#jen bekman

[litl-theinterview]

Jen Bekman

1. What is your favorite thing right now?

My roof ravens! Our house in SF is on a corner + up a small hill, which makes it a popular spot for our friendly neighborhood corvids. It’s primarily two couples—they mate for life, did you know that? I’ve been feeding them peanuts in the shell and getting to know them, and my fella has been extremely generous in indulging my obsession by setting up not one, not two, but three cameras on the roof so I can watch them. All they really do is eat those peanuts and make a bunch of noise, but seriously, I could (do!) watch them for hours. I’m actually a little embarrassed by how into it I am. 

2. If you were to be reincarnated as an animal, what animal would it be? Three-pronged answer here. If I’m being honest, it might be a sloth. But when I was kid, I had a book I loved about Ling Ling and Hsing Hsing—two pandas on loan from China to the National Zoo—so when my brother and I played make-believe I always wanted to be the first panda in space. But at my best, I’d say an elephant. They’re emotionally smart, complex, and nurturing. And also extremely cute. All aspirational qualities. 3. What is the best compliment you’ve ever received? I’m lucky to say it’s a category of compliment, specifically artists coming up to me to tell me that being featured on 20x200 (or participating in Hey, Hot Shot!, the photo competition we used to do, or showing at the Spring St gallery back in the day) was something that really launched their career. Equally gratifying: the people who’ve told me they didn’t feel like they could collect art until they walked into my gallery, or bought a 20x200 print, or even just started reading our newsletters. There are lots of folks who bought their first piece of art on 20x200 who’ve gone on to be obsessive collectors! I love that. 4. If you could travel anywhere tomorrow, where would you go? Home to New York. I’m a native New Yorker and I’m usually bi-coastal, but I’ve been quarantined in San Francisco since early March. 5. What do you consider your best feature? My big mouth. 6. What is one thing that makes you happy? Ice cream! I like it all, but mocha almond fudge is probably my favorite flavor. 7. What is the food you would take to a desert island?   Well I would say ice cream again but let’s go with something more practical. So, French fries. 8. What is something you never get tired of? Art! 9. What is something about you that people are always surprised to learn? Probably that I didn’t even consider an art-related career until I was in my early thirties. I opened Jen Bekman Gallery in 2003, without any gallery +/or arts-related experience. (I wouldn’t recommend it, but I’m still glad I did it!) 10. What is the best advice you’ve ever received? I still have a hard time wrapping my head around and believing this sometimes, but the best advice I’ve ever received is that money isn’t the only measure of success in business. 11. Who would you like to play you in the biopic of your life? Kyra Sedgwick is pretty great. And people have told me that I look like Candace Bergen before, which I just have to mention ‘cause… c’mon. ICON. 12. Please share your favorite photo of yourself and why it is your favorite. Stefan Ruiz took this photo of me in my East Village apartment several years ago. I lived there for 26 years, so it became this extension of myself. Stefan was shooting me for FOAM magazine and this was basically the one area of my home that I didn’t want people to see because it was messy. I said as much, so of course that’s exactly where he ended up positioning me for the final shot. He was right… it’s about as close to the real me in that moment in my life that you could get, and I like that it’s got a sorta badass vibe. It’s a good reminder that I can be messy and be a badass at the same time.

Jen Bekman is the founder and CEO of 20x200.com, the pioneering art ecommerce site which made its debut in 2007. She got her start in the artworld back in 2003, when she opened her eponymous gallery on Spring St in New York City, and its founding mission has been the impetus for all her artworld endeavors since: she believes that everyone can and should collect art, and that more artists should be able to make a living by making art. 

Jen has curated over 100 exhibitions during her career, many of which were reviewed and/or featured in publications like The New Yorker, ARTnews, Der Spiegel, Le Monde and more. Jen has also juried numerous photography and illustration competitions, worked on collaborations with museums, retailers, and major brands, and written extensively on the subjects of art and design. She has been named one of Forbes.com’s Top Ten Female Entrepreneurs to Watch and one of Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Tech, and has been profiled by The New York Times and American Express’s OPEN Forum, among other publications. She's spoken at a broad range of conferences, including SXSW Interactive and the XOXO Festival, and has hosted numerous panels and discussions about art, technology and design. 

