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.

Last time Three Happenin Guys played at Bottletree it was for our tenth anniversary special. Not our best show ever, but it definitely was the one with the most goodie bags, and who can have a bad night when they are wearing a party hat? No one: That’s who.

To kick off that show I made an intro video that played on a large screen in front of the band. The idea was that we would be hidden behind the screen and the video would get the audience super pumped, then at the conclusion of the vid the screen would drop to the ground and THG would melt everyones’ faces off with our birthday rock. Unfortunately the video was not played loudly enough to be heard over the hundreds of party whistles and noisemakers that we had handed out (poor foresight on our part) so instead of everyone hearing a super-epic pump up intro, they were just stuck watching 3 minutes of slowly drifting planets.

Well, better late than never. Now you can watch AND listen to the intro I created for our last show, and maybe it will get you hyped for the upcoming August gig. It’s a slow boil, but if you are patient you will be treated to the beautiful falsetto Native American stylings of yours truly. It’s Pure Moods, 2010.

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.

And to celebrate tonight we are putting on a party like no other at Bottletree Cafe in Birmingham, Alabama. If you are anywhere near Iron City tonight you do not want to be anywhere else. We have been practicing and planning for over a month to put on one of biggest and best spectacles yet.

Strange and amazing things happen when Three Happenin Guys music is played. Our latest promo video is a great example of this phenomenon.

If you know THG well, you’re familiar with the fact that we only play our own original tunes. Recently we tried our hand at a cover song though, thinking it would really be a stand-out gem in our set. It didn’t work out the way we thought it would. I could try to describe in text all the gritty details of our attempt at covering a classic, but I think a video will paint a truer picture. Check it out…

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.

The first show is, ummm, tonight. Sorry for the late notice, but get in your car and drive to Montevallo around 9 o’clock to see Shining Path and Walker Yancey at Eclipse Coffee and Books. Here’s a great promo that Chris made for the show…

The next gig is much further down the road, but it’s a BIGGIE. Three Happenin Guys are having our tenth year anniversary, and it is going to be a ten year old’s birthday that you will never forget. Plus, it’s going down at BottleTree, arguably the best indie music venue in the state of Alabama. We plan on promoting the hell out of this show and hopefully selling the place out. If you plan on coming out on May 28th, do yourself a favor and go ahead and buy your tickets NOW…