Free Scribus (1.3.9) business card templates for Vistaprint and Nitroprint

These free templates are made specifically for Scribus 1.3.9 or later.  They will not work with the 1.2.x and earlier versions, as Scribus has made a significant changes recently.

Business card template for Vistaprint.com: Download

Business card template for Nitroprint.com: Download

Remember: Actual file you upload when ordering cards must be PDF, fonts embedded, CMYK (process colors) and set for printing (not "screen/web").

Bonus: If you are a U.S. or Canadian user of Scribus, you may be getting tired of having to set the pages to Letter size every time instead of default A4.  Here is a blank U.S. Letter size sheet with measurement in inches.

 

For other popular Scribus templates on this site go to http://iridiacreative.wordpress.com/?s=template&searchbutton=Go!

Meow

Artist's conception: Bicycle racks for "the world's greenest church"

A story of a church bicycle rack

This is a certain large-sized historic church in the Pacific Northwest, with a building that is over a hundred years old.  The church has recently been working on an initiative to make it the "world's greenest" church (as far as its denomination is concerned) and one of the first ideas that came up was to build bike racks, entirely from salvaged, repurposed and recycled materials.  Here I have made a conception design with used bicycle frames that were turned upside down and welded into a visually pleasing piece of public art that also double as durable bike racks.

Graphic made with Inkscape, converted and slightly edited with GIMP.  The name of the church is blurred out by request.

Thanks to ChurchOutreachMinistry.net for the mention.

Sarah Morrigan, IrisCat Designs

November: Sarah's art all over Southeast Portland! Come to one or all!

By pure coincidence various opportunities opened up for exhibit opportunities this summer, and they are all opening during the first week of November (coming very soon!).

Thursday, November 4 (One day only, only three hours!), 7-10 p.m.
Sometimes a Great Notion
Siren Nation Women's Arts and Music Festival
at Albina Press on Hawthorne
5012 SE Hawthorne Blvd. 97215
(Event info: http://www.sirennation.com/festival-art/)



Friday, November 5 (the show runs through December 31)
Opening party 7 p.m.-9 p.m.ish
The Portland Tarot Show
at Splendorporium
3421 SE 21st Avenue 97202
(Event info: http://portlandtarot2010.blogspot.com/)



Friday, November 5 (the show runs through the end of the month)
Opening party 6 p.m.-midnight
Facing Fear
at Launchpad Gallery
534 SE Oak Street 97214
(Event info: http://launchpadgallery.org/category/exhibits/

 

More updates follow on Twitter (@SarahMorrigan) or Facebook (search for IrisCat Designs).

Be green, support local business, get a reusable cup.

For those who remember, I have designed this for Southeast Grind back in April 2009. Now you can own this piece of elegance and be green!

It is only $10 a piece and you will get a 25 cents off each time you use it at Southeast Grind (with your first coffee free). It is available only at Southeast Grind, 1223 SE Powell Blvd, Portland, Oregon, just east of Milwaukie Avenue/12th Avenue near the Gideon Street fire station (TriMet lines 9, 17, 19 and 70). It is open 24 hours!

What a busy month!

As many of you already know, I started my post-graduate studies this past spring (majoring in feminist theology -- with a plan to add fine arts major in the near future) and I have fifteen credit hours this fall semester.  Fortunately three of the classes either end early or start in November, so I need to handle only three classes at a given time.

So far I have completed 6 credits

• 02.02.001 - History of Goddess Worship


• 04.01.001 - Ecology and Spirit

and have 15 credits by the end of this term

• 01.01.002 - Anthropology of Shamanism


• 01.01.006 - The Shaman


• 02.02.004 - Introduction to Thealogy


• 03.08.001 - Contextualizing Women in Religion


• 03.08.005 - Feminist Theology 1

(Why are the shamanism courses given 01.01.x prefix?  The college originally was founded as a training centre for shamans, now it is one of very few truly interfaith seminaries that is not tied to any specific religious institution and encompasses many non-mainstream faiths.)

In addition to this, I have two art shows opening in November (coincidence) and potentially one more that I might enter as well:

• Siren Nation group art show: Sometimes a Great Notion (confirmed) Open Thursday, Nov. 4


• Portland Tarot Project group show (confirmed) at Splendorporium Open Friday, Nov. 5


• Facing Fear group show (maybe) at Launch Pad Gallery Open Friday, Nov. 5

And also I have just joined the new curatorial team at the 100th Monkey Studio in Southeast Portland -- this involves the organizing and promotion of the monthly art shows, and gives me a valuable practical experience from the side of those who run a gallery.  (In addition, it gives me a studio membership, which is great, as it is always nice to have a dedicated space to work on art.)

