The elitists always try to ruin it for everyone

I'm sure you've seen them at Target and Wal Mart, but thanks to a Tweet last night from Tim Biskup we now also know that DIY vinyl figures are sold at Michaels! Sounds awesome right? More access means more participation which means more interest in the art form. Mr. Biskup makes his thoughts clear through his tweet.

Again, these or similar do-it-yourself figures sold under different names, have been available at big-box stores for a while and again, that's a great thing. So I replied to his tweet and questioned his tone of negativity. Here you can see the short exchange that took place which I think, in the end, had Mr. Biskup letting a bit of his elitism slip.

I get the point he's trying (and I use trying loosely) to make but it falls apart when you give it any thought at all. All art, once sold, was done so for profit. Art is a business. It is a profession. You do it because you can, you have the talent to do it. If you are one of the lucky few who can make a living off of your art, guess what? You're profiting from it. If you were making art for art sake you'd be giving it away so please don't pretend that this company trying to make money off of selling a product is at all different than you trying to make money off of your product. And your art is just that:a product like shoes and towels. You are a brand and you profit off of that. It's the same thing. And there is nothing wrong with that. If you werent selling art, I couldn't buy it. Art is made to be enjoyed which generally means paid for. 

We're also talking about a vinyl toy being sold at an art supply store. A store that sells doll parts and diorama sets and yarn. All blank canvases, if you will, from which artists build and create. To complain about another building block for an artist to work with is foolish. You probably grind all your own pigment and mix all your own paint, and weave your own canvases too. Wouldn't want those canvas makers to profit off of the art scene. 

Is the figure pictured the most original or of the highest quality? To people familiar with the scene and the "originals", no. But to folks who are unfamiliar with art toys or Munnys and just happen to have kids who need art projects to keep them busy, this may be the perfect product. We're also talking about a DIY figure which is not something designed to be a final product. By intention they are basic and plain. There isn't much going on with a Munny or Qee either but they serve their purpose and to somehow suggest that Munny and Qee are legitimate while these figures sold at Michaels and other retailers are not, is ridiculous. Perhaps instead of looking down your nose at the platform, you focus your attention to the scene itself and the artists who use DIY platforms as a crutch. I see value to that argument if you'd like to make it. But if you're going to go after a company for wanting to make money by profiting off of a scene you may want to look a little closer to home. 

But it was his reply to the question I posed in that last tweet that undermines even his own argument the most. 

If not to make the world around you a prettier place, a better place, or at the very least a changed place with your art, then what is the point of doing it? Profit, of course. My final tweet there he re-tweeted, by the way, for reasons I don't understand except perhaps to mock? In the end his argument against the sale of those figures (it is being done for profit rather than art) holds little water coming from a man who says its okay for a select few companies to make money off of us, but not others. For Tim Biskup and his ilk to profit is divine. For companies trying to get more kids and outsiders involved in the scene to profit is sinful. 

Oh, and guess who else had to chime in?

I think once you've got her picking a side, you know that's not the side you want to be on. 

Designer Con: Come for the art, stay for the chit-chat

Designer Con 2011 and all the preparations it required, are behind us now. The booths have been dismantled, the floors cleaned, and new event signage is everywhere. The convention world moves quickly and one-time a year shows like Designer Con come and go well before their welcome has worn off. But what the convention provides, what service it provides, to this scene appears different to me now than last year. As a attendee the moment you are finally allowed to come bounding into the hall, wallets flapping open at the smell of fresh resin and vinyl, the place looks like heaven on Earth. Every designer toy you could imagine is probably there in some form, every artist you care to see is propped up by coffee and gin behind arranged tables, and the scores of new and impressive products are never ending. Designer Con, unlike SDCC, has remained a good and manageable size. While this year the con was bigger than ever it was still well within the realm of possibility to see and experience it all between the hours of 10am and 5pm on a single Saturday. The only pressure felt was that imposed by signing schedules but at a place like DCON, where the artists are always floating around and easily approachable, even signing schedules are loose.

It’s a mecca for fans, no doubt about it. And last year, my first year to attend the con, I had a smile from the moment I got in the door to the moment my eyes finally closed that evening. This year I switched teams. When registration time for DCON 2011 came around I made the rash decision to plunk down my money and “buy” a booth. Why not? I figured I would ask a few artists of which I’m a fan to use it as their own, free of charge, and I would get the pleasure of knowing I did something good. I helped. I may not be able to make sellable or collectable art myself but I can certainly provide a folding table to help support those who can. That was my way of giving back to the community. And I was lucky. All who were asked to participate (save one) agreed and all (save one) made the trip out to show their art and visit with fans and random passer-by. Yosiell Lorenzo, Vanessa Ramirez, and Troy Stith all put their best foot forward and showed some incredible work. And as if they weren’t worth the price of admission alone, Gary Ham decided to do a last minute signing for the release of his fourth and final colorway of his Hermees figure. The lineup was great and the art and toys shown were top-notch.

