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Carmelyn Calvert
- Female
- Eldred, ILLIONOIS
- United States
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Carmelyn Calvert's Page
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Thank You Sonny!! The first response that hits the nail on the head!! Enough said!! By the way what is your business??
Profile Information
- Where do you live?
- Eldred,IL
- What best classifies you or your business?
- brand new business (0-1 years)
- Website Address: (If none, then leave blank)
- http://www.squareshooters.com
- What industry is your business in?
- Gaming
Comment Wall (14 comments)
- At 11:34pm on May 9, 2009,
Robert Sloan said…
- Hehehe, I've heard that before about the talent.
I do think it's there -- but I think it's inherent to being human. It gets beaten out of most people somewhere in grade school, the social risks to claiming it and then not already being a skilled genius like Van Gogh are too great and most people just shut down about it. That is something about this culture and this society.
The gift is there like the ability to learn a language. Those who learn as kids will always find it easier to learn new ones.
However, there are a lot of people who don't have enough interest or time to devote to learning the complex skills involved -- and that's fine, that's something different. I know that if I put the work and time into it I could become a musician. But I get very bored with practicing and don't like spending time on it, so I know that my composition efforts will probably result in no more than one tinwhistle tune for my life's work.
I did one, know I could learn, still can't remember how to read music even though I learned five times over, because I don't do it every day. Lack of interest is not the same thing as lack of ability -- and even people who are seriously impaired, like the blind, can learn to create art in ways that run around those disabilities.
I think the drive to create art is related to the need to communicate in general, the reason it feels good to do it is part of our species. It's like bower birds building those intricate displays for their mates -- it's part of being human.
I have yet to meet anyone that I couldn't teach as long as they actually did want to draw realistically. It just takes longer for some people and there may be serious psychological barriers.
Learning to draw realistically opens up whole areas of the brain that can change a person's outlook on life in deep ways. It's why I always encourage hobbyists, because it opens up types of perception and observation that make everything else in life richer. Before I could do portraits, which I learned in my thirties, I recognized faces in a pretty normal way and described people in terms of eye and hair color, general tall-short, thin-fat terms.
Once I learned to do portraits I discovered all the "beautiful people" are amazingly silly looking with goofy features and weird flaws -- and strong personalities. Appearances aren't even appearances. Actors learn this too while studying their skill. Dress the part and play it well and whoa, people see what isn't there.
For years, an outspoken, direct personality and verbal ability combined with an artistic focus left most people who met me describing me as tall and skinny. Weird. I'm short, stocky, misshapen and crooked, but there's an archetype of tall thin black-clad artistic intelligentsia that always knocks a good 40lb off my weight and adds another 5" to my height.
I also found from doing portraits that no matter how ugly or funny looking a person is, all human faces become beautiful once you learn to draw them. This can be a major mindbender in itself, but it makes the world a far more interesting place.
Currently I'm more focused on landscapes, cats, birds and florals in what I'm doing in art. It's my number one stress reduction activity, and I have noticed that even though I was good to start with, since I started doing it daily a couple of months ago, my art's vastly improved in ways I didn't expect.
The mindblowing growth moments like when I first recognized facial features instead of their symbols come more frequently when I give it more time. I'm learning to sketch after a lifetime of slow meticulous realism and it's been fun. So that's another thing -- anything artistic, any creative outlet is going to bring that into life and disrupt a nasty myth that adults don't learn.
That learning is for children and finishes when you fossilize as an adult into a social role defined by your occupation. If you hear the word "accountant" the stereotype is a quiet mousy individual who likes math and is afraid to talk to people or go outdoors.
Yet plenty of people who like accounting and do it well and earn a good living also go out hiking and climbing mountains, or carry a French easel when they do and become landscape painters, or play the tuba, or do Shakespearian acting. "Accountant" and "Brilliant version of Hamlet" don't connect in narrow minds -- but that is exactly what having an artistic skill does for a life. It breaks that monotony and keeps life from consisting of nothing but the tasks you do for other people.
- At 10:32pm on May 9, 2009,
Robert Sloan said…
- Absolutely. Every bit of it did. Yep. It's been common throughout my life that I bend over for something and can't get up, or I'm walking with people and they outdistance me and get annoyed or deign to say "Oh don't worry about it, you can catch up" assuming that I can.
General practitioners are the worst because most of them haven't heard of half my chronic conditions so diagnosed everything as psychological -- when none of it was. Not one symptom I have is remotely psychological.
But loneliness often has external causes in other people's lives too, it's not always a symptom of low self esteem.
Listening to and believing people who put you down is one of the biggest causes of self esteem. There's something about American culture that makes most people take any critical statement seriously, worry about whether it's true and try to change who they are to raise someone else's negative opinion -- even when that's a flat bald-faced lie inspired by their jealousy or malicious cruelty. Yet people are trained to doubt any compliment and reject it out of hand, claim it's not true, say it's nothing special -- and refuse to let that affect their view of themselves.
I draw well. I'm not the only person I know who does, and I've taught many who believed they had No Talent and could never learn to draw only to change their social situation to one where everyone around them believes they're Talented because they can get the likeness -- an involved skill that usually takes at least a year or more of practice to reach the point where someone who doesn't know much about art goes "Wow" and it looks impossible.
I changed this in my outlook on life. I reversed it. I discounted any negative comment unless it came pretty unanimously from people whom I trust and know genuinely share my interests and like me. I pay attention to compliments and accept them graciously. It's helped a lot to filter the criticism and look at its sources, because discrimination is rampant and a whole lot of people don't even realize it when they face it.