How do I get time for all this?  The fact is I operate almost round-the-clock, except when I am sleeping for about 6 hours.  My biggest challenge is to stay focused on the task at hand and have a determination to get it done.

And yes, I still volunteer as a GED tutor at the Julia West House (4 hours/week).

Re-introducing Art Windows from IrisCat.

Art Windows.  Why get a "window splash" if you can get a real art from a real working artist?  IrisCat is proud to relaunch this after a period of re-evaluation.

This summer, after a period of re-evaluation and hiatus, IrisCat is redefining and relaunching the popular window painting service to do what IrisCat does the best.  It has come to Sarah that even calling it a "window painting" does not do justice.  After three years in business, some people have mistakenly called it a "window treatment", and even more people have mistaken this for a "window splash."  The problem is that they all serve different purposes from different technical approaches. What IrisCat Designs does is a commissioned temporary or semi-permanent works of art reflecting the artist's distinct style informed by various disciplines such as illustration, hand-drawn letterings, and acrylic and watercolor paintings.  Generally, this suits much better for a smaller-sized project.  Unlike other businesses in the area providing window painting or "window splash" services, your project will be done by a real working artist with experiences that include solo and juried shows.

IrisCat Designs is here to provide an elegant, perhaps smaller, and light-hearted (but not grotesque) alternative for businesses that are conscious of the images they project to the community.  With all this, the prices are remarkably affordable (varies by various factors), and whenever feasible environmentally sustainable methods and materials are used.

http://iriscat.info/artwindows-windowpaintingalternatives.html

New original paintings auctioned to benefit Operation Nightwatch Portland

This is a great way to make these sets of new, original paintings (all done this month) while supporting a worthy cause.

The paintings are mixed media, acrylic, paper and ink, and were produced in June 2010 here in the Portland area. Portions (15% of the winning price) of this auction will be donated to the same, to support future art programs and events to make creative arts accessible to those who are low-income, mentally/physically/developmentally challenged, and/or homeless. Operation Nightwatch (ON) is an ecumenical night ministry of friendship and community that has been serving the street population of downtown Portland since 1981. Now with the newly purchased RV unit, ON is soon expanding to the Johnson Creek/Clackamas/Lents area and other locations throughout the metropolitan region.

The Set 1: The Elemental Cats -- Fire, Wind, Water, Earth
Acrylic, ink and paper on four canvas panels, each sized 3" x 5"

The Set 2: A set of two watercolors -- "A Summer Day in a Park" (a scene at Couch Park, Northwest Portland last week), and "Moon Cat"
Watercolor on two canvas panels, each sized 3" x 5"

For links to the eBay listings use: http://donations.ebay.com/charity/charity.jsp?NP_ID=30327 (shows both sets) with the ending number 30327 as part of the address. If it does not work, you can access the page through http://www.operationnightwatch.org/missionfish.html

IrisCat Designs news updates for May-June 2010

It seems like I have gone pretty quiet on the art and art-business fronts, but things are still happening under way.  As you may already know, I have started my post-graduate studies this spring and it has been keeping me busy, but that does not stop me from my creative pursuits -- rather they go hand in hand.  I am still discerning whether I should go double-major in both MDiv and MFA programs as my school will launch a brand new MFA program this fall semester.

In June I will be facilitating another open art studio as part of the annual Operation Nightwatch Portland spiritual retreat.  We are still yet to procure needed art supplies and if you can make a donation toward it I will be very happy.  Also, this year I am taking parts of this art project into the realm of the digital.  If you have extra digital cameras that we can borrow for a few days (caveat: we will be using this in forest settings, so unfortunately you would have to indemnify us in case if someone accidentally drops the camera into mud or creek... so that is why the "extra" camera, not your favourite one.) that would also be great.

[To make a contribution, go to http://www.operationnightwatch.org/donate.html.  This is a 501(c)(3) and donations are tax deductible if itemized correctly.]

May Last Thursday art clearance sale: May 27 at Radio Room, 1101 NE Alberta Street, from 5:30 to 9:45 p.m.  All items must go; they are under $25 until 7:30, then will be "pay what you can and will" thereafter.

May Last Thursday art clearance sale

This coming Thursday, May 27, 2010, I will be offering nearly all available original art for sale in order to clean out the storage space and stale creative energy, and also to raise funds to replace my bicycle that was stolen a few days ago.