So why didn’t much of it sell? I thought it was strange considering the caliber of artist and product they had so I asked around and got the same answers from a lot of booths: stuff doesn’t sell well at DCON. What? I was baffled. Last year I filled the trunk of my car with toys before the day was half gone. Even this year I was constantly running back to the booth to squirrel away toys under the table for safekeeping. And I swear I saw lots of other general attendees carrying bags so what was the issue? None of it was making sense so I asked an artist I felt would be honest with me, and that I felt comfortable asking such questions (though who will remain nameless) how DCON compares, for sales, with SDCC. His response was, “my worst day at SDCC is better than my best day of DCON.” Shocking. This is a room full of people specifically there because they are fans of toys and the related sub-culture so why would sales be lower (over a single day) here than they are at SDCC where while it is very crowded, the toy scene makes up a tiny, tiny percentage of the show floor?

The simplest reason may be that of geography. While DCON is certainly aimed at the very people who would be most likely to buy 90% of what they’ll find inside, it is largely a local show. By that I mean people who attend DCON are for the most part Southern California locals. There are certainly exceptions but DCON as is not the kind of event that attendees fly across country, or the globe, to attend like they do in massive and growing numbers for SDCC. I think this is the most logical of reasons to explain the apparent difference in sales but it’s also the saddest.

Privilege may be another issue. It just might be that it’s not that sales are worse overall, but that sales are lower by attendees. One of the perks of being an exhibitor is that you have access to the hall prior to the show floor opening. Having this privilege, this access, means having the ability to shop the booths before the general public is granted admission. I don’t know if there is any official policy prohibiting sales prior to opening the doors, so I won’t point fingers, but I absolutely took advantage of picking up a few items before business hours just to ensure I was able to beat the rush. And I’m not the only one. There was a rush on certain booths and in at least one case an artist was completely sold out before a single paying attendee was given the privilege of riffling through his wares. So it may not be that spending is down across the board but rather that a good chunk of money is being spent before the convention gets underway and is therefore not being considered. I don’t know, just a possibility. This may not explain the differences in money brought in but if you’ve ever wondered why when you got to a booth right away for that very limited figure and it was already sold out, now you know why. Next year buy a booth.

The bottom line here is that perception is everything. Last year, as an attendee, it looked to me like the cash was flowing and waves of money were crashing at the foot of nearly every artist in the building. This year, as an exhibitor, seeing what each booth started with and comparing it to what each seller packed up again at the end of the day, I don’t know where all that money was going. Some booths/artists will always be a draw and demand for their releases will always be high. Those artists that can release a new colorway of the same thing they’ve been releasing in drips-and-drabs for years are well oiled machines that understand how the process works. It’s the working artist, the middle of the road (success-wise) guys and gals that will have more luck with the shotgun approach that is SDCC vs. the targeted, sniper rifle, of DCON.

That all being said, no one I talked to seemed to care. Every single artist whether they sold out or sold almost nothing all said they love the convention. This sentiment was universal and I completely understand it. If you are the art-is-my-second-job kind of guy then DCON is your foot in the door. The cost of participation is extremely low; the organizers are knowledgeable and incredibly helpful, and maybe best of all: no waiting list. For the artist that can sell out a release in minutes just by tweeting, DCON becomes something different. Sure, they bring their product, and they sell, but at some point DCON serves better as a meeting place. This is one of the very few times a year where not only all of the various artist cliques and individuals are all in one place but that they have the room and time and patience left after the day is done to hang out with one another and share ideas over hard liquor and karaoke. That’s something that they just can’t get as easily from SDCC and a big part of what makes DCON so valuable.

As an attendee DCON is aces. It’s the perfect mix of toys, art, clothing, and associated products, where anything you want to spend money on you will probably find. I would take one day of DCON over four of SDCC every time. For the vendors it is an opportunity to visit with friends, talk to fans, and relax surrounded by likeminded and similarly driven people. So while you may not sell as much as a vendor/artist at DCON no one is complaining and that is a beautiful, beautiful thing. See you next year Designer Con. 

One year down and so much has changed

It was roughly one year ago this week that ToyPinionated came to be. The site was born, in fact, out of a desire to see some truth and a point of view that wasn’t being represented very well already.  Nearly one year ago my decision to jump into the internet fray was prompted by an event, a gathering of likeminded folks coming together in appreciation of toys and art and who come prepared to dump obscene amounts of money at the feet of the artists they adore. That was my first Designer Con. Still very new to the scene I knew not what to expect having my only prior convention experience being a few hours spent hording as many toys as possible, sneaking around the floor of SDCC with a “borrowed” badge. Was this going to be the same madhouse? Were there going to be very curvy and virtually naked women dressed as space pirate dogs around every corner?

