Service That ISN'T Service Anymore

  We've all heard this line ... often over and over again for 5, 10, 15 even up to 45 minutes when you make the mistake of calling a company about a problem, even your doctor ... "Please hold. Your call is very important to us. However, we are experiencing a larger call volume than usual. Please hold. We will take your call in the order it was received. Thank you for your patience." Then after say, 10 - 15 minutes of waiting comes this line, "All our representatives are still busy helping other callers. Your call is important to us, please leave a number so that we can return your call shortly." And, they never, ever do. 

   Even worse is how they now try to shuffle you off to the Internet where 1: you can't even get on the internet; that's why you're calling Time Warner, or 2: what you need is on the 5th screen hidden deep down on an Internet page that is longer than anything that can be published in tiny type buried in another line and you simply can't find it. Been there too?

   This folks is design ... design to discourage. In the past I have finally given up and literally gone to the place I needed to contact in less time than the time I spent holding. They are startled at that and often fall all over themselves to get you, by now irate and angry, out the door.

Unlike Ernestine on LAUGH-IN, this operator put you through.

   Service has never been as poor as it is today (well it was pretty awful before the wall fell in eastern Europe too). I have been to service centers, Spectrum, even the doctor's office, heard the phone ring and one of two things happen; they stop helping you to get the call and then are on that call 5 minutes, or more often, ignore the call and do what they were doing. 

   When I was a kid, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth in the 1950's, someone always answered the phone and you were transferred to the person you needed, if they were there. If not, a message was taken. In the 60's and 70's you checked out of the office and when you returned a sheaf of pink slips had messages of those who had called when you were out. They expected you to call back, too. And we did.

   Today robots answer phones and most of those messages are clearly ignored. A pink message slip makes you feel guilty, ignoring a blinking light or even not bothering to check your messages seems to be the standard of the day. I found, before I retired, that I had to do two jobs: my job and their's bugging them to do what I had wanted. To be fair, in the drive for profits and CEO salaries, companies do everything they can to save a penny so fewer employees do double or triple the work than was expected of them 50 years ago. If a real person answers the phone, I praise them and their company for caring enough to help me without having to wait. Time is my money too!

   In fact, the more companies talk about how important YOU are on TV, the radio, the Internet and printed advertising, the worse the problem has become. In fact, for many of them, including our government ... city, county, state, federal, service has gotten far, FAR worse.

   A case in point was today in my condo complex in Palm Springs. Last year after the old management company was kicked out for mismanagement the HOA board choose Desert Resort Management, a division of Associa, as their new management company. They found many, many problems inherited from the old management company but while I was still a renter, who had no vote or voice, there were many questions about the new company. At HOA meetings I could attend as an owner the DRM representative spent her time on her cell phone and rarely had the information asked for a month or two before. This year the problem became worse. The first one was replaced. Suddenly we had another representative, then another, and last month another. Late Friday afternoon board members, I am now one, were emailed a note that took more than a day for me to receive, that we were going to get yet another representative. 

   A search of the Internet on this company gives a very different picture from the one they paint. In fact they are huge, managing over 9,000 properties. They made front page news in the valley recently when one of their employees siphoned over $100,000 from a petty cash account at one of the properties they manage.

   In a continuing and startling allegation of McKesson Pharmaceuticals last night on "60 Minutes" who with the Washington Post, CBS and retired employees of the DEA discussed McKesson's fueling the opioid epidemic and the government's refusal to prosecute. Past episodes regarding malfeasance of big banks, utilities, auto companies and much more, the common answer to these problems and yes, criminal activities, including property management companies, is that they are "too big to fail." Really? Is anything so big that if it fails the world ends? I would say that with this attitude the "End of Days" is nearer than we think. In fact, I would recommend CEO's and a great many of our government employees read Gibbons THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. In fact I would posit that many, many companies are too big and should be broken up or allowed to fail. The demand of profits over people, over service, is rapidly reaching a breaking point.

In fact, we have reached the perfect storm; new board members, new and unknown representative and the holidays.

