescue.info and www.ArtisticRescue.com also sold me a package consisting of up to 5 e-mail addresses which could be connected with any current domain name purchased from that company. So I added the e-mail address mark[AT]ArtisticRescue.com just now. Since it was just added today, it will probably be a day or so before it's fully activated, I wouldn't advise sending any messages to that address just yet. In fact, if you're reading this blog post, I'd prefer for you to continue to send messages to the aforementioned Hotmail address, or to my Gmail address, mwp1212[AT]gmail.com. The main reason I added the newer address is so that I could use it in ads (and on printed materials) specifically pertaining to the Artistic Rescue Project. Why? It looks a bit more professional, for one thing.

Formatting Issues Here At Blogger.com

© Mark W. Pettigrew

I've been blogging here at Blogger.com for quite a few years, and for the most part, I've been pleased with that service. But one thing that annoys me a bit is that formatting one's text can be somewhat unpredictable. One may review one's blog post in Compose mode, and one may see that every paragraph has a blank line between it and the following paragraph (the way I generally prefer, for ease of readability). One may hit publish, only to discover that some paragraphs have lines of space between them and the following paragraph, and others do not. Really annoying, and a good way to create published pages which look a bit less than professional.

It may be that always remembering to hit Preview and check things out before actually publishing one's posts is the best way to avoid the problem. I'm definitely going to try that.

Meanwhile, know that I plan to create "reader friendly" versions (in PDF format) of each and every one of these blog posts. So even if you get less-than-perfect results when viewing these posts in your browser, you'll hopefully have access to good printer-friendly versions of the posts for printing purposes.

On Demand Printing and The Artistic Rescue Project

© Mark W. Pettigrew

When launching any new business or nonprofit endeavor, one has to give careful thought to the issues of logistics and implementation. Sometimes, financial limitations can hinder even the best ideas. But it's been said that "where there's a will there's a way", and that's particularly true in this age of computers and the Internet.
It used to be that professional visual artists needed to have a fair amount of money just to pay for storage of the works of art which they had created. Either they had to have enough money to buy or lease large and spacious homes or studios, or they had to pay for storage units (preferably with climate control) in which to keep their unsold paintings or prints or drawings.

If they wanted to market their art via the many indoor and outdoor art fairs and festivals throughout the nation, they also had to deal with expenses associated with transporting and displaying their art to and at such fairs and festivals. Such expenses sometimes included large vans or trailers in which to transport their art to such events. Also canopies to set up on the sidewalks while selling their art.

That's still true with regard to people who work with traditional art mediums such as oil paint and canvas. But digital art offers a much smarter option, because physical prints don't have to be created until after they've been bought and paid for, at which point they can be immediately and directly shipped to the folks who have bought them, even if one buyer lives in one part of the world and another buyer lives thousands of miles away from the first buyer. Instead of sitting beneath a canopy on a hot day, interacting with potential customers, artists can be actively engaged in the creation of new works of art. It's arguable that expanding the amount of time artists have for making actual art (and not marketing it) potentially expands the overall amount of high quality in the world.

The Christian Arts Initiative and the Artistic Rescue Project

© Mark W. Pettigrew

I've been a committed Christian since 1969, and even though there have been some rough spots along the way, I think I can honestly say that I've sought to serve God with my whole heart.

For roughly 6 to 7 years, I've been obsessively working on a project I call the Christian Arts Initiative. Now I'm starting a new project which I'm calling the Artistic Rescue Project.

Some folks might conclude that I'm one of those flaky individuals who just can't finish anything he starts. Au contraire!

The Christian Arts Initiative is as important to me as it ever was. Maybe even more so, because the more I think about it, the more I understand how many ways the arts relate to the broader mission of the Christian church.

As I see it, the Artistic Rescue Project should be seen as a subproject of the Christian Arts Initiative, which could be defined as an ambitious plan to more effectively use the arts, in every feasible way, to promote the values of the kingdom of God. That must by necessity include acts of charity and mercy which benefit hurting people in practical ways. And that often requires funding.

In all candor, I don't have much in the way of  material resources at the present time. But what I do have is a creative mind and a willingness to tenaciously search for answers and solutions, and to implement those solutions if I am capable of doing so. With the help of other brothers and sisters in Christ, I believe that I am capable of doing so.

Unfortunately, that help cannot be taken for granted.

Too often, we Christians talk out of both sides of our mouths. We talk (usually from the pulpit) about how God owns "the cattle on a thousand hills" (meaning that God's resources are unlimited), and we talk about how "all things are possible" with God, but when we are privately presented with evidence of unmet needs in the human community, we often resort to defeatist language which suggests that both our faith and our imaginations are lacking. When there is a chasm between rhetoric and reality, it harms our "witness" in front of a watching world. It's a question of integrity or the lack thereof.

