On The Road Again...............

Greetings All;
I've been taking some much needed time before another take off here for Outsider Art In A Box.I have a few minutes to catch up with u all before we take off on another road trip to the Sunshine coast.

So Calgary Alberta was the destination chosen....We spent quality and quainty time with our dear friends the Braun Family...

The Calgary airport is a happening place, there is a fun space called Space Port where our friends oldest daughter works.....its all about travel in space,flight simulators,time travel and other spacey travel adds to the fun time had by us all.

Don't ya just love the cow in flight!!!

Kathy has been such a big supporter of Outsider Art In A Box and is extremely creative herself..Kathy is the creator of the Coffee Condoms. I love these funky knitted sleeves....

Whenever i am in thinking mode on the creative front which is all the time,Kathy has been a goddess send as she provides me with an awesome creative prespective and girl! can she do amazing things when it comes to recycled crafts.

Check out Mother and Daughters etsy sites

Kathy
http://CaffeinatedCrafts.etsy.com
http://caffeinatedcrafts.blogspot.com

Cera
http://cerascreations.etsy.com



Have u been to CraftSanity.com yet to hear the Outsider Art In A Box Podcast??

The Opus Visual Arts Newsletter has a write up on Outsider Art In A Box

Well would love to chat more but gotta dash..Have a Great Long Weekend All and we will be back to our regular programming in September

ta ta for now

In Artistic Solidarity;
Rhonda

Alive and Kicking!

Howdy Ho Folks;
How goes it on this overcast day?? well me i am alive and kicking,which brings me to the title of this entry on this day. Often i am asked how r u?? and i truly became tired of the familiar fine and wanted to add some life to it and get some reaction to giving an unfamiliar response back. Its been interesting the responses i receive from i'm alive and kicking which is usually a chuckle and u can see lights come on in the person.

The other phrase i use is I live and Breathe,the seniors love that one and always have something very interesting and postive to say those responses open up dialogue and i hear and learn so much in that minutes time.

Speaking of Dialogue,a few weeks back or so i did a phone interview for an online podcast www.craftsanity.com based in the states.
Our phone interview was two hours long as i blathered on about my passion for art and my interaction with it. Jennifer the owner/operator of this podcast is a reporter by day and she enjoys putting her reporting skills to use in a creative way it was an awesome experience mind u i did alot of talking lol lol

Technology is amazing in all of its development,there are some things that have truly enhanced my life and other stuff whatever..

Outsider Art In A Box will be unveiling a new branch in the very near future so please stay tuned for the unveiling!!!

I encourage you to go and listen to the podcast its about an hour,it will give u insight as to what i do and why..as i often repeat myself throughout this podcast(groan) but what i do know is i love creativity and the many facets of it and i will go on about my passion given the chance lol lol

Thank You Jennifer for the interview,your time,energy ,creativity and sharing your own creative journey!

Ok folks make time to allow creativity to flow on into your world...

www.craftsanity.com
CrafSanity Episode 31 Rhonda Simmons Introduces Us to "Art in a Box"


UPDATE:

Please Note that I will be out of Town until the 4th of September I will try and pop in to say howdy.

Outsider Art In A Box Art show ends Sunday August 27th at The Petri Dish 2406 Main St (Thanx Jackie)....if u haven't had a chance to see the machines and purchase some funky art please do!!!!!

Thank You all for your continued support and encouragement.

Create On!!!
In Artisitc Solidarity;
Rhonda

Go Fly A Kite!!!!

My People, My People;
How goes it??? Life is ebb and flow in this neck of the woods... I try to balance out all the things i do for Outsider Art In A Box Vending Machines with fun as it keeps everything upright and not uptight.

This week will be the last time you will see all the vending machines together at the Petri Dish 2406 Main St. The machines come down August 27th some will go to other venues..

The next couple of months will be moving rapidly for Outsider Central.Tomorrow an interview that i did for Craftsanity.com will be posted on Jennifers site,its a podcast so ya can hear what yours truly sounds like.

Yesterday i had a playdate with a couple friends, we ended up at Jericho Beach taking it all in......so kite flying was in order i continue to learn that balance is essential when one is facilitating a creative endeavour. So hey do me a favor go fly a kite and let me know how that felt.....

I do my part to support artists in purchasing their creative xpressions when i can, above is a piece that i purchased from artist Ann Blackwell,Ann also did one of the vending machines, the funky velvet machine with beading on it...i did an artist feature on Ann in previous posts if u can't remember her vending piece.

