A Magazine of Many Arts

Recently, I decided to reboot my personal website. It was mostly cobwebs at this point and many of the plugins I had used had faded into obscurity at some point over the last decade. I deleted everything that was broken, put up a couple of placeholder pictures, and went on to one of my five million other projects.

Last week, someone I met asked if they could purchase some of my artwork. Cool! It’s been a while. I handed her a business card so she could reach me later. Later that day, she wrote me in confusion to say she’d looked at my website but couldn’t tell what kind of things I did or what my style was. Whoops. That was embarrassing. So I rushed around putting a minimal website up so at least a visitor would know who I was. I wound up missing my Monday posting deadline for Polu Texni while I was working on that.

I don’t like to give a poet less than a week of featured time, so I thought it was a good time to do something else instead of the normal poem to make up the rest of the week. I decided to do a round up of artist links from business cards I’ve picked up recently. I sat down to look at all the websites, and guess what? Out of the half dozen sites I planned on showing, only one of them was functional, professional, and gave a good idea of what the artist did. The rest of them were out-of-date, contained no pictures, had broken functionality, or were missing all together. I had picked up all of these business cards in 2018, so over 80% of artists I met recently made a bad impression and potentially lost a customer. Wow! The good part is that it made me feel much better for having committed the same sin. At least it’s a common mistake.

I’m going to hang on to the link to the good website for another day so I can introduce it with “hey, this work is cool” instead of “hey, this guy’s website isn’t broken.” For now, I’ll just remind artists and writers if you are passing out business cards at art shows or cons, make sure what you are linking to works and gives a good impression.

I had not intended to take the month of December off! I took a freelance job with a tight deadline and found myself working weekends. I found myself not thinking about anything else. But it’s turned in now and I can devote my attention to other things.

I made it from November 2015 to August 2016 without missing a regular post! Sadly, I spilled water on my lovely Mac laptop and wasn’t able to use it for a week, right when I was returning from three weeks of travel. So, no new post last week. However, a cheap mac compatible USB keyboard has me back in business, so there will be a new poem up on Monday.

I first saw Eric Bornstein’s masks at a festival more than 20 years ago. He was performing folk tales with a small group of actors playing all of the roles using the masks to portray monsters, gods, heroes, and all of the other mythic gods. The performance was in the kid’s portion of the festival, but I was spell-bound and didn’t want to leave. I chatted with him briefly as he was packing up and discovered he took students. I was primarily a doll maker then, but there is a lot of overlap in techniques and styles between the two so I was excited at the thought of studying with him. But with kids and work and other projects, I wasn’t able to study with him until 2014.

Last fall, I decided to commission one of his masks. I’ve never commissioned a piece of artwork before. He has done a number of beautiful deity masks, including some greek gods that are amazing. He is going to make a goddess inspired by Athena, working words and images collaged into the helmet.

September 15th will be the 5th anniversary of Polu Texni.  We will have something special that day, a combination of poetry and artwork that I think will demonstrate the mixed art theme beautifully.

Remember that we have a giveaway this month for sample packs of ten samples of indie fragrance like Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs, Possets, ZOMG Smells, and Conjure Oils.  I’ve got enough to make eight gift bags of ten samples each. Many of these scents are unisex. If you would prefer one of my books instead (New Altars or Vision Quests) let me know. To win, comment on one of our posts, any of our posts.

Here are a couple of our old favorites from the (almost!) five years of Polu Texni. If you are new to the site, you might not have encountered these before.

Collapse by Michael Burstein

Very Truly Yours, by Seth Gordon

The Art of Pat Lillich

Three Poems

Monster Mash

I will be at Arisia in Boston next week. If any readers are interested in getting together, I’d love to meet you. My schedule for the weekend is:

Kamikaze costuming (Fast Track): Sat 9:30 am January 15th
Doll Costuming: Sat 2:00
Play with Clay (Fast Track): Sun 9:30 am
Monster Mash: Sun 3:00
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: Mon 9:30 am
Puppet making workshop (Fast Track): Mon 11:00
Costuming Space: Mon 12:30

The Fast Track panels are for kids. I always enjoy hanging out with children at geeky events. The kids are great, and it’s a good opportunity to meet other parents. Most of my current close friends I have met through my children — it’s one of the great pleasures of having smart, weird, geeky children. Socializing is not my strong point, but it’s always easy to strike up a conversation with someone whose children are busy planning to destroy Tokyo with yours.

The Monster Mash panel is cutting up old stuffed animals and combining them in weird ways to make monsters. I’m looking forward to that so much. It sounds like huge fun.

I will also have space in the art show. I’d love to hear what you think even if we don’t speak at the con. Leave a comment on this post or the next.

Or rather, new old format. I’m going back to a weekly update schedule. I’ve got the next few weeks queued up and ready to go here. Some more fiction, some more poems, let’s see if we can scare up some more non-fiction and artist profiles.

We will be starting with a short story on Monday morning. “Wishing” is by Sara Hoskinson Frommer. In addition to her six mystery novels, Sara has written little books for adult new readers and short stories. But “Wishing” is the only story like this one. It is a gentle story about mental illness and brothers.

I am proud to present the second issue of Polu Texni, with fiction by Adam Rurik and Michael A. Burstein, and the beginning of an exploration of science quilts. The costuming article will appear in October, along with fiction by Vera Nazarian.

After this issue, I am going to switch to smaller weekly updates. I wanted to start with enough content to really show what the site is about. Now that I’ve got enough here for a reader to sink their teeth into, I want to concentrate on adding new material frequently and keeping the site fresh.

Waiting by Pat Lillich

Welcome to the initial issue of Polu Texni. In this issue, we have artwork by Pat Lillich, fiction by Jack Skillingstead and the first part of a story by Adam Rurik, and interviews with Pat and Jack. Next issue, on September 29th, we’ll have a new story by Michael A. Burstein, the second part of Adam’s story, and an article on the art of costuming.

Look for the first issue September 15th with fiction by Jack Skillingstead and Adam Rurik, and an artists’s profile on Pat Lillich.