The best I can do is the best I can do. But I'm just one man, and a pretty weak and limited man at that, so I need your help, not only with regard to my own temporal needs, but also with regard to my fervent desire to leave a legacy of love and hope.

A New QR Code for This Blog

© Mark W. Pettigrew
During the year of 2011, I started seeing QR codes (two dimensional bar codes) printed in numerous materials distributed throughout Bellingham. They'd actually been created in 1994 in Japan, according to this Wikipedia article, but it seems that 2011 has been the year when they've finally started to take off in the United States, probably because the new "smart phones" can be turned into QR code readers if they have integral cameras, just by downloading the appropriate apps.

When I first saw these codes turning up everywhere, I must admit that I didn't quite get it. I was personally in the habit of carrying index cards and pens everywhere, on account of the fact that I'm kind of obsessive when it comes to collecting useful information, so when I saw web addresses which interested me, I just wrote them down.

But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me to put such codes on one's signs and printed materials and maybe even on one's clothes. For most people, manually writing web addresses is just too much hassle. Even for me, having to write them down can sometimes be a pain, if I'm in a place where there's no available writing surface (like sitting in a bus or car while commuting to work). Sometimes I find myself repeating a web address over and over to myself in an effort to memorize it long enough to retain the information until I'm in a position to write it down.

A graphic QR code can easily substitute for one of those long URL addresses common with subdomains (such as one sees with most blogs, unless the bloggers have gone to the trouble of registering their own "regular" domain names and then forwarding them to their blogs) and with web pages buried deep within the structure of the web sites containing those pages. Would you rather write down www.cameras.com/SLR/Canon/SLR/EOS7D.html (as one fictitious example of the type of long name which is typical of some web pages), or would you rather just aim your camera phone at the QR code and capture that long address by taking a photo? That's what they call a "no brainer". I don't yet own a smart phone, but I can definitely see the appeal of doing one's research in this manner.

Mission Statement

© Mark W. Pettigrew

The mission of the Artistic Rescue Project is to use the arts as a means of raising funds for individuals and communities in need of financial assistance, usually by means of donations to reputable existing organizations such as World Vision, Convoy of Hope and the American Red Cross, but also in some cases by means of donations directly to the people who are in need of help (lest some people in need should fall through the cracks).

The implementation of that vision will be shaped and guided as much as possible by strict adherence to well-recognized standards of professional ethics and Christian morality.

Regarding Nonprofit Status

© Mark W. Pettigrew

When I first moved to Bellingham, WA, I was made aware of Allied Arts of Whatcom County (http://www.alliedarts.org/). Some of the good things about the organization became quickly apparent to me when I visited their very nice art gallery, and their very nice seasonal art exhibit during the Christmas season.

However, I later learned even more about Allied Arts, and what I learned caused me to think that it might be very helpful for me to associate my own art-related organization with theirs, in the early stages of development at any rate.

I learned that they offered the option of becoming an "umbrella organization", operating under their supervision, in order to receive the benefits of becoming a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization, even prior to going through all of the hassles which are usually necessary in order to get 501(c)3 status for one's own organization. (Apparently, Allied Arts isn't the only organization which offers this option to other organizations, but it was the first time I'd been made aware of that option.)

Multiple Authors Are Welcome On This Blog

© Mark W. Pettigrew

It's been said that "no man is an island", and certainly, that's the case with regard to a lot of nonprofit endeavors, including this one.

While setting up this blog, I was reminded that Blogger.com allows one to set up one's blog so that up to 100 authorized people can contribute blog posts. That may be very beneficial to this fund raising project, once I've added board members and/or staff members to assist me in running various aspects of the project.

As the administrator of this blog, I will of course need to approve the contents of such blog posts before they are posted, and I will need the ability to delete inappropriate posts and to suspend the blogging privileges of contributing authors who insist on posting unapproved materials.

NOTE: If this is the first time you've visited this blog, I strongly suggest that you visit the first article posted on the site in order to get a better idea of what the blog is all about!

Welcome and Introduction

© Mark W. Pettigrew

Welcome to the Artistic Rescue blog.

The premise of the Artistic Rescue Project is that the arts often offer excellent opportunities to raise funds for nonprofit charities, churches and other organizations which are regularly or frequently engaged in charitable acts of mercy.

Many organizations use the arts for such purposes already, but that's usually done on an ad hoc (case by case) basis, and the people who manage those fund raisers are often people whose knowledge of the arts leaves something to be desired.

As a person with a lifelong involvement in various artistic disciplines, and as someone with access to numerous other artists who might be similarly inclined to contribute a percentage of the proceeds of the sales of their creative works to organizations engaged in such acts of mercy if they could receive reciprocal benefits in the form of an expansion of the market for their products, I believe that I am well qualified to launch the Artistic Rescue Project.