Well as usual Keep that creativity coming my way!!!

May the creative force be with u....

In Artistic Solidarity;
Rhonda

Celebration......

Its a beautiful day in the hood!!!
Ode to Sunny days and Blue skies
Time does not stand still it continues to tick on and thats whats a happening with Outsider Art In A Box....

Things are moving along faster than i am able to keep up with them, hmmm like
i 've said before this project has taken on a life of its own i know thats good
lol lol.. Something that is becoming obvious is that i am going to need a right hand to assist with many little things here at Outsider Central in the near future.

Opus Framing will have two of Outsider Art In A Box Vending Machines at their Granville Island Location and North Vancouver. The machines will be hosted there for a month. I know I know its still vacation time for many of u...no prob this will all be repeated in the fall.

Above u will notice a cute flyer....well Ruby Dogs Art house is gonna be two on Sunday and its Party Time......Leanne the owner/operator of this eclectic store embraced and has be a host venue to the first Outsider Art In A Box Vending Machine and has been very supportive and sharing of her business knowledge.

I gotta tell ya its hard for me not to come home with a little something,something from the art house,its an artists dream place so much to see

Whats even better is that there is going to be a Craft Flea Market on Sunday so count the pennies people and load up on the creative supplies. Come on now an artist can never have toooooooooo many supplies.. when i look at my space theres always room for more lol lol lol.

So cruise on down to Ruby Dogs Art House on Sunday August 20th 12-6 and celebrate with them!!!

4738 Main St.(btw 30&32)

Time to get at it!!!

Ta Ta For Now
Have an awesome weekend!

Rhonda

Behind The Scenes

How Do?
Another Day at Outsider Art In A Box headquarters... People often ask me where i create and put things together, i have a separate creative space but really the whole house is my studio. I am grateful that the machines are small enough that they fit in with the ecclectic space.

So Can We Talk??? have u made it to The Petri Dish to see the vending machines i am too proud of them all the artists that put their creativity to those machines
Rock!!!

I am struggling here to write my blog as i have written a number of requested articles on Outsider Art In A Box Vending Machines over the last couple of weeks,yes its a great thing cause this is something that i want to talk about.

Outsider Art In A Box has been invited to the Home Show in October at BC Place three machines have been requested. kewl eh..which leads me into ART WORK OF ALL MEDIUMS WANTED!!!!! Empty boxes are available for u to fill

An Art Vending Machine will be going to Powell River in September 2006 more details acoming


Peek-A-BOO'S:

Healing Art Cards........Gwynne Hunt , Abbotsford BC
FunkArt.......Krystin McMillen,Abbotsford BC
Dolly Rocker..........Mary Jane Henderson,Vancouver BC

Have i told you all lately Thank-You!!!

May art and creativity be with you
Rhonda

I'm Not The Only One

Salutations Creative Beings!!!
People often wonder where artists ideas come from, my experience has been everything that surrounds me has the potential to stir me in some way resulting in a creative perspective.

I am grateful when some ideas have come before me and i want to give credit where credit is due... Art Vending has an international span. when i began in the early stages of this installation ,research was a huge part of it to find out what,where,who and why. The common demoninator is the vending machine and diverse they are depending on the artists vision. Some of the vending machines that have been used are pop machines,bubblegum machines,condom,cigarette and so on...

I am the fourth Canadian Art Vendor, the above pics are from the project called Distroboto based out of Montreal. Louis Rastelli is the visionary behind this project, Louis uses old cigarette machines to vend small works of art.

I have had the pleasure of speaking with Louis on several occasions and learning about his art vending journey, he has been a great support in assisting my own creative walk. Distroboto has been around for six years and now is in expansion mode as Louis has purchased several more old cigarette machines since the recent smoking ban in Montreal.

Distroboto is always seeking artists and i encourage you to particpate in this art vending project.

Thank You Louis for your creativity!!!