No on both counts.

I found Designer Con to be a very mellow place where I was able to spend time at each booth talking to the artists, asking them about their pieces, and enjoy the day without feeling rushed or attacked from all sides by sweaty masses. I spent a lot of money that day. I bought a lot of toys. You can go back and read my post about the event and the evening prior to get a good idea of my frame of mind at the time and how I saw the experience then. For me, having practically just finished packing up my booth from this year’s event, I read that first post and I can’t help but realize how differently I see things now only a year later. I still have a deep love for the convention and I appreciate all the hard work the organizers go through to make it a reality but I see it from a very different perspective today and truth be told I’m not sure how I feel about that.

A year ago this blog didn’t exist, I didn’t have Twitter followers, and I didn’t have people across the country who knew who I was. I walked through those doors as a person with a pocket full of money and a the goal of buying as many toys as I could, no greater expectations than that. Over the last year I have cultivated a very small but very loyal, engaged,  and exciting group of readers and friends around the globe consisting largely of the very artists I arrived a year ago to buy from as a nameless Shmo. The con I walked into this past weekend hadn’t changed from last year (aside from the growth in square footage and number of booths) but I had. I walked through those doors with a banner under my arm and a tablecloth for the table of MY booth. My booth. I had a booth. How stupid a thought is that? A guy that doesn’t actually make anything of value has a booth. My reasons for hosting the booth are my own and I’ve shared them with close friends and the artists involved and I’m truly glad that I did it but the realizations that came with moving from one side of the scene to the other have shaken me. I’m not complaining, I’m flattered that there are people who know who I am now and that artists I respect a great deal take the time to talk with me and tease me and shake my hand in passing. It’s an amazing thing to go from a fan to friend.

So if I’m not complaining, what am I doing? I’m trying my best to express what I bet a lot of the people in that building sitting behind tables all felt at one point. That the moment you realize that you are no longer “just” a spectator but that you are now a part of the show, part of the spectacle itself, you’re forced to look at the thing you’ve loved in a whole new and occasionally uncomfortable way. It’s not that anything has changed for the worse but rather that it simply changed at all that I’m having trouble grasping. I’m still the guy drooling over the latest Cherry Vinyl release or prototype. I’m still the guy running over to the Circus Posterus table to see what they’ve got to show and that gets nervous asking for a signature. I just also happen to now be a guy that the Sucklord wanted to interview along with longtime toy/art/culture writer Jeremy Brautman, during his live Sucathon web-cast (skip ahead to the two hour twenty minute mark to see me in all my glory). And the guy that gets called out as a cyber-bully by the very artist that inspired my first custom. It’s a strange position to be in for all the great and awkward reasons simultaneously.

I’m a lucky, lucky guy and I’m grateful for all I have and the incredible people I’ve met over the last year. And I realize that voicing these emotions make it sound like I’m whining or being dramatic but I’m truly not. Too often change happens without consideration or attention and this particular change has brought so much joy to my life that I couldn’t mentally afford to let it go without conversation.

For your patience through my psychobabble tonight, tomorrow I will post some thoughts and observations about Designer Con itself. If you stopped by the booth to say hello, thank you. If you made it this far in the post, thank you. I’ve gotten guff for saying this before and continue to be dismissed when I say it, but it’s true: I don’t write expecting anyone to read but knowing that some do and respond to it, whether positively or negatively, is a very humbling thing and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

Now get the hell out. 

Breaking Designer Con news! Come meet Gary Ham 1-3 PM, booth 412!

Late breaking news here at ToyPinionated headquarters where I've just confirmed that Gary Ham will be stopping by the booth for a short, two hour, signing to celebrate the release of the new colorway of his amazing, and award winning, Hermees! A figure which you may recall was my first (and only) site review. I have loved Hermees since I saw the original wood version at SDCC two years ago and it is a tremendous honor to play host to Gary this year. 

So clear your schedule and make sure you're at booth 412 from 1-3 PM to meet the man, the myth, the legond and leave with a pretty cool and unique toy at the same time. 

See you there! 

Grab your butt and meet us at Designer Con 2011, booth 412!

This Saturday, November 5th, the Pasadena convention center will be the epicenter of quite possibly the greatest showing of toy-art since... last year around the same time. Designer Con, people! This year I won't just be attending and shopping and sweating on strangers, I will be playing host to three great artists at the first ever ToyPinionated.com booth!  

Yosiell Lorenzo: You've seen his vinyl, you've loved his customs, and you've F5'd your fingers bloody for his paintings and now you can meet the man himself! Last year Yosiell used Designer Con to debut his first ever vinyl figure. This year Yosiell is going the self-produced route and bringing his first run of personally sculpted, hand cast/poured/painted resin Sicklings! There will also be prints, a zine, bookmarks, and other goodies so please be sure to stop by and see this magic in person and say hello!