   Somewhere we as a nation have lost our way. Republicans wrap their selves in a flag spouting freedom and human rights as they give the rich more, then literally take food and medicine from the nations poor adding they are Christians. Democrats offer a vision of a world that doesn't exist anymore and when their "heroes" go amuck say they are "icons" and refuse to believe claims against them. Unfortunately I have a very different view of the gospels and they don't include either of these tenets.

   Differences of opinion have prevailed even before July 4, 1776. In fact they went on with mother England before the first sailing to the New World. Heavens, the Vice President of the United States had a dueling match with the Secretary of the Treasury and killed him. We fought a Civil War that was anything but civil, that killed 15% of the nation's population. To watch the news recently, it appears that the war there is still being fought.

   The citizens of the United States need to pause ... from the wealthiest to the poorest, as well as all government leaders, and take stock of who we as a people are. Do the words that grace the Statue of Liberty have any meaning or is that yet another casualty of freedom? What is freedom? I would note that the Constitution was written over 230 years ago while we live in a world the Founding Fathers could never, ever imagine. It doesn't hurt anyone to say thank you or to be kind. The wealthy don't need more. Health care is a right, not a priviledge. The stress of the modern world is of our owning making, yes, our own design. We need to inculcate service into our children and ourselves so that we will be willing and yes, eager, to serve others and not take more than we need. No, I am not preaching for a socialist Utopia, I am asking for common courtesy and decency.

   We designed this thing, maybe the time has come, finally, to design another.

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where the emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! Be sure to check my re-opened ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. Many of the items talked about here are for sale there!

   

RoboLights: Christmas Decor Like No Other!

Kenny Irwin's property on a normal day. Frank Sinatra's

first house in Palm Springs is just a block away. This is the

midst of the Movie Colony where every home is valued in

excess of $2 million. Neighbors are not pleased.

Palm Springs is known for many things ... desert weather, a getaway from the hustle and bustle of Hollywood or just about anyplace with either too much hustle or bustle and snow plows, movie stars hiding from prying eyes, innovative architects, a Gay lifestyle and so much more.

  After 16 years of trying, the denizens of the Movie Colony and city hall lost a court battle last year to shut down RoboLights, the creation of local sculpture Kenny Irwin, whose vision of Christmas, is even more bizarre than Tim Burton's NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, finally won his battle to open his property for his yearly Christmas show. 

   Not to be outdone the city now lists RoboLights as one of the city's attractions of things to do and see in Palm Springs.

   The neighbors have struck back by getting the city to forbid parking on the street the house is on and the street that takes you there. Luckily a park is a few blocks away with plenty of parking but, as the leader of our photography group said, bring a flashlight. There are no or at best few streetlights.

 

This is the entrance (one of several) view to RoboLights at dusk

   Open from 4 pm to 9:30 pm nightly its probably better to come around 5 pm or so like we did. There is still some light and you can find your way easily. While I had visited last year, we came late, had only 15 or so minutes to check the place out and since I didn't drive there made a dry run earlier in daylight to find where it was and where to park. Last year a friend from China walked around stunned, his mouth agape. We all did, truly there can't be anything like this any place in the world.

Once inside there are many paths and its easy to get lost.

   Some of it is fun, playful even, other scenes are macabre and definitely something that could give you nightmares for a week. I heard one adult wonder if maybe this wasn't for children below, maybe 16?

Save your junk! You too can become a
sculptor. One never knows.

  There are just not words to describe what awaits you here. He has put together bits and pieces of just about anything you can imagine ... pipes, circuit boards, TV's, a whole bunch of skulls, a tanker full of Pepto Bismo pink paint. Someone spotted people delivering even more junk to him behind the house. Its not as if there isn't a whole lot there already!

I don't think Disney would picture Freeze with this cast.

  

   I traipsed around this wonderland of, I guess the best description would be "land of the macabre, but as an artist you can't help but admire the total, unrelenting inventiveness, even lightheartedness of his collection and the work that went into it. After all, it covers 4 acres and he has over 1 million lights. In fact I spotted a worker there adding even more lights. Really? More lights?

Your chariot awaits

   

Where else could you see a
Gingerbread Mullah?

