National Taiwan University is Taiwan’s #1 school. Since I’m already studying my PhD at NTU, I started classes at the CLD because it’s convenient for me. Even though the price is high – $35,000nt per course (I think a course is 180hours, so actually the price is not bad).

I’ve been in Taiwan a long time and can speak Chinese, but my writing is very bad. Since NTU uses only an old-fashioned paper-and-pencil test for placement, I did poorly. But then they booked me into the wrong time frame; there were no other openings at the same level and at the right time. At first they told me “sorry, but you can get %50 of your money back.” I pouted for awhile, and they said “or you can try this higher class and see if the teacher lets you in.”

I went with the 2nd option. Actually, the new class was book 3 of the Audio-Visual textbooks, and I already knew a lot of the vocabulary. When I started, the teacher asked “are you sure this class won’t be too easy for you?” The other classmates were also impressed with my speaking.

But my writing sucks, which became more and more apparent, as nearly everyday we spent a lot of time on writing worksheets, writing in the book and workbook, and taking tests. Eventually I stopped doing the work altogether, and started skipping the tests.

In my defense: 1) Writing Chinese Characters by hand is excruciating; I can type them on a computer and recognize them. Spending the time to write them out makes me feel like a caveman drawing pictures on the wall (which is basically what Chinese is). 2) I’m doing my PhD and also running a few small businesses. I want to improve my Chinese but practicing writing characters does not boost my vocabulary, grammar or speaking ability.

I’m a stubborn student and hard to teach. At the end of the course, I learned about half of the material. I had already paid for next semester, but this morning I went in to take another placement test. They have no extra classrooms, so I was in the student room surrounded by extremely annoying and loud people chatting. Then I moved into the hall, which is dimly lit. I gave up on the test because the environment was so frustrating, and I’ve got two conferences this weekend to prepare presentations for. When I gave in my test the tester looked like she’d been expecting me to fail; I surmise that my teacher had been complaining about what a poor student I was. They said I could redo book 3. I didn’t expect them to let me continue to book 4 (why should they?) but said book 3 would be boring. She strongly encouraged me to get a refund and find a new school, as did the office. So I agreed.

Anyway, I don’t blame them for wanting to get rid of me, I was a pain in the ass, and they handle students like me with being rigid in their curriculum and teaching methods. But oh, what a breath of fresh air to go on to the Chinese Culture University’s website and find an online placement test. (http://scedna.sce.pccu.edu.tw/MLCSite/ClassTest/ClassTestMain.aspx). Press play to listen, select the right multiple choice answer. Heaven.

It’s not just Chinese, I’ve never been fond of writing by hand, I have terrible handwriting. But I’m pretty freaking awesome at typing and using a computer. I also love online flashcards, tests, and Chinese language software. I love using Pleco on my iphone to instantly translate characters I don’t know. National Taiwan University CLD seems about a decade behind in language learning technology.

I want to learn Chinese effortlessly and quickly, and be able to use it to express myself immediately. I don’t want to waste a lot of time practicing skills I will never, ever use (like writing out characters by hand).

There were also other little things that annoyed me, like my teacher coming to class and eating her breakfast while making us do busy work, or spending almost 1/2 of all the class hours writing tests and paperwork (stuff that could be done at home independently – classrooms are for speaking, aren’t they?), never being able to operate the audiovisual technology without calling in someone to help turn on the projector, etc.

As an English teacher, I know a thing or two about learning languages – although Chinese is really a beast of a different color. I don’t think any native Chinese speaker, who spent thousands of hours as a child forced to memorize and copy Chinese characters (which, I’m convinced, is why all Chinese people need to wear glasses, having destroyed their eyesight at a young age) can possibly understand what it’s like to learn Chinese as a foreign language. (My teacher’s favorite expression was “this is easy, right? Easy!”)

If you are a serious student interested in traditional Chinese characters and are coming to Taiwan ONLY to learn Chinese, and you’re prepared to focus on handwriting Chinese, then NTU may be a good choice. But they also seem a little unorganized, cramped, with limited classrooms and other cool language learning tools, and I’m not sure that they warrant the price increase (other Chinese Language Centers such as the Chinese Culture University and the National Taiwan Normal University seem cheaper, and more with it). The teachers are probably standard; they all seem to have their own teaching style, and they use the same books you’d find anywhere else. The office was very nice and friendly, but also inflexible and disorganized (this is pretty common in Taiwan though).