Troy Stith: Unless you've been living under a rock, by now you've seen the preview pictures Troy has posted of his offerings for the show. There will be four custom "Geode" MunnyWorld figures (which I've seen in person and are mind-blowing) along with a new run of Miscreant plaques in both small and large sizes! With prices ranging from $35 to only $65 ($65 for each of the four, one of a kind, Geode figures) you'd better be one of the first to the booth if you hope to get one at all. Hopefully Troy will do more of these in the future but for now you'll need to see them to believe them and you won't be able to walk away without one. 

Vanessa Ramirez: I am beyond proud to welcome Vanessa to her convention debut and cannot wait for you all to see the range of customs, prints, and other goodies she's got on tap! Like Androids? Like custom Androids? She's got 'em! If you follow Vanessa on Twitter (and you damn-well better) then you're already familiar with her art style so you've got a pretty good idea of the level of quality and line work to expect. This may be Vanessa's first convention setting event but she is destined for really great things and this is the perfect opportunity to come by, meet her, and pick up something amazing for your shelf or wall. 

Whatever your taste, you'll find something interesting and provocative at the ToyPinionated booth this year. It's been a blast working with these three and I am so proud to be even a small part of Designer Con 2011. It's going to be a fantastic day and you owe it to yourself to stop by and show these guys and gal a little love. 

As an added bonus, booth neighbor and genius monster maker, Shing Yin Khor has created a contest out of calling me names! Go figure. See the tweet yourself, the rules are pretty basic and the prize is awesome so seek me out, give me a shout, and stop by to see her at booth 415 to collect your winnings! But be nice, I’m fragile.

Booth 412... See you there! 

The fallacy of numbers

While I wait for the stable boy to saddle up my high horse and bring him over, let me start out by thanking guys like TheBlotSays and Nathan Hamill for talking me through this last night over Twitter. Great conversation brings about better understanding and that truly is what I hope this post leads to more of.

Oh, look at that. My horse is ready. Time to ride.

With every new release there are a few details that I would venture to guess we all, as collectors, tend to look at and pay close attention to. Most important, and a given, is the artist whose work the piece is based of of. Also important is who is putting the toy out as some producers have better reputations than others and it’s always important to factor that in when considering the price of the piece. But one detail that almost defines the very scene we adore and sets precedence for the fervor that will be felt around the release has to be the number of figures being produced. We’re all here, and pay top dollar for painted bits of plastic, because we are addicted to the hunt and love the feeling of having a piece of a very limited and often hard to obtain art. When you look at a blog post announcing a new figure by your favorite artist you immediately notice the run size and that, in conjunction with the price, gives you a great idea on how difficult it may be to get one for yourself. But what if it’s all a ruse and a marketing tool that is both completely inaccurate and an out-and-out lie designed to drive up price and demand without actually delivering on the promise of scarcity?

Maybe I'm naive and you've all known this forever and it's a given in the art world but until yesterday, triggered by one tweet, the fallacy of it all never hit me. Tuesday afternoon, our beloved SpankyStokes tweeted an innocent picture of the yet-unreleased "Lilitu" figure by Tara McPherson . According to the short tweet the figure had just that day arrived at his home (presumably) for review which was promised to be soon coming. My issue here isn’t with John for receiving the figure but with Kidrobot for sending it in the first place, though an official release date for the toy hasn’t even been announced. So my question and frustration stems from this: Where did this (at least) one figure come from? Kidrobot’s own site reports that this figure is “limited” to 200 pieces. Are there now only 199 pieces available for paying fans?  Paying fans who have to wait for a release and fight each other, and Kidrobot's servers, for the chance and honor of giving over their $250? And this is just the one in the wild that I’m aware of; I’m sure there are more. Does that bother you? Doesn’t it irk you as a prospective buyer of this toy that there are now fewer viable figures for which the recipients had to put out no effort or money (feel free to correct me here John) to get?

I understand completely that this is not a Kidrobot thing. I'm sure all producers conduct themselves and handle their releases similarly. I'm simply using this most recent release as an example.

The very value, artistic integrity of the pieces aside, that we ascribe to these figures we fawn over stems in large part from the number of them available to begin with. If instead of there only being 200 of McPherson’s "Lilitu" there were 100,000 of them as there are G.I. Joe figures, they wouldn’t have nearly the importance or dollar value that are such a huge part of making them collectable and desirable in the first place. This scene is built around the idea that we are buying into a small and exclusive club of owners of a unique and specific piece of art (the issue of future colorways aside). That you are one of only 200 people in the world who have this art object in your collection is something very special and meaningful to the passionate fan and collector.  But is that feeling based on a marketing lie? And does that even matter?