   Irwin has become a Muslim convert and can be spotted on his grounds dressed in traditional Mullah garb. Some areas of the display feature Arab scenes and music. I didn't see him last night but did see him last year. There are some interesting scenes though that combine a variety of holiday themes. 

Pulling Santa in a way Hugh Hefner would love.

  The Easter Bunny driving a team of reindeer, Santa on a tank with a banner that reads "Come and Get It," with a gaggle of female manikins pulling Santa in a stage coach.

   There are many beautifully lit tunnels that overlook the grounds, even the pool filled with bulls in rafts, a giant pirate ship, several snowmen and the afore mentioned Santa riding his tank.

I guess Santa is ready to shoot down Jack

Skeleton before he hi-jacks Christmas again!

    It is so, bizarre you will find your fingers are never far from you camera or cell phone. Scene after scene greets you, each one more, is the word "outrageous?" than the last. It never fails to amaze and you never stop looking.

Not your Grandmas's typical Village!!!

   And it was fun. Despite the warnings, I did sleep like a baby last night! So, you don't need to worry about that.

There just isn't anything like this anywhere.

   I think that for an artist, whether you like this kind of exhibit or not, it does show the many kinds of possibilities there are out there. Much of his creations are made from cast off things we probably get rid of each and every day. He might be on to something. I have noticed that dimensional art, art that does something is becoming more and more popular. At Spectrum last year, two of the more popular spaces included things that did something. One space had creations made from black wire that when the handle was turned came to life ... a bicycle wheels turned, a trapeze star walked across, things moved up and down. Another space had electrical creations that were fascinating to watch. No two were alike. Created by an electrical engineer, he may well have been on to something.

I can see those garages now! Where is it?

  

   I would say that if this kind of art, collages, things created from found pieces is what you want to do a visit to RoboLights is almost a command performance. He has definitely led the way into uncharted territory. You may not agree or even like what you see, but the possibilities it can open to the artistic person are immeasurable.

    If you are in Palm Springs during the Christmas season, this is a must see venue. Even during the rest of the year, some of the creations are quite visible from the street and they are lighted at night.

 Leaving, you definitely need your flashlight. There are no streetlights for blocks and the on blaze of lights is what you see from Robolights. While the neighbors might want to keep their lives and properties private, RoboLights, like Los Angeles, blazes a path to its front door! It is open daily from 4 pm to 9:30 pm. Admission is a donation and they are collecting toys for the children of Syria.

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where the emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! Be sure to check my re-opened ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. Many of the items talked about here are for sale there!

   

Christmas Giving Is Also A Time For Christmas Creating!

I probably started back in the day ... when education was "well rounded," you know when we had art and music and boys took shop and the girls took home economics, that I got started making things, rather than buying things for Christmas. That's not to say I and every other kid I know didn't roam the 5 & 10's buying "Evening In Paris" perfume for our mothers (or some of us did anyway) but we always had a Christmas craft in grade school. One of the best was a huge mobile we made with paper circles when I was in the 7th grade. I had my first male teacher and he seemed to enjoy art and had us create all kinds of things for each season. I can remember carrying it home, we walked in those days, praying that it wouldn't rain before I got it home in Portland, OR, where it always rains.

   My Dad died between my junior and senior high school years and to help my Mom, I volunteered to send all the Christmas cards that year. I made each and every one by hand, a tradition that I kept until a few years ago and resumed again this year. However, I went from hand to computer creating a summery of the things and places I had been to this year.

   When I started crafting in my 60's, I guess an outlet from my computer based graphic design ... using my hands, a brush and paint rather than a computer, software and a mouse, I also became aware of seasons of the year. After I had amassed quite a collection of finished goods for Christmas or Easter, especially Halloween, my daughter found and urged me to sell these things on ETSY.com. So I opened a store and did sell a few things.

   Anyone who does crafts knows from the beginning you sell your items making pennies each and every hour. I think we do it out of love of creating. I learned that it often means more to the creator and purchaser than to the person just given it. Unless you have a hobby of any sort, one that requires hours of patience to complete, people don't appreciate what it takes to make anything. They just assume everything is made by the millions and sold at any old store. While there may be 1.5 million sellers on ETSY there are also about 4-5 billion people that can connect on the Internet.