For more information on Distroboto:
http://www.distroboto.archivemontreal.org/

Other Projects in Canada:

Art Hive.......Winnipeg

Vendart......Toronto

Distroboto......Montreal

Outsider Art In A Box.......Vancouver

Below is an older article on Distroboto and Louis Rastelli

Thinking inside the box
Louis Rastelli’s Distroboto celebrates two years of packing ’em in

by CHRISTINE REDFERN
If you’ve been by Casa del Popolo, the celebrated café/show space on St-Laurent, one of the first things you may have noticed is the unusual cigarette-vending machine by the door. Drop in a toonie, punch a button and the only thing you’re not gonna get is smokes.
That machine is the Distroboto, and it’s the brainchild of Montreal’s Louis Rastelli, also the cat behind the notable zine Fish Piss. For exactly two years now, Casa-goers have been pumping coinage into the machine and in return getting all manner of local art product - mini-comics, zines and cassettes, miniature dioramas and finger puppets, collages and pocket-sized paintings, silkscreened oddities and curios and ephemera. The only constants are the $2 tag, the ciggy-pack format and the “for the scene, by the scene” ethos.
“Half of it is the experience, like Kinder Eggs,” says Rastelli. “You don’t always know what the item is, you have to undo the package, it’s this whole experience. And it’s only $2 - in a café or bar, you can only get a coffee for that price. Ultimately, even if people don’t like the item, they know the money is going straight to the artist.”
A pack of possibilities
Rastelli got the idea on a 1999 road trip to North Carolina - tobacco country, of course. “A guy there named Clark Whittington, when all the tobacco companies started closing factories, started noticing all these unused machines around. He started something called Art-o-Mat, which is a bit different from Distroboto but still old cigarette vending machines. He prefers one-of-a-kind items by do-stuff-in-galleries kind of artists. In fact most of his machines are in galleries or museums - he has one in the Whitney in New York and I think the Smithsonian as well. He’s up to about 40 machines. He charges $5 and doesn’t like taking reproduced stuff, photocopied or even silkscreened. He does fairly well but at a much slower pace.
“Being a zine maker, I saw a lot of potential there. I’d bought a number of items from the Art-o-Mat, but after the third or fourth, I didn’t see myself coming back every week and trying to buy every little item. I was thinking about zines, minicomics, little books, flipbooks, cassettes - mind you, with the format of our cigarette packs, we can fit cassettes in. What got me excited was thinking about the size of the packs back home and how much more could be done with them.”
Rastelli wasn’t the only one hyped up by possibilities one could stuff into the standard 3”x4” pack. Once local artists got wind of it, they came up with even more - “thinking inside the box,” as Rastelli puts it.
“I’m constantly amazed by stuff I never thought of. Greeting cards, little envelopes, paper dolls, finger puppets - those are selling incredibly well.”
Keeping ’em coming
Since its debut, the Distroboto has spat out some 4,000 items, from a selection of about 100 possibilities by 70-odd locals. Those numbers confirm Rastelli’s faith in his project.
“The first night, when it almost totally sold out, I was half happy, half dismayed. I’d just spent two weeks making sure this thing was well stocked and then I had to fill it up again? What had I gotten myself into? That’s a good problem to have because it means the thing is working. It hit the ground running.
“It didn’t drop off, either. I expected that three or four months down the line, there would be a plateau, after which sales would drop. In fact, it was the opposite. As word of mouth got around, it went up and up and up. It still hasn’t stopped increasing.”
In that case, it’s time for more machines. The second Distroboto will be unveiled across the street from Casa at la Sala Rossa this weekend. Inside will be a host of neat, new stuff. Expect mini-comics by Julie Doucet (Montreal’s original mini-comic queen) and Billy Mavreas, expect zines by Andy Brown and Squirrel Girl, expect fridge magnets from Rick Trembles, “hagiography cards” by Hillary Kael, painted blocks by Guy Boutin and cat toys by MissE.
Another new item in the Distroboto is the mini-CD, a three-inch, burnable disc that local musicians like Lederhosen Lucil, American Devices, 1-Speed Bike and les Georges Leningrad are filling with their own loose ends.
“It isn’t just music you can put on them. I’m looking forward to people putting on short films and Flash animation. I’m already seeing a catalyst effect - musicians are telling me, ‘Hey, we’ve got this crazy jam, we don’t know what to do with it, it would be great in the machine!’”
Domo arigato, màs Distrobotos
Rastelli’s vision doesn’t end at the corner of St-Laurent and St-Joseph. He’s gunning for grants to bring the machine off the Plateau - to Dawson College, Con U’s Fine Arts building, Cheval Blanc and hopefully NDG - and in turn bring non-Plateau artists into the Distroboto.
“I’d like to keep the administration of the machines non-profit. I don’t think it’s realistic to be able to take a percentage off sales, pay a staff and overhead and start some kind of company. I’d have to raise the price so high that the whole chemistry would go. At two bucks, it’s really exciting - ‘Look what I got for only $2!’ At five dollars, you’re like, ‘I paid $5 for this?’ I don’t think it’s feasible to make money with this, but I think I’ve done a good job with my grant proposal of convincing the Quebec and Canada Arts Councils that if they want to support something that in turn supports the arts, this is the kind of thing.”
I ask Rastelli if anyone’s ever submitted items that he considered inappropriate for Distroboto. “That happened only twice so far, out of 100 items,” he tells me. “Once, I trusted an artist with something that had only been described to me over the phone. It was a classic case of somebody gluing this to that and calling it art. They made 30 and only sold four. Since then, my policy has been, make one, send it to me and I’ll say yes or no - not to criticize, but to save people wasting their time.
“The other one was somebody who wanted to do a mini-comic, but didn’t actually make books, just folded photocopies up six or seven times and crammed them in. The good thing was, this was someone who’d never done mini-comics, so it was a chance for me to tell them how it’s done. They didn’t make any money, but they were introduced to the world of do-it-yourself. Ultimately, that’s what it’s all about.” :
The Distroboto’s second anniversary is at la Sala Rossa (with les Abdigradationistes, Crackpot, American Devices, Dante’s Flaming Uterus, Lisa Gamble, Alexis O’Hara and Corey Frost, $6) and at Casa del Popolo (with 1-Speed Bike and DJs Koz and Brian Damage, free), both on Friday, Jan. 24, 9pm
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In Artisitic Solidarity;
Rhonda