But maybe something else is happening. Maybe instead of review and AP units being removed from the production runs and made unavailable for paying customers, maybe units are production pieces above and beyond the 200 created for sale. I don’t think this way of doing things is any better and in fact it seems far worse. The thought here being that AP figures (which at this point in the game don’t really serve as artist proofs but rather a form of payment to the artist which, at least in some cases, are delivered well after the production pieces hit the market) and review figures are produced outside of the run intended for sale. So instead of there being only 200 in existence as advertised by the artists and producers there are those 200 plus 50 (just using a random number here, could be 5 and its just as dishonest) that will, inevitably, be sold at a later date. Point being, there aren’t really only 200. Eventually that artist will release their “AP” figures on their site, sometimes customized, sometimes not, but they are for intents and purposes no different than the production pieces shipped to stores. So why wouldn’t they be included in the total run? Again, maybe they are, I’m not an artist and I’m not privy to those kinds of details, so if you are an artist or someone who knows how these things work please post in the comments and let me know!

Something else to factor in is that this dishonesty in the numbers also means that we may be paying more for the figures released depending which of the magic, mystery, numbers are being used in the calculation to determine sale price of each figure. Are we, the folks buying the 200 released figures, paying a higher price on our figures to cover the cost of the additional figures produced as AP and review units? Depending on how you do the math it may actually work out in our favor as paying customers but given that this is a business first, and an artistic venture a distant second for these companies, I tend to assume the worst.

Is any of this the end of the world? No. Should anyone be looking at these toys solely as an investment, buying them only because they are "limited"? Hell no. if you love it it shouldn't matter if there are five million of them made or three. But it is at the very least dishonest and misleading to the fans. If this bothers you as it does me try looking for those independent artists who self-produce and support their efforts. In most cases you'll pleased with the quality of work and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that all of your money is going straight to the creator. That's a powerful thing in a scene this small that's so driven by personal relationships. 

The Sucklord made me do it!

If you haven't already seen it, go read Camille Dodero's really in-depth write up of the one and only Sucklord in the Village Voice. If you look carefully you might just find a quote from yours-truly buried in there somewhere. I don't claim to be an expert on the man, and I am not entirely sure why Mr. Suck suggested she contact me for an interview, but I was honored to share some thoughts on our helmeted hero and to see them in print is pretty rad, too.

Go check it out and leave Camille a comment with your thoughts. It's a long piece and I left it knowing a lot more about the man than I think I'm comfortable with. Such is the internet. 

An open letter to Amanda Visell

Dear Ms. Visell,

Let me start off by introducing my site and myself. I am, first and foremost, an art toy collector. I have amassed some 500 toys of which are many of your vinyl releases. I am not an artist. I am not a journalist or writer by trade and I do not purport to be. This site was started to give me a small corner of the Internet into which I could scream my ramblings and share my thoughts. If people agree with me or find my ranting entertaining then they are welcome to join me on my journey. I reserve my vitriol for my own online home. That isn’t to say that I am a coward in person, in fact quite the opposite. Were you to ask anyone who has met me at a toy related event and engaged me in conversation I am just as opinionated and vocal face to face as I am in writing. I use my own name and I do not hide behind anyone or any sort of anonymity. This site is dripping in hyperbole. Everything I write is as if I were speaking to a friend about how big the fish was that I caught last weekend. If I feel like something is bad, I say it’s the most disgusting piece of trash I’ve ever seen. Why? Because it’s a lot funnier that way. Maybe not to you if it’s your piece I’m talking about, and maybe not to a lot of people who read my posts, but to many others, and me it is. I write for me. I don’t do this expecting anyone to read it at all. If I did maybe I would be nicer.

But let me get to my point. I’m sorry. Not for the entirety of the quote, which you have since decided to use as your Twitter bio, but for one word used specifically. Wretch. That wasn’t fair. I don’t know you personally and we’ve never had a conversation. It wasn’t appropriate for me to use that kind of term to describe you in that context. And for that, I am sorry. The rest of that paragraph, though, I stand by and will defend for you any time should you like to have that conversation. As a long time fan of your work I have become very disillusioned over the last year by what I see as very repetitious and unimaginative releases. It was your elephant Dunny, and the emotion that little sad face expressed, that made it clear for me what power the medium could have. It inspired my first ever custom, which I sent you pictures of, and you were nice enough to respond to. So it is difficult for me now, to have the opinions about your art and your public persona that I do, because so much of that is counter to what I assumed and perceived from early on in my infatuation with this scene. That, I suppose, is my own fault. 