Cut fancy or not the blank wooden
ornament is well, blank! You need
a lot of imagination to turn it into
something that creates a memory.

   This year after creating my cards and printing them out, I began to work on raw wood Christmas ornaments. Since I am visiting a friend who bought and decorated a Christmas tree for the first time in his life, I felt that it was appropriate to start making ornaments for him.

   Oddly, here in the Coachella Valley it is JoAnn's rather than Michael's that seems to have the more craft friendly items to work with. There was quite a selection of items to purchase and better yet they were all 60% off retail price.

   This ornament ended up 

   with three pieces thick

   glued together.

   So, after getting a client's project done, then the Christmas card designed, its tale of the year written, then printed, cut, envelopes addressed, stuffed, stamped and finally mailed, (as well as the re-creation of two lost birdhouses) I settled down for some serious craft painting and adornment.

   Many of the ornaments were more than one layer and one side. So, I had to decide whether to paint both sides to match, think Santa or snowman, or paint and decorate one side and leave the other side painted a single, dark color. What makes it worse, like graphic design, the possibilities are literally endless. You have to pick a path and stick to it though to be honest, things do change along the way. I liked the shape and cutting of "Noel" but even

   The small rounded ornament 

  on the "O"added just the right 

   amount of depth. So did the 

   illusion of snow on all edges.

painting the "o" with metallic paint didn't jazz it up enough. Adding a small ornament to it, gave it dimension, something this piece didn't have but, I felt, needed. On the back I put the recipient and my name with the year. 

Santa is a three layered wooden creation
that is completed with a red jewel on the
top of the small tree on the left.

   Decorating a tree is one of life's little pleasures. When I was first married we were poor as church mice. We bought cheap shiny balls and found some small wooden ornaments to decorate. The balls broke over time but the wooden ones survived and brought back many memories. As you collect them over the years, looking at each one can bring back so many memories ... memories of the giver and if they've passed, the memory of them and when you received it. So, yes, when you create either for yourself or to sell or given as gifts, date and sign them. 

  Of course no Christmas Tree would be complete without a Santa, or if you are like one relative whose entire tree was nothing a collection of Santa's from around the world that had to be arranged by size ... smallest at the top and getting bigger as you moved to the bottom. It was a rare day of decorating where she didn't come out, admire the work and then move a few "Santa's" around.

Snowmen are fun to paint and offer a
surprising variety of ways to decorate.

   Another great favorite for many collectors is "Frosty, the Snowman" and there are many available from around the world. I found another three layered one that I painted on both sides using the front as a guide to paint the back. How hard is it to paint white, right? However, for a bit of a flourish, he may have had a red hat but I gave him a tartan scarf.

Snowflakes don't always have
to be white you know.

   Finally, but not least was a simple snowflake caught in a ring that I played with before deciding on what to do. I added red jewels on the outer ring, used gold paint for the snowflake with glitter paint on the spokes and a bit of brushed snow for, well, what a snowflake is! Snow!

We are not limited necessarily by what tradition is. Time has allowed creators a wide latitude for decoration. Here, because it was a friends first tree, I wanted tradition. It will be much fun explaining them to him. As time goes along there will be plenty of time to be more creative, even getting him to try decorating himself! As any crafter and artist knows, while you are in the midst of a project, you are literally in another world of time and space. You are so focused that the real world is kept at bay for awhile. And you know? I think we all could use that now and then.

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where the emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! Be sure to check my re-opened ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. Many of the items talked about here are for sale there!

   

Kickstarting A Dorment Artist!

If it was good once, is twice better?

   Maybe its the malaise after a too hot summer, maybe its trying to do other things, but whatever the reason, I have hardly picked up a paintbrush all year.