A native New Yorker, Jen has split her time between New York City and San Francisco for more than a decade. She looks forward to resuming her bicoastal lifestyle post-pandemic, but in the meanwhile she's a full-time San Franciscan, tending to her garden and roof ravens and missing NYC something awful.

Subscribe to Leave it to Leonor 

[jkottke]

Time Lapse Photos of Nighttime Airport Traffic

Pete Mauney spends his nighttime hours hunkered down near airports to capture these these time lapse photos of arriving and departing air traffic. (He does a similar thing with fireflies.)

On Facebook, Mauney is selling prints of some of these photos, hand-printed and quality guaranteed.

All prints are lovingly made by myself and print robot Epson 3880. They are fully archival and should last until well after I am dead, assuming they are properly cared for. I am super uptight/compulsive and quality control is strict. I spent many years making my living as an exhibition printer and no image of mine will leave my hands unless I am happy with it. If something not up to spec manages to squeak through, I will happily replace.

The post also doubles as a look into the process of photography & printmaking and how to price your art.

Pricing is the hard part for me. On one side there is there $12 in materials that that make and pack each print for shipping and the minimal labor involved in making the physical objects once the hard work in photoshop is already done. Based on that I could sell them for $15 and make a profit. Then, of course, are the hours spent processing and compositing each image. Oh, and then, there is the time spent driving and flying and and actually making the images. And days spent on Google Maps and Flight Aware observing flight patterns and planning my routes and locations. The mosquitoes. Hypothermia.

But, really, I am OK with doing all of that because I will do it regardless of whether I am getting paid or not (see "compulsive" above). I do it because I fucking love it. The point of all this is not to justify my labor and obsessions. The point of this is to pay for an awesome show so I can share these in the real world with other real humans like yourselves. As stated previously, all proceeds from this sale will go towards production, materials, software, prints, monitors, frames, and all the other inevitable costs that I can't think of right now and that keep me up at night.

I read something years ago about the expense of art and photography that's always stuck with me. Time, materials, and equipment are one part of the equation, but really what you are paying for is the lifetime of expertise, the hundreds of thousands of their previous shots and an aesthetic honed to a razor-sharp edge. $5000 for shoot by someone who knows exactly how to get the perfect shot in just 20 minutes can seem like an outrageous price (that's $15,000/hour!), but $1000 for an two-hour-long shoot by some doofus often isn't going to get you the result you actually need.

So yeah, drop Mauney a line and get some great prints delivered in time for the holidays. (via jen bekman)

[emmanuelmonzonphotography]

PCNW 22ND JURIED PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION

JURORS: Conor Risch, PDN Senior Editor + Lara Behnert, Starbucks Senior Manager, Creative

January 17 – March 14, 2019

Opening Reception: Thursday, January 17 Members Preview & Tour 5:30PM | Public Opening 6PM

PCNW is proud to present the 22nd Juried Exhibition, one of the most anticipated shows in our gallery program. A wide range of visually rich images were selected from artists across the world: 341 artists—representing 32 states and 8 countries—submitted 2,250 images. Jurors Conor Risch and Lara Behnert chose images from 47 individuals to be included in the exhibition.

