I have changed the name and place of the other party involved in this exchange. Read on…

I recently saw a want ad for an art teacher on the Huntsville Art Blog. The ad read:

Help Wanted: We need an adult Art Teacher – any type of art.

If you are interested, please contact Mark Brownfield, President
Brayburn County Arts Center, Inc. at info@brb-artscenter.com

I don’t need the work right now but I thought I’d look into it for possible future employment. I sent an email. The response I received was condescending, amusing, and earnest, so I decided to share it here.

My emails are in bold font. Brownfield’s are regular.

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Hello, I am responding to your notice on the Huntsville Art Blog about a teaching position. I would like to know more about the job. What are the hours, days, pay, start date, and so on?

Dustin Timbrook
www.HappeninRecords.com

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Mr. Timbrook,

Thank you for responding to the offer to teach art. We let the teacher charge the fees and as a result pay themselves. We offer assistance, guidenance, and a building.

However, after looking at the Art on your web page I do not feel it would be a good fit for Brayburn and that you would not make enough money in this community to off set your time.

My daughter is an artist, and it has taken her several years to learn that she too needs to paint for the community and not necessarly her taste if she wants to sell her art. I’m sure there are communities that might appreciate your style of Art, unfortunately Brayburn is not that advanced yet. Showing your Art up here of course would be great, however, I don’t feel you would get enough of a following to have a class.

If you have any art that is a little more main stream (conserative) I’ll be glad to look at that and re-evaluate for teaching art in our community.

Mark L. Brownfield President Brayburn County Arts Center, Inc. or Secretary Brayburn Lions Club

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Mr. Brownfield,

Dustin Timbrook

Ole' Hamster Head

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Udpate: I received this response from Mr. Brownfield today. I think it’s clear that there is no need to continue writing.

Dustin,

I agree with what you are saying. I’m not sure how our request for an Art Teacher got out, it been on our Web page for over a year and now all of a sudden I’m getting request for teaching left and right. I’m going to add a page to our web site with more info regarding the position.

Re: Marketing your Art (you referenced it as sales) I would like to let you know that we are going to have a class taught by a professional Artist, in the near future. He is been rated by the U.S. Government as one of the top ten Native American Artist in the United States. I just had a meeting with him today and we discussed some of the points of interest you brought out in your E-Mail. Like you he has a very select market and he can offer you some good advice. He has sold to the likes of Silvester Stallone, The Elvis Presley Estate, The Micheal Jackson Estate, and many other famous people.

I realize your art and his is not similar, however, the basic marketing principles are the same. My daughter who is an artist went through the same process (she is only about 4 years older then you) and after she finally ignored what she learn from her Art Teachers and then started following what she has learned in Marketing in graduate school (she started graduate school after spending years as a starving artist)her Art sales are finally started to support her and she is a much happier person. Graduate school has been an expensive lesson, but at least she is finally becoming a success at what she wants to do.

You stated, “In other words, the set of skills required to create a painting of a man being enucleated by an ostrich are the same skills necessary to paint a prize ten point buck atop an Appalachian bluff. ” I understand that, however, the general public does not! As I said earlier, I’m not an artist, and until I got involved with the Arts League here I wouldn’t have understood your statement. Therefore, most of the amateur students that would be taking an art class here would not make that association. Once again that’s where Marketing is so important. We run into the ignorant public all the time when they try to purchase a piece of art for less then what the frame cost. That’s why I tell our artist it is so important to be present at the shows. It’s the story behind a painting that sells the painting more often then the actual Art work. We have to educate the public in this area of the county on Art, they don’t have the understanding of Art that
is found in New York or Seattle.

Mark L. Brownfield President Brayburn County Arts Center, Inc. or Secretary Brayburn Lions Club

First up is this colorful fellow who shares an interesting opinion about struttin’ in Big Spring Park, an area you may be familiar with via my work even if you don’t live in HSV.

The city of Huntsville may have pushed the boundaries of acceptable humor in regards to homelessness and alcohol induced brain poisoning with the struttin’ guy, but our latest viral video phenom has somehow achieved the impossible and made the subject of a local woman’s escape from an attempted rapist (and IDIOT!) the most LOL’d item in America’s Facebook feeds since Double Rainbow.

Did you know that Huntsville, Alabama has the most PhD’s per square mile of any… Err, never mind.

So what’s next for Alabama’s engineering and science capital? Well, tomorrow yours truly will be featured in the Sunday issue of the Huntsville Times, but if you are online (you aren’t reading the print edition of my blog are you?) you can read it right now on AL.com!

Also, Giraffe.

Members Only

I got 250 big ones as an award, all of which went straight into construction costs for my new studio.

Speaking of which, the studio is almost done! I’m putting the finishing touches on my AV booth and it is so beautiful that words cannot describe. So once I’ve dotted the last i, I will put together a video to show off all the new gear and space. How exciting!

Like my new painting? Like it so much you want to own it? I’m selling the framed original for $500 (SOLD). Email or FB me if you are interested. I’m also printing these, so click HERE if you’d like to order a full-size reproduction for just 35 bucks.

My buddy Greg hooked me up with a sweet couch that completely makes the place.

My most recent watercolors are coming along and should be done in about a week or so. I couldn’t decide what to put in the fish painting so I started on a new piece involving a wolverine, a giant snail, and a duck with a traditional German hat. Changing things up was a smart move because I figured out the final figures for the fish painting during the meantime.