   First there was the moving, it was a two month ordeal to get my new home remodeled then moved. Then it was the heat ... all you do is try to keep cool and not give all your money to the electric company. I did do a few things, as usual far too complex, if sold, there would be no real monetary return for hours expended in sight. I read. I finished the huge THREE-BODY PROBLEM, trilogy. I went to Hong Kong to visit my friend and he flew from China for a visit and, as I recounted in an earlier blog, we took a fast trip to Las Vegas, and then, Amtrak to Chicago. Hours were spent creating an album of our trip. And it might be that wandering through the galleries of the Art Institute inspired me ... again. Its not hard to fall in love with art at the Art Institute with all the masterpieces they exhibit. But no, that wasn't it.

   Then, after I returned,  I got busy doing work for an old client. In some ways it was like learning to use Quark and Word and Excel all over again. If you're not in the business world anymore, at 72, you DO forget. No that wasn't it either.

   I think the impetus was my ETSY store. After months of no sales and barely any views even, I was startled last week to find an order, then two. No problem, I had the first item. I got it packaged and mailed off. The second, that was another story. While I found one, I could not find the other and I knew, or thought I knew it was here. It wasn't. Then, the next day came another. Oh oh. After tearing my condo and storage room apart I couldn't find it. It was ... gone! I hadn't sold it I know but it must be been buried from one of the two moves I made last year. I went through every drawer, every bin ... nada. It was paid for; the client expected delivery!

   So, like any good artist, I printed the photos from my ETSY store, no, I couldn't find the original photos either, then last Saturday headed first to Michael's who didn't have any left, then to JoAnn's that for some reason out here in the desert is better than any Michael's I have ever seen in California, who had them. There it was! Hallelujah!!! To be safe I bought two. I knew where one of them was, the other? Who knows. Several years ago, on a wild bent, I created three abstract birdhouses. Same sizes but with different feet and each one with a theme: squares, circles and combined. They were wild, very colorful and luckily too small for a bird to actually use. If it were bigger, they might have flown into the side and not the hole, which as you can see is heart shaped.

   How does this happen? While I had my own business and spent many hours working for it, I never liked the business side... you know the billing, invoicing and such. Then Sunday at a photo shoot with a group I joined out here in the desert, I couldn't find the group and another straggler in the group found me. It was fun to tour the vintage market looking at the same kinds of things we grew up with. She too faced my dilemma saying that every artist needs a business manager. I AGREE! I want to create not bill and count pennies. 

   That I had poor organizational skills, despite trying to do that very thing, reared it's ugly head when  a few days later two more orders appeared and, well, I had one but not the other. This time I opened every box in storage, I mean EVERY one, finding one I had never opened, but still no missing birdhouse. So yet again, it was back to the drawing board and for two days recreating what has got to be here, somewhere. So far I have not found it. I really, really need to do a deep, DEEP cleaning!

   Today, I looked at all the items for sale on my ETSY store to make sure I had them ... or at least knew where they were. I should know! Twice in a week I have torn this place apart. Enough with the late hours recreating something I had already done and can't find.

   When I started crafting and opened my store I used to do three at a time. Since I was using acrylic paints, but the time you were through with whatever step on number 3, number 1 was dry. I did that for a while and all 3 in fact have sold. Then I stopped ... what a mistake. 

   With all the frustration and demands of sold but missing items, it has jumpstarted my painting again. I starting doing Christmas ornaments for friends, and have regained the joy I had. Since there is no TV setup in the "studio" I prop up my iPad, watch a little news via an App or watch movies and such on either Netflix or Amazon. I really don't pay much attention, its just background noise ... something to break the silence.

   In fact the searching in all those tubs and boxes, I was made aware of how much I had that was not done. Birdhouses, trays, figures, boxes that were all begging to be painted. Humbly I started again with Christmas ornaments to take with me as gifts on my trip. I found a couple of unique, one-of-a-kind birdhouses I had forgotten I even had. So, finally, the push and desire is on. Maybe it is better to take a break. But I do not recommend the stress that I have been under the past week. There has to be a balance I realize, not too much work, nor too little. Anyway, it is good, REALLY good to be creating again!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where the emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! Be sure to check my re-opened ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. Many of the items talked about here are for sale there! AND, I guarantee the items shown are really, REALLY available.