exhibiting artists

Paul Adams (Lindon, UT), Elizabeth Albert (Belmont, MA), John Armstrong (Seattle, WA), David Bartlett (Farmington Hills, MI), Constance Brinkley (Seattle, WA), Annette LeMay Burke (San Jose, CA), Lynae Cook (Seattle, WA), Jo Cosme (Seattle, WA), Mark Daughhetee (Seattle, WA), Marcus DeSieno (Ellensburg, WA), Sean Du (Pasedena, CA), Simrah Farrukh (Los Angeles, CA),  Wm Daniel File (Manchester, MO), Hal Gage (Anchorage, AK), David Gardner (San Francisco, CA), Jennifer Garza-Cuen (Reno, NV), Daniel George (Vineyard, UT), Brian Goodman (Port Townsend, WA), Julie Gottesman (Kirkland, WA), Nate Gowdy (Seattle, WA), Rebecca Greenfield (Brooklyn, NY), Tatiana Gulenkina (San Francisco, CA), Zackery Hobler (Toronto, Canada), Janet Holmes (Toronto, Canada), Qian Jin (Beijing, China), Brian Kosoff (Portland, OR), Harini Krishnamurthy (Issaquah, WA), Keith Livers (Austin, TX), Zhiqiang Ma (Seattle, WA), Miles MacClure (Berkeley, CA), Mia McNeal (Kent, WA), Joseph Meacham (Cape May Court House, NJ), Julie Mihaly (Poughkeepsie, NY), Marilyn Montufar (Seattle, WA), Emmanuel Monzon (Bellevue, WA), Jenna Mulhall-Brereton (Oreland, PA), Annie Musselman (Seattle, WA), Kelly O (Seattle, WA), Shawn Records (Portland, OR), Serrah Russell (Seattle, WA), Adair Rutledge (Seattle, WA), Michael Schulz (Redmond, WA), Craig Schwanfelder (Santa Cruz, CA), Mukul Soman (Kirkland, WA), Jody Poorwill (Tacoma, WA), Marta Wapiennik (Cracow, Poland), Kiliii Yuyan (Seattle, WA)

JURORS

Lara Behnert is the senior manager of Starbucks Creative Studio where she leads the global art program for Starbucks, helping to evolve store design and develop the company’s brand expression. Her background is in creative directions and design for magazines, brands, and worthy causes. Lara is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, has spent many years in New York City, and currently lives in Seattle.

Conor Risch is Senior Editor of Photo District News (PDN) and PDNOnline.com, the award-winning monthly magazine and website for professional photographers, and he has worked with professional photographers for more than 15 years. He is editor of PDN’s monthly “Exposures” column, which features photographers’ new books, exhibitions and personal projects, and he is also co-editor of the annual PDN’s 30 special issue and website focused on emerging photographers

.

PAST JURORS

1995 – Duane Michals, Artist 1996 – Joyce Tenneson, Artist 1997 – Jock Sturges, Artist and Trevor Fairbrother, Curator, Seattle Art Museum 1998 – Keith Carter, Artist 1999 – Linda Connor, Artist, Educator 2001 – Chien-Chi Chang, Photographer, Magnum Photos 2002 – Michael Kenna, Artist 2003 – Anne Wilkes Tucker, Curator, Museum of Fine Art Houston 2004 – Roy Flukinger, Curator, Harry Ransom Center 2005 – Mary Virginia Swanson, Consultant, Educator, MVS 2006 – Paul Kopeikin, Paul Kopeikin Gallery 2007 – Charlotte Cotton, Curator, Los Angeles County Museum of Art 2008 – Rod Slemmons, Director, Museum of Contemporary Photography 2009 – Jen Bekman, Jen Bekman Gallery, 20×200 2010 – Denise Wolff, Editor, Aperture 2011 – Karen Irvine, Curator, Museum of Contemporary Photography 2012 – W.M. Hunt, Collector and Curator 2013 – John A. Bennette, Collector and Curator 2014 – Whitney C. Johnson, Director of Photography, The New Yorker 2015 – Julia Dolan, Minor White Curator of Photography, Portland Art Museum 2017 – Sandra S. Phillips, Curator Emeritus, SF MOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art)

Header image photo credits: Top Row, L to R: Adair Rutledge, Jenna Mulhall-Brereton, ShawnRecords, Nate Gowdy. Bottom Row, L to R: Marta Wapiennik, Craig Schwanfelder, Zhiqiang Ma, Annette LeMay Burke.

[cassiiekins]

greenhungryhungryhippo:

20x200 Edition: Untitled, Max by Dorthe Alstrup by Jen Bekman on Flickr.

[orientallyyours]

Some of the images from Hong Kong artist Kurt Tong’s photographic series, “In Case it Rains in Heaven” (2009) that documented joss paper offerings in China, burned for the deceased. These offerings may be gold or silver spirit money, and in the last 50 years reflected the growth of consumerism in China with paper replicas of elaborate items such as cars, servants, houses, dentures, fans, iPhones, etc. All items in Tong’s works were burnt as offerings to his ancestors (watch video).