I will also be offering (weather permitting) a quick portrait sketch (for a suggested donation of $5).

All items will be under $25 between 5:30 p.m. and 7 p.m., then will be "pay what you can and will" thereafter until closing around 9:45 p.m.  This is a good opportunity to add affordable works of art to your home or office.  All items must go by the end of the day, so no reasonable offer will be declined -- in fact, even a small amount will help me at this point immensely.  The recent theft of the bicycle has caused some unexpected financial strains and loss of productivity.

This will be at the parking lot of Radio Room, 1101 N.E. Alberta St. in Portland, Oregon.  As the Last Thursday is expected to be busy, I recommend using the public transit (it is hard to find a place to park even for a bicycle). TriMet lines 8 and 75 serve the area, and so does the 6 (on MLK at Alberta, about 7 blocks away).

Heraldry and ecclesiastical seals: where high-tech contemporary designs meet time-steeped tradition

One of my specialty areas of practice is designs of traditional ecclesiastical (church) seals that both follow the centuries-old traditions of heraldry that are rich in metaphorical and spiritual symbolism, and at the same time stylish and visually pleasing to the contemporary sensibility.



Read the stories behind these seals, including their heraldic symbolism and meanings.

Iridia Creative launches StoreCats.info

[caption id="attachment_221" align="aligncenter" width="230" caption="directory and resources on felines in retail and business environments"][/caption]

Today the new website StoreCats.info officially went online. While focused primarily on Portland, Oregon at the moment, StoreCats.info aims to bring resources for business operators who would like to build a sense of community and attract more business through having a "store cat" in a retail or other business environment.

Simultaneously, the site seeks contribution of information, cat stories and pictures from the general public, allow public comments and ratings of cats.

StoreCats.info. Get your kitty fix. Support your local shops.

Five old-fashioned arts to grow your business today

Today it seems as though all what one must do to grow his or her business is to get online, find as many Facebook friends and tweet every other minute.  While social media and Web 2.0 have dramatically transformed the way we do and grow business, it is important never to forget why they have done so: They have moved the marketing from primarily a one-way street (such was the case with broadcast advertising and older web-based marketing) to a moderately unregulated and decentralized relationship, or conversation, coming and going in all directions.

This brings the business back to the spirit of a more traditional age, when most shopkeepers and salespeople grew their wealth out of conversations, relationship, words-of-mouths and their reputations in the wider society.

It does not take an expensive campaign or a rocket science to cultivate such a beneficial relationship. Here are five easy and inexpensive ways to move your business from purely a pursuit of sales figures to a solid foundation for a long-term prosperity.

Read more on Biznik.com: http://biznik.com/members/sarah-morrigan/articles/five-old-fashioned-arts-for-your-business-today

How to make your own stylish business card with free software

As many new business operators soon discover, there are simply never too many business cards once they get serious about promoting what they do and have to offer. From local networking groups to coffee shop bulletin boards, there are many places where handing out or exchanging business cards is a must in creating leads and gaining clients.

Some business operators would still like to make their own business cards with their own computers and printers for a variety of reasons: scalability in expenses, flexibility and speed.

Read more at http://biznik.com/articles/stylish-do-it-yourself-business-cards-on-the-cheap-and-quick

Recommended software:

• Scribus


• Inkscape

What else you need

• Pre-perforated business card stock paper such as Avery 8879; or


• Nice hard card stock paper and paper cutter (desktop rotary cutter is good).


• This template

Revolution that quite wasn't: What could have been "radical" vindicates the traditional

Continuing on how communism became an unwitting preserver of tradition through the time period in which the Western nations underwent a massive cultural change, it is also interesting to note how the adoration of the leadership in many communist countries underlines our basic human need for a monarchy.

Today, as most of the world's nation-states are republican, we tend to laugh at communist nations for engaging in a "personality cult." But on a deeper level, it is a healthy inclination for any country to look up to its king -- and in absence of a stated "king" the leader of the communist party gains the popular expectation to act that role. Indeed, what people in DPRK give to its Great Leader, is very much like how pre-WWII Japanese "loved" their Emperor Hirohito, and how most monarchical nations looked up to their respective queen or king. Additionally, in absence of an actively practiced religion, the Great Leader also has gained the role of a religious messiah. The official biography of Kim Jong Il almost copies itself from the Gospel of St. Luke in its birth and childhood story.