While this isn’t the apology I’m sure you or your fans were hoping for or expecting, this is what I am comfortable saying. I used a word to describe you that was inappropriate and unfair for a stranger to use. Period. And for that I am genuinely sorry. I understand your anger and while I am baffled by the way in which you chose to address the quote, me personally (tweeting pictures of me and a custom I'd done), and my site, I still wouldn’t expect the underlying feeling to be any different were I in your shoes. If you have any questions for me or would like any clarification on anything I said either in my original post or in this letter please don’t hesitate to contact me in any of the many ways available. I understand my opinions are often cantankerous, aggressive, and mean, but they are my own and I do not shy away from the things that I say or do. That said I am able to recognize when I’ve crossed a line and on Friday I did just that.

-Matthew

SDCC... DTA... PTSD... WTF?

So yeah, SDCC happened. I know all tens of you readers out there have been waiting with baited breath to see what Mr. ToyPinionated has to say about it but really, what is there to say? Its a big room with a big mess of people all smashing into one another, rubbing their sweaty over-exposed bodies together into one huge frothing nerd orgy. Awesome! 

I will break it down this way:

Day 1: With Jeremy Brautman in tow,  I strolled into the event like a straight pimp flashing my SDCC 4-day badge at all who asked to see it like I owned the place. Our first stop of the day was to visit the fine folks at Dragatomi where I spent my first money of the con for a one-off Kathy Olivas x Brandt Peters mini Skelve. This is the point where any good self-respecting blogger would insert a picture of said "toy" but I am not that guy. Honestly, I don't have a picture of it. I would otherwise. Maybe. But probably not. 

The rest of the day consisted of similarly ill-conceived purchases and more of the aforementioned nerd sweat-swapping as Jeremy and I made our way around to the surprising amount of booths in the section of the con dedicated to Art Toy makers, artists, distributors, and their ilk. Good times were had. Great people visited (I'm looking at you George Gaspar, Gary Ham, Scott Tolleson, Drilone, Spanky Stokes, Chris Ryniak). **SPOILER ALERT** All in all, day one was by far the best day. 

Night 1: Thursday night was the presentation ceremony for Clutter Magazine’s first annual Designer Toy Awards. This train wreck I will save for the end. That's called a tease. 

Day 2: Go back up to day one and read it again. Aside from the purchase of the Skelve it was pretty much identical only with much less of the pimp mentality which had given way to many whole-body heavy sighs. The crowds were worse. The shopping was annoyingly too good since I'd already spent all of my money on day one but some purchases were made anyway, I won't lie. I also won't say what they were because at this point I honestly don't remember. I do however recall the internal struggle that took place each time a purchase was made. Oh, SDCC, you defeat me. 

Day 3: At this point my body had unified into one giant middle finger which it gave to itself. With no money to spend and very few social graces left in me to share with my adoring public, I was an emotional time bomb waiting to explode. Unfortunately for poor Jeremy who was sharing accommodations with me for the con, it was he that took the brunt of my explosions. And I mean that in the most heterosexual way possible. 

Day 4: Screw you SDCC, I'm staying in bed! 

So that was my SDCC experience. If it weren't for the amazing people that make up this crazy Art Toy scene I wouldn't have made it more than an hour without finding a spot on the carpet in the outside hall and planting my ass there for four days. Would you guess that social situations are difficult for me? I really must thank Jeremy for pushing me out there, being an awesome friend and introducing me to everyone we came across. Through him I've had the honor and great pleasure to meet a ton of inspiring and truly talented people and I'm forever grateful for that. If I met you at the Con, it was a pleasure. And if you said something nice about the blog or even pretended to know what the hell it was, I owe you a Coke and foot massage next time we meet. 

Ok. Now for the moment we've all been waiting for: The Designer Toy Awards. 

The night started out well. Arriving at Bar Basic, the venue for the event, along side Jeremy and my girlfriend Dawn, we walked in like the VIPs we weren't and took the place in. We got there pretty early so the room was largely void of people but fairly quickly the place started to fill and pleasantries were exchanged. As seems to be the case with most of these art related events it was the visiting with friends, new and newer, that was the best part. J*RYU (whose recent, massive collaboration with Brent Nolasco is now for sale through Dragatomi. Go buy it. It exemplifies the term Art) , Julie B, Nathan Hamill, among many others were in attendance and were looking sharp for the festivities ahead. A highlight of the night for me though was finally getting to meet an artist whose custom work I've loved for a while, Troy Stith. Troy was nice enough to do my first commission piece (Aplastar), and it remains a prized piece in my collection. He also happens to be one half of the duo of artists making great use of the ToyPinionated booth at this year's DCon! The other being the great Yosiell Lorenzo who unfortunately could not make it to SDCC this year so he could put the finishing touches on his own solo show in Portland! 