Sources: Kurt Tong’s website, Jen Bekman Gallery, Hyperallergic

[brownowlpress]

The Beginnings of Brown Owl Press

Although the first BOP publication (Flood of Sunshine by Al Palmer) was released in August 2013, the idea of Brown Owl Press goes back a bit further than that.

During 2011-12 I (Al) was inspired by the small-press indie publishing boom that was taking off. Café Royal, A-Jump Books and Little Brown Mushroom in particular had a big influence on where I saw photography - or at least the photography that I’m interested in - heading. Initially I had the idea to use appropriate steal the owl glyph from Twin Peaks as a logo. All sorts of bird related names came to mind - Falcon Flight, Basket of Owls, Brown Owl Books... until I’d settled on Brown Owl Books. I had 90% of the first title planned - a series of my photos called A Life Once Lived that I’ve still not shown publicly. Many evenings (and afternoons, in truth) in various pubs in Newcastle were spent with Darren, my best friend, discussing plans and hopes and dreams and goals. 

And then I promptly did nothing about Brown Owl Books until 2013.

Fast forward to April 2013, I flew to NYC as one of the winners of the Hearst 8x10 Prize. Interacting with other photographers (hi Jordan, Laura, Vitor, Tomas!), visiting shops such as Printed Matter Inc and Dashwood Books, going to galleries, Jen Bekman, ICP, Yossi Milo, Yancey Richardson, Aperture, Sasha Wolf, Klomp Ching, just generally immersing myself in photo culture I realised that the only way to start doing it was by, well, doing it.

From there, I flew on to Honolulu, Hawai’i. I had no real plans for being there other than to make photographs - photos from this trip appear in both Soliloquy and I Believe (In None of This) - see friends and generally explore the island. Here I would go to Coffee Talk in Kaimukï every morning, try and write a little, reflect on photographs taken. Then I drew the Brown Owl logo out, no longer influenced by the Twin Peaks owl glyph.

I came home to my native Newcastle, edited the work that would be released as Flood of Sunshine and never looked back....

[googlenewson]

Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business, delivered free to your inbox. It’s rare for the federal government to include small businesses in stimulus packages designed to prop up the economy during a financial downturn. But the coronavirus pandemic is, clearly, no ordinary event. So small businesses across the country—defined as companies with less than 500 employees—were, at least momentarily, bolstered by the announcement of the $349 billion Paycheck Protection Program. Small businesses operate in every sector of American industry, from restaurants to web designers, art galleries to auto repair shops, bus companies to tour operators. “We’ve never had to shut down the economy to stop a pandemic,” said John Lettieri, president and CEO of public policy organization Economic Innovation Group (EIG), based in Washington, D.C. ��The level of concern and anxiety [at small businesses] can’t be overstated. There’s no analogue for it in other crises. Even during the Great Recession there was no off switch for the economy.” The Paycheck Protection Program, announced on Tuesday by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), will provide loans up to 2.5 times the borrower’s average monthly payroll costs, with a cap of $10 million. The loans, which partially convert to grants as long as the majority of the loan is used for “payroll costs, interest on mortgages, rent, and utilities,” are supposed to help companies keep their staff employed (and, as Lettieri noted, have the added benefit of retaining institutional knowledge) when there might be little or no income coming in. Companies, including sole proprietors, the self-employed, independent contractors, nonprofits, and veterans’ organizations can apply through participating lenders starting Friday.

“On the one hand I understand why it’s very short-term, but what has happened is going to have repercussions for much longer than the next quarter,” said Jen Bekman, founder and CEO of N.Y.C.-based online art seller 20×200.  

Jen Bekman is the founder and CEO of N.Y.C.-based online art seller 20×200.

Courtesy of Jen Bekman

With an estimated 30 million small businesses in the U.S. and almost 60 million small-business employees, according to the SBA’s Office of Advocacy, the more companies that can survive, the faster the country will be able to move toward recovery. If the unemployment numbers keep sliding, recovery could take years. “We’re already seeing unemployment at historically unprecedented numbers—times five,” said Lettieri.

