Funding PrintmakingWorld Online  

The four F’s  

Continuing education on the new project he set for himself (a digital magazine in the field of printmaking) he takes hints in chance occurrences such as emails and online articles on the subject to puzzle out where the money will come from for the launch.  

Preface

The next section in this essay begins with, “Digital magazine publishing and US printmakers,” copied from my Mequoda study; but it originally read, “Digital magazine publishing and you.” I erased you and retyped it to emphasize the community aspect of printmaking, so it read with us instead of you.

Next I capitalized us to become US, meaning that the PrintmakingWorld Online digital magazine will come from the United States, but it will be for the whole world to engage in—just as our little Halfwood Presses have found a wide-world audience and ownership in, so far, 14 countries.

I am not in the printmaking world alone; I never was, and never will be. I have hundreds—maybe thousands—of friends and former students both in and on the edges of the printmaking world and, third (and most importantly, my family). My support has come from these “Three F’s” and some are scattered over the world.

What we need is a “Fourth F,” like the fourth leg on a stool. A three-legged stool is unstable and if you sit on the seat of a three-legged stool, it may wobble. You have to be alert and keep your balance. Every Yogi knows that is a good thing because you need to practice to keep your balance in all things in life.

However, when the platform you’re sitting on—the seat is as big as the printmaking world is big, and digital magazines are big and getting bigger, then a fourth leg is essential. One friend wrote an email after I announced the creation of our digital magazine, “Best wishes for your new enterprise, after 10 years of building the foundation, now you can concentrate on the superstructure!!”

This man happens to be an engineer, so I took his remark seriously. Engineers know a lot about structure—the four F’s. Family, friends and former students should be joined by funders. You build a superstructure on the foundation, and you must build it—the digital magazine—with funds from funders.

Digital magazine publishing and US printmakers

Mequoda, my source of information on planning PrintmakingWorld Online, urges established magazine publishers to get going with a digital edition, whether it’s a small, niche magazine like the Biblical Archeology Review, BAR or a huge one like Forbes, as examples. The monetization of our content—also known as the assets of printmakers all over the world--will go through the roof for a “plethora of reasons.”

First, the Mequoda handbook lists, is FOLIO. “Folio” means notes, digital tablet editions that open printmaking up to Millennials who are younger readers. Usually you can get either younger or older people in your reading market, but not both; but with a digital, tablet, smart phone and desktop printmaking magazine you can get the best of all worlds.

Mequoda: "In addition, with the cost of printing and mailing traditional print issues eliminated, your content can be delivered and read all over the world. Then there’s advertising. They say that advertisers are fleeing print for digital advertising. People put their items on craigslist nowadays, not in the newspaper classifieds.

Paraphrasing Mequoda, what most people don’t know is that magazine publishers can charge more for digital ads because rich content enhanced with extra photos, slideshows, videos and audio content is worth more to printmakers and other readers. Augment this with interactive social networks and it keeps people engaged longer and builds a bigger audience base.

For printmaking artists, this is probably a good thing. Plus, many types of digital systems allow for interactive buying from within an advertisement or article. There are dozens of companies out there looking for printmakers' offerings because they are in the business in translating print products for a mobiles.

My legacy for funders

Years ago, when I left the security of the UW art school teaching job, I took with me the assets I had gained. For example, the retirement program for almost all college teachers in the United States (funded by TIAA/CREF) gave me a little cushion from the get-go. I had no job, but my wife was willing to take up the breadwinner’s role.

Partly, my assets are what is called Intellectual Property, or IP. I took early retirement at 43, in the year 1985—ten years before the time when IP, as content for Internet enterprises, was being called “King.” “Content is King,” is the phrase coined by Bill Gates in a 1996 article about the Internet (January 3).

Besides my IP, I also took with me important physical assets I created on my own in the time I was at the UW—the direct results of my research into the future of printmaking. These findings were of no interest to the UW art school administration and faculty at the time.

Videotapes, for example, documenting my former students’ experiments in creative uses of TV (aka Video Art), and hundreds of artworks I made in my pursuit of a place in the known art world—the world of art galleries, museums, art competitions and collectors’ homes.

Emeralda, my kingdom

I left the UW to continue my quest for a “Perfect Studio,” and the perfect studio is based on printmaking studios where a lot is going on: Teaching, research, production and services. The research that came out of my printmaking teaching gave me the idea of a fantasy land I call Emeralda, where asset management and legacy transfer is studied and practiced as a service to the printmaking world community. Emeralda could only be developed on the web, however.

Nevertheless, it was my kingdom; but it would always be under threat of annihilation.
“My kingdom for a horse,” in Richard III by Shakespeare, refers to the need for something relatively small (a horse) to secure something very large (a kingdom). Also, the old proverb, “For want of a nail, a kingdom was lost,” is how the need or want for something small can have huge consequences in the future if it is not found.

My legacy—my intellectual property (content) and physical property is the “nail” that I offer to support the PrintmakingWorld Online. All my art and artworks by other people, all the memorabilia, the videotape archive, valuable books, and digital data—all this can be the fourth leg on the stool, the platform, or the superstructure to support the launch of the PrintmakingWorld Online magazine.

My legacy is also at risk. Without funding, all my legacy will be lost. The legacies of my family, friends and former students may be at risk, too, without a PrintmakingWorld Online magazine. This, to me, is like the metaphor of the slain horse in Richard III, or the shoe-less horse in the proverb, lost for want of a nail.

I think this idea could be crowd-sourcing at its best.