At any rate I’m excited to explore some other options, when I get my 90% of my tuition funds back (they’re keeping 10%, which is policy… but that’s a nice little bonus for doing nothing).

It happened just after I sent the following sketch to some painting companies in Dafen China, in a project aiming to explore whether fine art can be outsourced. Obviously, somebody turned me in. And yet, if you’ve paid attention to the international fine art market for the past several years, especially the Asian fine art market and major trade shows, it seems a painting is hardly complete without a Doraemon, Hello Kitty, or some other international famous pop icon/cartoon figure – this includes the angry birds characters, which I’ve seen a handful of times in fine art paintings, being sold by galleries representing artists from Asian countries. I have to wonder, does everyone get the cease and desist order, or just me? I remember in my first art class in high school, the teacher was very careful and scrupulous about teaching us copyright laws.

And it’s only recently that I’ve begun incorporating pop culture icons – because it seems to be the “thing to do” if you want your art to sell.

I imagine if I sell the painting, it would be infringement – is it also even if I never plan to sell the painting? If I do it as “art for art’s sake”?

Anyway, these are definitely interesting questions for fine artists and fine art galleries.

,

Anti Piracy Order from Rovio

Here’s the letter:

To whom it may concern

It has been brought to our attention that your business has been marketing, selling or otherwise making available products or services that may infringe Rovio Entertainment Ltd’s copyrights and trademarks in the software game “Angry Birds” and related merchandise.

We have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. We assure that the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that we are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

Location of potential infringement:

http://www.derekmurphyart.com/ganesh-and-garuda-pop-art-hybrids/comment-page-1/#!wp-prettyPhoto[g2470]/1/

The game Angry Birds is developed and published by a Finnish company Rovio Entertainment Ltd. All intellectual property rights to Angry Birds are owned by Rovio Entertainment Ltd, including but not limited to copyright to the game characters and internationally registered trademarks. Rovio Entertainment Ltd’s copyright to the Angry Birds game characters and international trademark registrations of the word “ANGRY BIRDS” and international trademark registration of the graphical representation of the game characters provides Rovio Entertainment Ltd with certain proprietary rights. This includes the right to restrict the use of copyrighted works and/or trademarks, or a confusingly similar works or trademarks, in association with confusingly similar products or services.

Rovio Entertainment Ltd’s trademark registrations include, but are not limited to registration of graphical representation of game character by European Union Community Trademark (no: 009205221) and international trademark registration in several jurisdictions (no: 1052865) including United States (WO 1052865) and China (WO 1052865).

Your use of Rovio Entertainment Ltd’s copyright and/or registered trademarks is likely to confuse consumers and/or lessen the distinctiveness of Rovio Entertainment Ltd’s brand. Your continued use of Rovio Entertainment Ltd’s copyrights and/or registered trademarks will cause significant and irreparable damage to Rovio Entertainment Ltd

Rovio Entertainment Ltd demands that you immediately:

1. cease and desist any further use of images, emblems, logos or similar items infringing Rovio Entertainment Ltd’s copyrights in association with the manufacture, marketing, sale, distribution, or identification of your products or services; and

2. cease and desist any further use of Rovio Entertainment Ltd’s trademarks in association with the manufacture,  marketing, sale, distribution, or identification of your products or services.

This is written without any prejudice. Rovio Entertainment Ltd reserves the right to claim damages as well as any other remedy under applicable copyright and trademark legislation, but we hope this issue may be resolved without any further legal actions

Should you have any questions regarding this letter, please contact us at piracy@rovio.com.

Respectfully on behalf of Rovio Entertainment Ltd,

What do you think? Obviously, they have the legal right to protect their image. On the other hand, angry birds has become such a ubiquitous element of contemporary international culture that fine art that wants to be true to life can hardly avoid incorporating it into the work. The point of the above painting was to bring the issue to a meta-level, by equating angry birds with religious icons following the “pied piper” of Steve Jobs, deified as Krishna, while also being explicit about the commercial aspect of both religio-cultic-corporations as well as fine art. Is art ever above the law?

By the way, if you are looking for the Geisai #3 Exhibitor’s Booth List, here it is:

GT#3 BOOTH List and Map for exhibiting artists

However, since it seems to be “the thing to do” I’m doing a big series. It’s much faster, simpler than the oil paintings I usually work on. It’s not particularly creative. But I’ll be giving the art world what the art world likes, and we’ll see if that pans out for me.