That has left small-business owners and entrepreneurs “desperate for information and desperate for clarity,” said Lettieri. “There’s a huge information gap.”

Because there’s no way to know when companies will be able to open their doors again, some employers are wondering if their staff members would be better off getting laid off and going for the bumped-up unemployment checks. And with several programs on offer, including traditional disaster assistance and the new Paycheck Protection Program, small-business owners are unsure which best applies to their companies and, at times, if taking assistance from one would make them ineligible for another. As of Tuesday, Bekman’s understanding was that employers couldn’t receive both Paycheck Protection Program benefits and tax credits for required paid leave.

“It is extremely confusing,” said Astrid Storey, the creative director and sole proprietor of Storey Creative, based in Aurora, Colo. Though she had originally started a disaster loan application, she didn’t finish it, because she thought the Paycheck Protection Program would be a better fit. Even with a CPA and a bookkeeper helping her figure things out, the confusion continued. She spent six hours waiting to speak to somebody at Chase to find out what she needed to do to apply for the program. “But if you don’t have a personal relationship with a banker, you’re not going to hear back,” she said.

Most of Storey’s clients for her creative and digital marketing services were in the conference and events industry. “I lost every single upcoming client engagement between the last week of February and the first week of March. By Friday, everything I had built was gone,” she said. “It was like a barreling train. You could hear it.”

Storey’s business is an LLC. The company’s biggest expense? Her paycheck. Though she has one client on retainer that will still give her some income, her take-home pay from her at-home business took a big hit. The “primary breadwinner” for her family, Storey “had to make my peace with the fact that my credit score was not going to escape unscathed. I kind of had to make it very clear that keeping the utilities paid and the mortgage paid and the car paid were going to be the top priorities, as well as food on the table. Every other creditor can figure out what they’re going to do because they’ll get paid if they get paid, and then they won’t.”

Though Storey has bumped up her networking significantly and has pivoted to focus on industries like supply chain management that might come out ahead because of the downturn, it’s clear that money is going to be far tighter. “I had to forget about my ideal client and my ideal project and my ideal budget. Before I could make $1,000 in six hours. Now maybe I’m making $300 in six hours,” she said.

But, with the help of the Paycheck Protection Program, she plans to push through the downturn. “I’m going after this loan because I intend to stick with this for the duration,” she said. And as a sole proprietor who works from home, she added that her biggest expense is her own salary, so she expects most of the loan to convert to a grant.

What happens after that money runs out isn’t clear. Lettieri said the first round of $349 billion will likely last just a week or two if all the businesses he expects to apply do so. Though Mnuchin talked about expanding the pool of money over time, Lettieri said Congress has to be ready to pass legislation on that now “before they even get back to Washington. [Small-business owners] need to have certainty now to weather a protracted crisis.”

In addition, EIG is advocating for loans with 20 years amortization at 0% financing. The federal government can secure those rates, and businesses, he said, need a “borrowing capacity that will allow them to be resilient coming out the other side.”

Because entrepreneurs tend to be personally invested in their businesses and the well-being of their employees, many will go deep into their own funds if the business can’t support itself. That’s the case for Jeff Lipton, owner and chief mastering engineer at Peerless Mastering, based in Newton, Mass. In business for 25 years, Peerless has worked on masters for artists including Wilco, Andrew Bird, and Throwing Muses. Lipton is hopeful that the stimulus plan will help him get through what is already a significant downturn in his business.

Fifteen years ago, Lipton bought the commercial building where his studio is housed. Buying the building seemed a good idea, he said, until this downturn when it became clear that his tenants are all in distress, and at least two of the three won’t be able to pay rent. And Lipton’s own business is down 50% from a year ago. Musicians pay for mastering and albums through touring, a business that took an immediate hit because of the coronavirus.

Laying off his sole full-time employee is not an option, he said: “She’s absolutely essential.” He can keep the business running for another three months without an influx of cash from other sources, but that would mean going all in with his personal finances too. So after three months, “I would lose my business, my house, everything.” In the meantime, Lipton said, he’s doing some work from his home studio, but that includes offering pay-what-you-can to support musicians who are struggling.