In the United States, the only reason why such a personality cult did not become a central part of its culture was that the personality cult of Jesus Christ -- not just a holy man or a saviour, but Jesus the King of Kings. With associated (decidedly American) doctrines such as dispensationalism and dominion theology, conservative Christians in America successfully fused American nationalism with Christianity and turned it into a distinctively American personal cult that provides both a substitute king and messiah that our human consciousness needs.

In the end, neither democracy nor communism did not entirely extinguish the human drive toward the primordial traditional worldview. Humans need that sense of relating to their monarchs, and no nebulous political theory can be a substitute to satisfy that human needs. As such the development of communist society during the 20th century vindicates the tradition.

Did communism unwittingly become a preserver of traditionalism?

Here is a somewhat off-topic discussion for this blog, but since this deals with art history, aesthetics and culture I suppose this would be an appropriate forum for this.



Today, socialism of Marxist or Stalinist types (not the Social Democracy, which is a mainstream political system in Europe) is viewed as an arcane, failed ideology that eventually gave way to a global free market society ("Capitalist Democracy", or the American system). Certainly, there are many evils done in the name of socialism or communism, and one should never forget the damages done by the Khmer Rouge or by the Great Cultural Revolution. But in the light of the recent wave of hostilities between the world community and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, it may be a good idea to evaluate how cultures could develop in two respective systems, and if there is anything to be learned from the experiences of communism. After nearly 20 years after the "end of communism," it may be worth exploring this topic in depth.

As an artist, one of the most important questions is whether arts suffered -- and even destroyed -- under a communist rule.

Many say yes, that communist regimes routinely suppress artists' freedom of expression often with gulags and thought reformation camps, and that communist governments are generally averse to the preservation of traditional cultures. On the other hand, capitalist society usually has a constitution that guarantees one's freedom of speech and expression, and new ideas are valued as the free market stimulates innovation and rewards artists in tangible ways. At least, these are the official American government line of reasoning.

History seems to suggest otherwise.

Many internationally renowned conservatories and companies of music, arts and theatre were based in, and sponsored by the government of, socialist countries until the end of the Cold War. The Soviet Union was known for some of the best ballet companies on earth, while China's Shanghai Circus and USSR's Bolshoi Circus were far above the crass "entertainment" (exploitation of animals, "freak" shows, etc.) of American counterparts to truly elevate circus to the level of a high performing art, decades before there was even le Cirque du Soleil. Far from destroying it, socialist countries spared no expense to develop conservatories and art academies to teach traditional classical music and traditional visual arts.

What they were against was the older institution of traditional arts, which often imposed unreasonable barriers for talented common people from learning the arts, and the "masses" from enjoying the arts.

On the other hand, much of the cultural deracination originated not in the communist nations, but in purportedly "progressive" and "democratic" nations and their avant-garde movements. Cubism, Dada and others that defined the modern art in the western Europe and North America in the earlier half of the 20th century were actually seen by the communist parties in the Soviet bloc as being "bourgeois" and as such were rejected. Rather, the Socialist Realism became the mainstay of fine arts in the Eastern bloc (including the "non-aligned" communist countries such as the People's Republic of China, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Lao People's Democratic Republic and Socialist Republic of Vietnam), which took off from the realist art of the Renaissance. While the Socialist Realism rejected both Romanticism and pre-Renaissance art as being too "fluffy" and for belonging only to the upper class (the assumption here was that the common, proletarian masses were not intellectually sophisticated enough to understand anything that is not "real" and "close to everyday life"), it was nonetheless derived from the rajasic aesthetics and has very little of the poisons coming from the type of cultural corruption experienced in the Western bloc during the same time period. This, perhaps, is in part due to the Eastern bloc's having shielded by the Iron Curtain from the 1960s. One do not hear of hippies or rock-and-drug subcultures in the USSR, even as they infected the farthest reach of the post-WWII American empire including Japan and the Republic of Korea.

Added to this, in general the socialist regimes (albeit selectively and with a propaganda in mind) generously supported arts. They spared no expense in building cultural facilities, recruited and educated the best of the best in various art institutes and conservatories, and truly cultivated and promoted the arts and artists as the pride of the nation. Since neither training nor production had to be bound to the short attention span of the novelty-seeking "market" or be driven by the commercial demands of the bottom-lines and popularity, they could focus on the quality. While one can always point to how the socialist nations engaged in heavy censorship, it was at the time a common practice even in the "capitalist" world. It was not until the late 1980s or 1990s when many Asian "capitalist" and "democratic" countries did finally lift their heavy censorship regimes (especially in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea and Taiwan). In a "free" society, art falls to the self-censoring effect of "The Market" and whims of non-profit or foundation leadership that finances projects.