I'm spending quite a bit of time on everything except the awards for a really good reason: they sucked. Aside from a small handful of deserved winners, I either didn't agree with the selections or didn't have any interest in the category. That's not to say I'm a majority in that opinion, but hey, this is my blog. If you're interested in seeing who won what there are many other places to find that out. I don't care enough to list them here. What I do want to celebrate are the few winners I thought truly deserving.

Gary Ham: Winner for Best Self Produced Toy for his Hermees the bat figure. An award well deserved for a great figure. The catch? Clutter managed to screw up the spelling of Hermees on the trophy as did every blogger I saw thereafter on their DTA breakdown posts. Very disappointing. In fact it is still wrong on Clutter's own site. How disrespectful and incompetent can you be? These are the people organizing this, though should anything more really be expected from the same people who managed to screw up every other aspect of the show? More on that later.

Rotofugi: Winner for Best Online Toy Store and Best [physical] Toy Store. Nothing really needs to be said here. Rotofugi are not only my personal favorite and go-to online shop but they do great things for the scene and are generally great people. That's what I'm told, anyway.

That's all I got. None of the remaining winners were of any interest to me or were the most deserving in their "short list".

Biggest WTF winners:

Doktor A: Winner of the Best Customizer category. He's great, yes. But best customizer in a group that included Chris Ryniak, Scott Tolleson, and Chauskokis? No. Just no.

Amanda Visell: Winner of Best Mini Series. Ugh. The only upside to this award was that Jeremy was forced to utter the words into a microphone in a room full of people. I won't speak for him, he'll share his opinion on Ms. Visell if asked, but that a socially awkward, artistically repetitive [redacted] artist like her would win anything brings a small clot of vomit to the back of my throat. Choke it down, Hisey. You just cleaned your desk!

Ashley Wood: Winner of Artist of the Year. I'm simply not a fan of Ashley Wood's work. My votes all went to Chris Ryniak. I could have seen Ashley winning for Best Production as that's what his figures are known for, but artistic creativity? Not so much.

"4ft Companion" by Kaws: Toy of the Year. A bigger version of something we've seen a lot of in very similar forms over years past. Sure. Why not. That's so much better than all the new, fresh ideas that were produced over the last year. I'm slapping my forehead so hard right now that I'm sure you can hear it from wherever you may be. 

San Diego Comic Con: Winner of Most Influential Event. I thought SDCC being nominated was a joke to begin with, but for it to win is completely absurd. How is SDCC influential to the Art Toy scene? I'll ask you artists, you poor few who read this far, are you influenced with anything other than the flu by attending the four days of hell that is SDCC other than financially, of course? It's a place of business. It's not an influential event. It's a venue to hock your wares and meet your fans. Does it serve a useful purpose? Yes. Is it influential? Hell no! 

Awards aside there were also issues with the venue. Before the ceremony even began people were being turned away at the door. Such people turned away included potential winners of the very awards the venue had been booked to present. Nominees such as Ayleen and George Gaspar of Toy Break, and eventual winners such as Brandt Peters and Amanda Visell were all told they could not enter the building. Granted, this was somewhat out of Clutter's hands but how about for next year you figure out some way to ensure that the people the event is being held for can actually get in to enjoy it? 

You get the picture. The awards were all over the place and it was frustrating. While I felt so great for the few winners I support I almost feel guilty that it was a DTA that they had to win. From the beginning of the nomination process all the way through the actual awards ceremony itself, there has been very little reason to take them seriously. Talented people deserve recognition for a job well done, I firmly believe that, and it is infuriating that these DTAs had to serve as that recognition. And for all you applogists yes I understand it was the first year and Clutter will hopefully learn from their early mistakes and develop the DTAs into something meaningful and mature for future years. At least I hope so. 

Toy Art Gallery? Never again. Never, ever again.

I told myself I wasn't going to write this. That I've tweeted enough about it and posted about it on Facebook. But here I am writing anyway because something about the entirety of my interactions with Toy Art Gallery has set a fire in me like I haven't experienced in a while and I think speaks to what can be so horribly wrong with this scene in spots. Sure I get pissed easily, I'll admit that, and sure, maybe I burn a bridge here and there while on my travels. But sometimes people or businesses do things that are just so blatantly stupid that they deserve to be called to the mat for it. 

So my story begins back at Toy Art Gallery's Juried Resin Art Toy show from just a month ago. While I was there, lucky enough to be in the space before opening and while the judges were doing their evaluations, I noticed quite a few errors around the room. Not only were some of the pieces tagged incorrectly (those tags, by the way, were how the judges identified the pieces on their score cards... see the problem?), but some didn't have tags at all. In an instance of a solo show maybe that isn't such an issue as going into it you've got a pretty good idea of who did the work. But in a group show like that was, if a piece didn't have a tag, you didn't know who the artist was. 