The uncertainty will surely change the small-business landscape for years to come. With so many businesses going dark for, at least, the short term—and the retail landscape already in distress—it’s nearly impossible to imagine a post-pandemic America with an immediately-booming small-business economy.

Some owners are starting to wonder if they should bail out now, no matter how much they would have pushed to stay all-in in the past. For a lot of small businesses, Lettieri said, “it’s now a question of, ‘Should I cut my losses and shut down?’”

For 20×200’s Bekman, the question of whether to pump more money into an uncertain future is definitely top of mind. Like most entrepreneurs, she thrives on risk, but has recently been considering whether there’s a point at which she should just…stop. “Creativity comes from constraint,” said Bekman. “In some ways it’s a puzzle: How do we reinvent ourselves? But I’ve been in this specific business for a long time. I can look back and see times when I should have said ‘uncle,’ and didn’t. There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to make that mistake again.”

Without a loan, grant, or use of her personal funds, Bekman would have to shutter the business just about immediately. But even if she gets one of the loans, if the pandemic and wait for a vaccine push the requirement for social distancing and shuttered businesses to six months, a year, or longer, “Then what?” she asks.

More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:

—Financial advice for the millions of Americans won’t be able to pay all their bills this month —“It’ll never be fast enough”: 5 questions for a ventilator manufacturer —Everything you need to know about furloughs—and what they mean for workers —Financial advice for the millions of Americans won’t be able to pay all their bills this month —SBA small-business loans: 8 things to know about the Paycheck Protection Program —The stock market had its worst quarter since 1987—and its worst Q1 ever —How to job hunt during the coronavirus pandemic —PODCAST: Two health care CEOs on why coronavirus tests and vaccines are the ammunition needed to fight COVID-19 —VIDEO: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19 Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business, delivered free to your inbox.

from Fortune https://ift.tt/3aQcWl6

[annarbrandt]

Finding Affordable Art To Up Your Apartment’s Style

Nothing catches the eye like a beautifully framed, well-crafted art piece. Here’s how to find affordable art that looks great!

Photo: Elmueble

It can hang large above a couch, fill in empty wall space, and act as a conversation piece. We can all agree that art provides the finishing touch to any luxury apartment and can greatly assist when decorating your new home. However, it can be difficult to find quality art without breaking your budget. That’s where we come in—the following list of affordable art destinations will help you get your art collection where you want it to be.

Etsy

Etsy is virtually a household name. The platform is a wonderful place to find budding artists to help you add style to your modern apartment.

Deviant Art

Deviant Art is better known as a talent hub for creators of all sorts, but you can also find prints from many artists available. The prices are affordable and fair, and the styles are surreal and fabulous.

Photo: Elmueble

Minted

Minted is a creative haven for dozens of independent artists. Their work starts at prices as low as $20, and their exclusive selection is easier to navigate than Deviant Art or Etsy.

Society 6

Society 6 is a great spot for clothes, screen prints, and more from many great artists. Their incredibly low prices should help you fill up your new apartment quicker than a Bob Ross episode.

Photo: Elmueble

Your Local Thrift Store

While you’ll find many run-of-the-mill paintings with no originality, you’ll also find some keepers. Many talented artists donate paintings or simply run out of space to keep work. The best part is that you can customize found paintings with your own home decorating style  additions in a thrifty collaboration effort.

20×200

This Jen Bekman project is a hub for limited edition prints by commissioned artists. You can find small prints for as low as $24.

Photo: Elmueble

J Hill Design

If you’re looking for a print of a colorfully designed city, state, or landmark, this is the place to find it. You can even have prints personalized with different names or text at an affordable price.

Ideal Bookshelf

This unique project is a great addition to a modern apartment. The service creates hand-painted portraits of your favorite books. You can even have your own book collection painted for an additional fee.

The post Finding Affordable Art To Up Your Apartment’s Style appeared first on BetterDecoratingBible.

