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Rock Art News- Spring 2006

After well over a year of drought, rain poured down on the Ozarks in the last month. The rivers roared to life and as the water recedes, rocky treasures are revealed. I’d been picking through the same bunch of creek side rocks for so long that I finally resorted to pitching rocks that I picked up and rejected more than once into the center of the creek just to keep from picking them up yet again!

While I would love to find a use for every rock, there are some that just don’t make the grade. Too flat, too rough, too jagged, too odd. Some seem perfect until you turn them over and realize that it would take too much wood filler to make them stand up properly. In the past I might have tossed an ‘almost’ rock into my collecting crate- just in case I discovered a use for it later. That is how I ended up with the rock pile that resides outside my back door!  Many do eventually work their way inside to become rock art. But many more have remained ‘just rocks’.

I am sometimes asked where I get the ideas for new rock subjects. The answer can be found all around us. I see a child sitting cross-legged and recognize that compact shape would fit easily onto a certain shape of rock.  Standing in my kitchen, I glance down at a bowl of fruit on the counter as I wait for the toast to pop up and I suddenly see the way those colorful pieces of fruit could be painted on individual rocks or that the whole bowl could be translated into a rock shape I see frequently.  Ideas bubble up because I am constantly thinking about shapes and subjects. I am ‘tuned in’ to that frequency.  It is kind of like when I was expecting my children and it seemed everywhere I looked there were pregnant women and babies.  I don’t believe that they were suddenly more common- the difference was that I was paying special attention to them.

This has been a busy spring because for the first time in my life, I am wearing many new hats all at once. As the publisher of my newest book, I’ve become the full time publicist, the business manager, even the pallet loader as I learned how to stack books onto a wooden platform and then wrap the cases with plastic film so that they don’t shift in transit.  I am determined to experience every aspect of owning a publishing company with this first book so that I fully understand what it involved. I need to know which parts make the most sense to do myself and which ones I should pay others to do for me.  As a publicist, I have send off dozens of review copies and scores of press releases. I’ve written articles and queried talk radio hosts about interviews. For weeks I wondered if all that effort was making any difference. I was sending so much out into the universe where it seemingly disappeared into a black hole.  Then, little by little, I began to see results. An interview here, and another there, seeing the articles picked up and reposted on other websites, and finding a couple of reviews of the new book on Amazon. Suddenly a Google search was bringing up fifty references to the new book! 
 I read somewhere that book promotion is like approaching a huge tree with a very small ax; You think, ‘this is impossible! I’ll never be able to chop the tree down this way!’ But you start swinging away, chip by tiny chip. Sometimes the hardest part is just picking up the ax each day and finding the energy to tackle a list of tasks. Yet it is that consistent effort that finally begins to show results.

I am happy to report that the new book is now available at Hobby Lobby stores, Beverly’s Arts and Crafts (they have a great price on the book through their on-line store, www.save-on-crafts.com/bevfabriccrafts), and can be special ordered through any bookstore. Canadians can buy on-line easily at www.toletallytreasures.com and avoid the extra cost of international postage.

June 9th and 10th are the dates Wandra Dees of Golden, Missouri has scheduled for another Rock Painter’s Get-Together.  Her annual party started off as a way to meet other rock painters who belonged to the on-line web club on Yahoo (www.groups.yahoo.com/group/rockpainting)  Nearly three dozen painters and people interested in learning to paint, gathered at the Dee’s home overlooking Table Rock Lake in southwest Missouri seven years ago. It was so much fun that she and her husband T. Joe have hosted the party each spring ever since. The past couple of years we have kicked off the weekend with a trip to a river near Jasper, AR to gather wonderful, river tumbled rocks. Then we spend Friday evening and all day Saturday painting and exchanging tips, talk and enjoying a cookout done by T. Joe and his son. She sent me this website address:
http://geocities.com/deesdream06

She also wrote that If you cannot get it to come up, don't give up.  Yahoo now has a limit on 'free' web sites...just so many can access the site in an hour.  So, if it tells you that it is unavailable, try again later. 

Thanks to all who took me up on my pre-publication special. I sent out hundreds of books and also received many notes of encouragement that meant a great deal to me. I appreciated the comments and also the suggestions for future projects. Now that I finally managed to get the book posted on Amazon, it would be really wonderful to have more reviews posted there. Each review the book gets helps with the sales ranking, which in turn, gives Amazon incentive to promote the book on other pages. And if you click on other reviews while there to say they were helpful, that gets counted as well. (See how much I am learning about the book biz?) If you have any questions about this process, contact me and I will do my best to answer.

As you paint your own rock art, here is a fun thought to keep in mind. You may just be creating heirlooms that will be passed on through your family for generations to come!  Look at how prehistoric rock art has survived to be admired by modern man. There is no reason that your own rock art pieces should not survive the same way. Instead of being just a name or a faded photo in the family album, you could leave behind your unique artwork to be held and treasured by great-great-great grandchildren. You might even end up inspiring them to follow in your creative footsteps!

Let’s all rock on!

Lin Wellford
www.linwellford.com
www.ArtStonePress.com

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