Control freaks understand this process inherently well and by habit know how easy it is to push around people just with a few nasty words well chosen to hurt. They grin and brag about it. They'll brag about doing it to someone else to my face and then get surprised at my reaction when they pull it on me -- because I don't believe them or buy it and laugh and throw it back in their faces.
One guy made some disparaging remarks about my haircut while I was getting a new haircut. I wanted it short so that I wouldn't have to do much to take care of it and would look decent for a couple of months without having to bug someone to cut my hair. He went on at length about how much he hated that kind of haircut, thought I'd look good if I shaved my head entirely -- quite true, but that needs to be maintained daily to look good -- or with long hair, which in the summer gets greasy and heavy and is hard to comb and clean.
So I just said "Well, don't cut your hair that way then. I like this because I don't need to do anything to maintain it and I think it looks sorta cool, like a Marine in training."
The look on his face was priceless.
He was used to rolling over anyone he criticized. He was used to defensiveness and argument sometimes but always in a way that assumed his personal taste comment was true and their opinion of their choices in hair style wasn't nearly as important as his. He just gawped and dropped his jaw, then walked away.
He never made one critical comment about my hair or clothes or anything else again.
Try it the next time someone criticizes something about you -- because a lot of times it's just that sort of thing, people throwing their weight around and stating their opinions as if they were fact. Or repeating something "everyone" said that they heard a few times and assume to be true.
I love puncturing that type of thing.
It's probably why I never worked for a large corporation or joined teams or things like that. I'm much too fond of doing things my own way and just walking away from any situation that demands conformity to the group's ideas.
- At 10:01am on March 25, 2009,
SUp.biz, CEO said…
Thanks for your friend request. And welcome! What are you looking to do here on SUp.biz?
Natalie
CEO, SUp.biz
- At 1:36pm on March 20, 2009,
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- At 12:02am on March 18, 2009,
Michael Crooks said…
- Dear Carmelyn,
Well, you seem to be functioning just fine ... even for a 6 month old, ha. ha. ha.
As far as the YouTube thing, if ya want the video to be watched and linked and forwarded, you gotta have something interesting going on. I'll give you a for instance , I'm not saying do what I'm saying here, but you'll get the idea.
Have a game being played. And when the winner throws his/her arms up they fall bass ackwards over in the chair, taking the table cloth and everything else on the table with them. Or they throw their arms up just as someone is walking by with a tray of drinks/snacks/whatever. I don't know, perhaps having nice looking ladies in wet t-shirsts playing the game will appeal to your college-age/frat consumer. The point being, there's got to be some sort of entertainment value or 12 people will view it once.
I've known for a long time that if I was to shoot a video for Waterless Tattoos, I could get plenty of views having "Hooters" girls apply waterless tattoos to each other. However, those who would want to watch that — aren't my primary target audience. So I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to do something with little kids, puppies and kittens instead. Such is life.
Keep me posted.
Warm Regards,
Michael
hello@waterlesstattoos.com
hello@crooksadvertising.com
- At 3:13pm on March 17, 2009,
- Dear Carmelyn,
When you're trying to do something new, the idea is the easy part isn't it? It's everything else that's so damn hard. My initial thinking on your drinking game vs family game is to take a card and fold it in half. On the outside front and back is artwork and copy regarding how it's a family game. One the other side is artwork and graphic for it being a drinking game. You package half with the Drinking stuff showing and the other half with the family stuff showing. So people who buy it as a family thing will discover it can also be a drinking game and vice versa, but they'll buy it based on initial intention.
Setting up a distributor network can be dicey (no pun intended) in the beginning because of the layers of cost. Learned that from experience.
Have you considered producing a fun and informative YouTube video? That's one way of targeting the younger drinking crowd.
You may need to light a fire under your agent ... or find a new one that's hungry.
Best of luck to you.
Warm Regards,
Michael
- At 4:26am on March 17, 2009,
Martin Everard said…
- Hi, Carmlyn,
Thanks for your welcome. It will be intersting to see how I make out with this newly joined networking group.
In answer to your question, yesterday could almost be described here in London as the first day of Spring - though no doubt Mr Jack Frost will come along to spoil this year's crop of greengages in the next two to three weeks. Today, another warm day for Mid-March.
I am sure that Illinois is still in the throes of winter - friends from Chicago say it's been pretty cold this year.
If you are into things horticultural, you might like to check out my dating website - www.cultivateadate.com. My interest in gaming seems to be limited to Brickbreaker on my Blackberry! How sad is that, eh? Still it whiles away the time at boring meetings!
Best wishes
Martin
- At 12:38am on March 17, 2009,
- Ha, ha, ha, Welcome aboard Carmelyn. It looks as though from the greetings you've received so far, only Maketta is more interested in wishing you well than trying to sell you something.
Hey I took a look at your website. I like it. One suggestion: Please consider putting "How To Play" at the top. You currently have it at the bottom. For those who don't scroll down, they miss it and that leads to comments like the one you had wondering how you play.
Won't be long and I'll be order'in ... we currently enjoy Left, Right, Center ... I believe your game will be fun to try.
I'm glad you like my articles. aqnd I believe you're right. Given the opportunity, we'd probably enjoy grabb'in a cold one and shoot'in the breeze.
I'm interested to know, what's the biggest challenge you've faced so far in marketing your game?
Warm Regards,
Michael
hello@CrooksAdvertising.com
- At 8:37pm on March 16, 2009,
Frank Purcell said… Glad to see you on the network! If there is any way I can make your use of this site more pleasurable or profitable, please let me know -- and of course I would be honored to count you as one of my friends here. And please consider joining the Pragmatic Idealism group to learn more.
(Dr.) Frank Purcell
Let's Get Growing
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