Thinking of some of the grandiose works done under a stringently communist world of the Cold War, it would be a lot more difficult to put together similar productions today even in the People's Republic of China, which is only nominally communist while preserving the police-state aspect of Stalinism. With the rise of consumerism, growth of so-called "individualism" (which in fact isn't), shorter attention span and increasing personal affluence for some, a production such as the 1965 epic musical "The East is Red" (Dongfang Hong) would be very difficult to put together in today's China.

While I reserve much of my objections to the excess of communism and many of its harmful aspects, a proper credit must be given to how traditional art forms were unwittingly preserved in the artistic policies of communism. They were mobilized for propaganda purposes, yes. But it is also true that in a capitalist world arts and artistic talents are mobilized for propaganda purposes, too, and only arts that satisfy the needs of the market economics and those who funds art projects would "make it."

---

Sidebar: Glimpses into Communist arts

• Pyongyang Art Studio


• Mansudae Art Studio, Mansudae, Pyongyang


• Shanghai Circus


• Dongfang Hong (The East is Red): an Epic in Music and Dance, part 1 of 2


• Dongfang Hong, part 2 of 2


• Bolshoi Circus, Moscow, Russia (founded in 1971 under Leonid Brezhnev)


• Cho Okchu, a kayagum (gayageum) prodigy in DPRK


• Mansudae Art Theatre performs traditional Korean music

a big white fluffy cat.

[caption id="attachment_157" align="aligncenter" width="455" caption="Inkscape 0.46"][/caption]

Download this image (Scalable Vector Graphic format)

Turn your cat picture into a vector file clip art -- there are hundreds of uses for it. Now for $40 for one picture, or $100 for three. Contact Sarah for details.

Iridia Creative website glitch with some browsers

It appears that some browsers have difficulty displaying the Iridia Creative website correctly. I have been testing the site with a number of browsers on multiple operating systems, including the latest versions of Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera, Microsoft Internet Explorer, K-Meleon, Amaya, and Epiphany.

This may be due to some browsers not interpreting CSS as it should.

If you cannot see the text, if the text goes invisible or instead shows Unicode numbers (small numbers in boxes), use the no-CSS, lite graphic version below:

• Iridia Creative home


• Iridia Creative graphic designs


• Iridia Creative fine art


• Iridia Creative window paintings and signage


• Iridia Creative contact (the webmail form may not work in this version)

Also the problem may be resolved by forcing your browser to ignore CSS and use fonts of your choice (Arial, Helvetica and FreeSans should look okay). Since this problem is largely limited to Firefox and other Firefox-derived browsers in Linux, try this if you are using Linux:

Edit (Alt-E) > Preferences (n) > Content tab > Fonts and Colors > Advanced button > de-select "Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of my selections above"

Press OK, go back to Preferences > Content

> Fonts and Colors > Colors button > select "Use system colors", deselect "Allow pages to choose their own colors..."

Additionally, Opera 9.64 for Linux displays the site correctly but it may not be in your distribution's repository. You can download the installer file from Opera's website. (This will involve a knowledge of unpacking a .tar.gz file, then running the installation shell script by using chmod and ./ inside the shell.)

Art show opening Sunday, June 28

The Five Rogues plus One

a group show

featuring
Darren W. Alexander | Troy Ennis | Larry Patrik May | Rick Miles | C. J. White

with

Sarah A. Morrigan

June 28 - August 17, 2009

Opening Reception: Sunday, June 28, 2009 - Noon

First Presbyterian Church of Portland

1200 SW Alder St

"Green Iris": Environmentally sustainable practices at Iridia Creative

Iridia Creative Productions is committed to a "green" business practice in purple iris style!

• Low-power computing equipment. The newly purchased computer consumes on average 20 to 25 watts, about a half of a typical computer, to reduce the carbon footage and thermal emission.


• Non-toxic paints. Whenever possible certified non-toxic paints are used -- especially for window painting


• Electronic, paperless billing. To reduce paper use all invoices are sent and processed electronically.


• Sourcing recycled art supplies. Many of fine art works are made from recycled or reused supplies to reduce waste in landfill and to save energy needed in production of new art supplies.


• Commitment to open-source computing platforms and commercial application of open-source software. GNU/Linux and other open-source projects help people reuse older computers. At Iridia Creative Productions almost all work is done on open-source platform.


• Encouraging bicycling and public transit use.