It’s way too busy, I know, but it’ll mostly be like a line sketch. I’ll get rid of that “buy it now” too… although I like the facebook and twitter buttons because the painting -besides being a tribute to Steve Jobs, is also about social media, herd mentality, leaders and followers, etc.

I’m also going to start focusing on making design versions of my ideas, to get them out in more formats… so here are closeups of my garuda and ganesh hybrids, I’ll make them into Tshirts soon!

As a visual artist, I’m always trying to find creative new ways to display my work and get exposure. Recently when searching for “creative and awesome business card designs” I stumbled across the pop-out, stand-up 3D folding business card of Egil Paulsen. These things are so simple, so beautiful, so stunning, that Paulsen’s painting – due not only to the painting itself but also because of the amazing business card idea – has been featured on hundreds of websites. Pretty f-ing awesome. I wanted to make some too so I contacted Paulsen and found out that he’s preparing to offer the service to other artists – keep an eye out for it, there’s an easel art card facebook group to join.

Since I’m living in Taiwan, I also contacted some local paper printers to find out about die-cast business card pricing. I even found someone to make easel art cards.

However – I can’t replicate Paulsen’s success with a duplicate, so I’m working on something much more ambitious, which will be a “3D Gallery” of 10 of my paintings in miniture, as pop-up silhouettes. I’ll probably be using very bold colors, as part of rebranding my image from just painter to also graphic designer. Here’s a sample of what they will look like:

When they’re finished, my business cards will have turned into art-collectible in themselves, that are fun to play with and easy to put on display!

The Morale of this Story: If you’re already an established artist with galleries selling for you, you don’t need kickass business cards. But if you aren’t – having an amazing, creative business card itself is a quick way to gain international exposure.

I’ll be posting some more stuff soon on creative art promotion ideas, so stay tuned. If you’re looking for business card design, die cast printing, pop up or easel art cards, or if you’re just trying to think up a brilliantly creative way to market your art, send me an email! (Living in Taiwan I can get a great deal on printing!)

If you want your own easel business cards, you can order them here: http://easelbusinesscards.com/

Plus, the growing popularity of Geisai and the large community of Taipei art connoisseurs means that, if well-utilized, Geisei can be a great opportunity to grow your fan base and increase your exposure – and maybe even to connect with some interested buyers.

Successful art fair presentation

Although I joined Geisei 2 last year, I didn’t know what I was getting into and presented very, very poorly. With just one little booth, I figured I better cram in as many paintings as possible, stacking them up on top of each other, and stuffing each little corner with personal oddities, fliers, news-scraps… I even had an electronic talking fish and a wooden Buddha statue to try and give my booth some style and color. BAD IDEA. You don’t want to present your art like 2nd hand knock-offs at a flea market. You want to project your paintings’ value with simple and clean presentation. Think like a gallery: white walls, lots of space, crisply printed title tags, high quality printed materials (i.e. business cards). If there’s room, perhaps a catalogue of works/price list.

What art should I show?

This question is much more tricky. With hundreds of competitors, you need a selection of paintings that brands you as an artist, stands out for it’s unique style, technique and theme. You want pieces that complement each other with similar colors. But you also want fucking good paintings – absolutely finished, pristine and polished: this means the edges have been painted or framed, the canvas has been glossed, it looks perfect. At the same time, you want something edgy/striking enough to make people gasp in awe-stricken stupor (ok, maybe not if you’re a landscape artist – but you should still shoot for it). Paint something that grips viewers and makes them sigh in wonder at the captivating beauty – or repugnant horror or scandalous humor – something that they will immediately go find their friends and drag them to visit your booth.

So what am I going to present?

Well I’m still struggling with that question. On the one hand I have some of my standard, unusual, Magritte-esque surrealist portraits of beautiful girls; a few of them are pretty good. Portraits or people paintings have won in the past. I also have some stronger pieces; my orange juice Buddha or my new sexy Sponge-Bob adultery painting, which is SURE to make a stir. But I also came back to Peru with some awesome wooden ornamental frames, to do a series of pop-art/religious icon paintings, which could be pretty awesome. I may need to get 2 booths this year.

In October they’ll pick a winner (grand prize is $1000usd or an ipad!)

This is kind of a boring painting for me – what do you think?