Want to check out my new studio space in video form? Well you are in luck. Yesterday I was interviewed for WHNT News 19 in Huntsville about my Tim James spoof ad, and I made sure that it was shot in my studio and included lots of views of my space and my dog. Here’s the vid…

Isn’t that Betty cute?

So here is the part where I continue to beg for your money. I know it looks like my new studio is finished now, but you haven’t seen behind the curtain. I’m really only half-way done, and I can’t finish things until I have raised or earned the cash to do so. What’s left to do? For one thing, the entire exterior is still just unfinished drywall. I still have to mud and paint it, which requires help from friends more so than money. The things that are actually going to cost money are drywalling the interior of my AV booth and applying trim to the tops and bottoms of my studio walls. Doing all of this to complete the space will cost roughly $300 bucks (100 for drywall, 200 for moulding), so if you are feeling generous, please make a donation using the ChipIn widget on the right, or buy some prints, or just show up on my doorstep with a giant novelty check.

And thank you so much to everyone who has already contributed. Without you guys I would be painting in a carboard hooverville right now. Instead, Betty and I are working in the lap of luxury.

Let me tell you, I now understand why people encouraged me to pay someone else to do this part. Drywall sucks. Mostly because it’s heavy as S. Moving 40 sheets of the stuff to the second floor of Lowe Mill was not fun. Mounting it to my frames was also pretty difficult because the floors in this century-old factory are very unleveled, resulting in me having to make a lot of compensating cuts to get the drywall square.

The hard work was worth it though. My new space finally has a defined form, and it looks beautiful.

I was fortunate enough to get three huge, old, beautiful windows donated to let lots of natural light into my space. There are ages of gunk built up on these hundred pound double-pane six footers. I’ve probably scrubbed the things 4 times each now, but they are still dingy as all get-out. Maybe the fifth bath will do the trick.

I also put up some 6 foot bi-fold doors. The extra large opening will hopefully encourage more people to naturally wander into my space and check out my work.

That’s as far as I’ve gotten so far. Next I’ve got to mud the gaps, sand, and paint. Now that I’m all walled up I can move my stuff into the new space, but I’m still far from finished. I plan on having a grand-opening celebration on April 17th. There should be some great food, possibly keg beer, some new paintings and prints available for sale, AND it’s Record Store Day (my new space is directly across the hall from Vertical House Records)! More details soon.

Here’s the entrance view of my studio. I’ve angled the opening so that people will naturally be drawn in as they round the corner at the intersection of the two halls. I also installed a big window right next to my work area so that people will see into my space as they come down the ramp. The elevation of the ramp outside of the space gives people a nice view down onto my work area so they can see whatever I’m working on on my drafting table.

This area is my soundbooth. It’s going to have a big double-paned glass window right in front of the desk, and it’s roomy enough inside to fit a full drum kit, so I should be able to work on all kinds of loud projects in this soundproofed space.

Now that I’m finished framing It’s time to move on to drywalling. I have very little experience in this area so hopefully I can do a half-decent job. Nothing more distracting for an art gallery than uneven walls.

That’s it for now. If you would like to make a donation of any size to help me complete this space, just use the ChipIn widget on the right side of the page, or buy some prints from my shop. Thanks, and good night.

Fancy blueprint for my new studio.

On Thursday I successfully lectured a group of people for a full hour, and they were actually there to listen by their own free will! It was very refreshing in comparison to teaching art in public school, where nearly everyone would rather be someplace else. I had a lot of fun, and I think the guests did too. I talked about painting, animation, pop-ups, puppets, video, social experiments, and all of my creative interests. I also showed a lot of examples of my artwork and work by some of my biggest influences. The turnout wasn’t huge, but the crowd was full of faces that I was happy to see.

I put a lot of planning into keeping the pace of my talk fresh and entertaining. People seemed to enjoy it, but not everyone appreciated the effort.

Afterwards we were all treated to some delicious catering by my friends Ashley and Ellis. We put out a donation jar and I was able to raise $200 to go towards building my new studio!

We shot video of the entire talk, and I hope to get it edited and uploaded as soon as I get settled into my new studio space. Till then you can check out this beautiful set of photos of the event shot by my friend Ashley Vaughn.

Thanks again to all who came out. You folks make me happy to be be working in Huntsville.

If you plan on coming, RSVP on my FaceBook event page.

I look forward to talking at you for an hour.

I’ve already thrown up a wall and a half using left-over wood from the original materials that were used to house the old space. Since framing this small area by hand, a generous friend has loaned me his nail gun, so I should be able to zip along through the rest of the process.

Betty does not like the noise generated by all this construction one bit, so she spends most of these days at the opposite end of the hall, looking very sad. But you know what? She always looks sad…

During public visiting hours at the Mill I can’t work on my construction, so I’ve had a little free time to paint. Yesterday I added a little bit more background to my giant fish painting. I’m going to try to get this painting done in time for my artist talk this Thursday, and hopefully even have prints made by then to sell at the event. Hopefully there are enough hours in a day to pull it off.

Don’t forget that I am taking donations to help build my studio, and no contribution is too small. I’ve already collected enough wood to slash my expenses substantially, but I still have to pay for drywalling and several gallons of paint. If you can help me build this space without breaking the bank, use the Chipin widget over on the right of the page to make a donation, or just order some stuff from my Shop.

New pictures of my framed studio in a day or two.