Cheap Art Manifesto

CHEAP ART MANIFESTO
the Why Cheap Art? Manifesto
PEOPLE have been THINKING too long that
ART is a PRIVILEGE of the MUSEUMS & the
RICH. ART IS NOT BUSINESS !
It does not belong to banks and fancy investors
ART IS FOOD . You can’t EAT it But it FEEDS
you. ART has to be CHEAP & available to
EVERYBODY. It needs to be EVERYWHERE
Because it is the INSIDE of the
WORLD.
ART SOOTHES PAIN!
Art wakes up sleepers!
Art FIGHTS WAR AND STUPIDITY
ART SINGS HALLELUJA!
ART IS FOR KITCHENS
ART IS LIKE GOOD BREAD!
Art is like green trees!
Art is like white clouds in blue sky!
ART IS CHEAP!
HURRAH
Bread & Puppet Glover, Vermont 1984

I came across this cheap art manifesto many years ago and saw it again when i was in New Brunswick a few months ago. I love it and feel quite connected to what it says.

Outsider Art In A Box Vending Machines is moving right along and Thank You for talking about it, its postively paying off .

The above pics are articles & interviews in magazines,online and zines that are upcoming please stay tuned

craftsanity.com
brokenpencil.com
ragmag.net
artitude.com

Wanted Host Venues:
Outsider Art In A Box has seven machines that will need new homes as of September 2006...
Let me know if you have any suggestions that i can check out alteredanything@shaw.ca

Inclusive Art:
I wanted to let you all know that i accept art,craft, performing arts
film makers, and so on..if it can fit in a box then for goddess sakes
BRING IT ON!!!!

Thats all i write for today

Carry On;
Rhonda

Celebrating Diversity!!

Yesterday day was the Pride parade and its an annual event for many of us...It was an awesome day filled with blue skies,hot temperatures and loads of color on the parade route. I had the ultimate view point a good friend of mine has a studio apartment on Beach Avenue and so there we sat in comfort high above the crowds taking it all in... Crowds are overwhelming for me, but from my perspective on my friends balcony i got a whole new attitude!!!

Have u made it to the Petri Dish yet to see the Outsider Art Vending Machines???

Please don't walk but run all the way there i see it as being worth the time and energy.

In Artisitic Diversity;
Rhonda

Two Stepping....

Salutations Creatives;
Another beautiful day here in beautiful Vancouver BC .....
thanks to you all for your insights from my last blog,your support and wisdom is very much appreciated.

Outsider Art In A Box continues to evolve at a rapid pace.. This is a great thing to talk about.

The Submission Fee has been changed to $10.00 this includes your first 25 boxes to get you started and boxes are 20 cents each after that.

Artwork/Craftwork continues to spill in.......KEEP IT COMING!!!!!

Above pics are a few peeks as to what you can get from the art vending machines that are presently showcasing at The Petri Dish 2406 Main St.

Please support the artists creativty and The Petri Dish by strolling in and checking out the diversity and creativity of the art vending machines.

I am working on a commission assemblage piece for a garden so time to pitter patter get at her...

Have a creative filled day!!

In Artistic Solidarity;
Rhonda