Finding Affordable Art To Up Your Apartment’s Style published first on betterdecoratingbible.com

[juliegersteinportfolio]

Jen Bekman’s 20x200

In brief: Jen Bekman’s 20x200 series released “Tuesday Editions,” aimed at educating art audiences about new and emerging artists. The series included explanations of the work and interviews with the artists. The below was written for illustrator/artist Wendy MacNaughton.  Sample from the series: Wendy MacNaughton It's a sad truth of that we're often burdened with too many things to do, too many crises to consider. And if we're not busy checking things off our to-do list, we're feeling guilty and consumed with all the things we haven't done yet. Our third edition from San Francisco-based artist Wendy MacNaughton, — titled To Do — seems to perfectly capture the sentiment.

Wendy's previous 20x200 contributions tackled the transient nature of human interaction and the incomprehensible nature of love (see: Things Happen and The Universe is Forever, respectively). With the illustration To Do, she crisply approaches the the ever-decreasing line between what we'd like to accomplish and what we can actually do—the people we'd like to be and the people we actually are.

"I was trying to get my head around the overwhelming number of things there are To Do,” explains Wendy. “The eternal lists, the eternal attempt to internally manage everything, the infinite lists.. did I mention the lists?  Ultimately what I find myself doing, as I think so many of us do — especially those of us who participate in the digital realm — we live in a meta-to do place. We over-think how and when and what, and don't just get the eff up and Do Something.”

It's already been a big year for Wendy, who was recently named Intersection for the Arts 2012 Artist in Residence. She'll spend the year working on a site specific installation project at the San Francisco space's location. Her work was recently featured in Print, Good and The New York Times Magazine, and has a regular feature on The Rumpus. She's also gone international, collaborating on a campaign for Rwanda's first democratic elections, and creating health campaign in Kenya. In a former life, she served as a social worker, non-profit campaign director and sold used books, too. So while Wendy might make art about not being able to get enough done, she certainly seems rather adept at keeping herself busy.

[connorrenwick]

Listen to Episode 47 of Clever: Jen Bekman

In this episode, entrepreneur and internet pioneer, Jen Bekman, tells the story of how she founded 20×200 with a mission of making art collecting a possibility for everyone. On the leading edge of ecommerce, 20×200 achieved enormous initial success and grew very quickly. Jen tells her powerful story of adapting her business on-the-fly as the internet landscape shifted dramatically under her feet, her perseverance fed by a deep belief that living with art is good for you, and the creation of art itself is an act of bravery. Bravo, lady! Listen:

//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/6083070/height/90/theme/custom/autoplay/no/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/backward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/ff0099/

Stay tuned for a new episode of Clever in two weeks! Don’t miss an episode: Subscribe to Clever on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, SoundCloud, or use our feed http://clever.libsyn.com/rss to subscribe via your favorite podcast app.

Follow Clever on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And most importantly, please spread the word to anyone who you think would like it.

via http://design-milk.com/

from WordPress https://connorrenwickblog.wordpress.com/2017/12/26/listen-to-episode-47-of-clever-jen-bekman/

[azikiel]

Listen to Episode 47 of Clever: Jen Bekman

http://dlvr.it/Q7gbk0

[laud-it]

The gift of art

Give art! To yourself, to your mom next weekend, to your friend tomorrow. Give it just cuz! Art makes the world better.

Send it instead of a note:

Remind someone that they love oysters:

For your book-lovin’ buds:

Make someone think of cake:

For the alphabetacaninophile you run into at the dog run from time to time:

All images are from Jen Bekman’s 20X200.com.

Yay art! Yay artists! Thank you Trey Speegle, Mike Monteiro, Dylan Fareed, Michelle Vaughan, Jane Mount, Martha Rich, and William Wegman for adding to our lives.

[minotaurtower]

Hidden Chandelier, Lithuania, 2010 by Benny Safdie

Photography Jen Bekman

[entrepreneuradventures-blog]

via jenbekmanprojects: Ideal Bookshelf 505: Fashion by Jane Mount

[jickatrap]

pin-up show installation view

Jen Bekman

[minemice]

still life, with love

Jen Bekman