Maybe I'm being foolish here but I believe the gallery has a responsibility to the artists they host to do at least the bare minimum of promotion and, maybe, if its not too much to ask, put the artists damn name on their own work. No name tag also meant no price, and no price meant no sale. Fortunately (though after pointing it out to the folks running the show. Twice.) the errors were fixed and all was well. And this was done before the show opened, so ultimately no harm, no foul. But I can't help think that they should have been more professional and respectful to the artists from the beginning, whithout it having to be pointed out. Is that really an acceptable error on any level?

And while you may be sitting there wondering why I'm complaining about things that were fixed, it's because those errors ended up biting me in the ass. See, I bought something from that show. As much as I bitched about the shitty work that inhabited those walls, and there was a lot of it, there were a handful of pieces I would have loved to have in my collection and I settled on one. So like a good consumer I bellied up to the register, I pointed to and gave the gallery-assigned number of the figure I wished to purchase, and gave them my money. All good. That is of course until I was approached by one of the staff and told that they had sold me the wrong piece. He said that the tags were wrong and the toy’s price was wrong, and that I owed them more money. Great. Fine. I gave them the balance of the difference and tried to let go.

Fortunately it was at the beginning of the evening and things got better from there. I was surrounded by great people and had a wonderful time (and dined on TAG's dime, by the way, so suck it). 

Which brings me to today, or rather a week ago when I received an email letting me know my piece was available to pick up any time during their regular business hours, Monday-Saturday 1-5pm. Awesome. So today I drove the 90 minutes into Hollywood and arrived to the gallery around 12:45. I waited. I sat patiently, because that's what I do, and waited until they were to open at 1pm. 

But they didn't. At 1:05 I went up to the door, saw the lights were on inside, and tried to open and enter to no avail. The door was locked. I knocked. No one came. There is a note on the door that directs people with inquiries about or deliveries for the gallery to an address just two buildings down, also affiliated with the gallery, so I follow the signs advise. I go in where someone approaches me and I let them know that I'm there to pick up a piece from last month's resin show but the gallery isn't open. The gentleman, a nice fellow, walks with me back over to the gallery, tries to open the door only to find as I already knew that it was locked. Great.

He looks in the windows, says, "huh," and tries the door again. It is now 1:15pm and he turns to me and says, with a straight face, "you must have just missed him. He probably just went to lunch. Maybe you could go grab a bite to eat and come back in 10-15 minutes?"

Let that soak in.

The gallery opens at 1, I had been there since 12:45 and no one had entered or left, and yet they had gone to lunch? After the gallery should be open? Maybe they aren’t used to having much traffic, which wouldn't surprise me since the gallery is in a strange area and looks like shit, but why then have hours at all? But fine, I said. I'd wait. And so I did. For another 30 minutes during which no one came back to the shop, no one unlocked the door, and no one could help me get the figure I had paid for for a month before and was told to come and get. Apparently there is only one key to the gallery.

I am now three hours worth of driving, and 45 minutes worth of sitting and waiting, into this ordeal and an email to the organizer is my next move. In that email I declare that I'd waited for them to no avail during their open hours and would require them to ship me my item because I refuse, refuse, to do it again. The reply? 

"I'm sorry to hear I missed you. I've been here since 10am and don't know how that happened. I'll get  a shipping quote and send you a Paypal invoice.

Thanks."

That's right, I get to pay for the privilege of having my item shipped to me after having almost four hours of my time wasted by their incompetence. Where was the dude, in the bathroom for 45 minutes? Locked away in a closet, hiding? Bullshit. His own coworkers didn't know where he was and were helpless to get me into the gallery because there weren't any other keys. The shipping? $7.00. Not a huge deal, and I paid it because I just want this done with, but the fact that he had the balls to even suggest I pay at all is amazing to me. Nothing about the show was handled properly. Read the various reviews out there and you'll see, plain as day, that I'm not the only person who has had problems. I've heard stories from artists who have had horrible experiences with them as well from their end of things. 

If the gallery hosting the show isn't going to take their responsibilities to heart, then artists and collectors need to start doing business elsewhere. It's not just the gallery that ends up looking bad, it's everyone affiliated with them. I made my point clear in my last post about the disaster that comes from mixing horrible artists with the cream-of-the-crop, but in this instance we're talking about real money. I got some advice from a great friend suggesting I tell TAG to go to hell and issue me a complete refund. But I couldn't do that. I can't do that because that just means an artist that I appreciate doesn't get that money that he's been counting on, or possibly had in his pocket, for a month. It wasn't his fault TAG is run by a bunch of monkeys so I couldn't bring myself to make him suffer. 

Hopefully this was an off event for them. Hopefully they don't behave this way regularly or treat their artists the way that I hear they do. We need good spaces run by great people who value the scene and want to be a positive part in it. I don't get that vibe from TAG. 

Ugh.