Artists spend most of their time painting in their studios. And when they're done, they put it on display and try to make it visible to as many people as possible. After the masterpieces were created in perseverance, giving people comfort and joy through an exhibition and publication would be the direction painters wanted.  It would be great news if painters could get an opportunity to show the most out of their work at the lowest possible cost. Various vanity publishers, which are rapidly increasing due to the development of the Internet, often return artists' efforts in the form of overpayments, disappointing them. The best alternative is for the painter to create his publication. Some vanity publications cost over a thousand dollars a page. And if you can pay, it will be printed as a good quality publication without any verification or assessment. It often feels like money is in priority more than artistry. However, if you are a true artist, you will come back even if you got sidetracked for a while. Artists want to be reasonably valued and recognized, even if it takes a lot of time. Because we know well that a flashy spotlight that we thought was a shortcut can be a shameful glory in the long run, looking at this situation.

 ​Therefore, I am investigating ways to self-publish, even in a simple e-book format.
Below is an e-book pamphlet from the Etsy site. It is cheap with a tax of $25, and it is not a one-time use but can be used several times unlimitedly. What's even better is that you can create your publications through the print-on-demand service of a company called Canva, an online site linked to this e-book. The output produced in this way will be cheaper than the so-called vanity publications. Today, I would like to share the services and results I have found.

 ​The e-book template provided by Canva presents the easiest way for anyone to add pictures, change fonts, fill in content, and create various types of e-books.

  If you follow the process provided by the template, the result will come out sooner. Select the menu on the right at the top to decide whether to save the result as a PDF or print it.

  ​As soon as the opportunity arises, we will post research on self-publishing. I hope it helps you to create your own art book.

  Have you ever heard of Vanity Gallery? 
 If you focus only on your work as an artist, you may naturally become vulnerable to responding to harmful information. Because of this particularity, artists are often at risk of being exposed to scams. Therefore, artists must also research and study continuously before doing anything and before signing a contract.

 With the development of the Internet, anyone can easily achieve their dreams according to their purpose  if they wish.  And, perhaps, investing your money and effort will give you instant fame without any professionality. It is due to the weakening of barriers to entry by diversity and commercial marketing. As a result, the person who wants to pursue with sincerity to do something can suffer under the insidious pitfall of business and marketing slot. 

  Recently I have faced same problem. Looking back, I have been painting for nearly ten years, but I have never met a so-called vanity gallery and wasted my money before, so I can say that I am a lucky painter. Today I would like to share some of private experiences about the relationship between gallery and artist. 

 The galleries I exhibited were not fancy, glamorous, or luxurious places for anyone to see. It was a gallery run by membered artists who created and operated a cooperative. However, the paintings here have been vetted rigorously. The gallery did not charge any fees to the artist for the exhibition. And there were many benefits that an artist could take advantage of it. For example, a cooperative gallery in Germany helped set up an exhibition for me, an emerging artist, during a local festival. So many people came to see my paintings, and my works were sold. The director was delighted with my first success. Instead, I had to create a promotional brochure myself. I had designed it in Photoshop, printed it on my home printer, and cut it overnight with sharp scissors. An exciting experience was that I made and sold postcards, which sold quite well. And I took the profits from postcards and paintings to the proportion of 80 and 20 galleries.

 Some galleries also did not charge for the exhibition and gave me money for the performance after the show oppositely. 

 Maybe I didn't have enough money, and once the some vanity gallery asked for money, I couldn't answer it as their needs.  With the financial motivation, more fiercely, I searched for exhibition spaces that were provided for artists for free.   When the exhibition was held at a local cafe, it was quite good because it was a win-win strategies. The local gallery with cafe was a famous place for artists, the exhibition record remained on the Internet for a long time. They judged all paintings and curated by own professional staff. 

 When I came to the United States, a commercial gallery director rented a space for free (2 weeks) after looking at my work. At this time, I also made a promotional poster in Photoshop, printed it, because the gallery can't do it. Since it was a gallery in a tourist area, many people visited, and paintings were also sold. The owner himself hung and nailed the pictures for my exhibition and actively promoted my images. When my work was sold, I divided our portions  50/50 by my voluntary decision to repay for his efforts. Since then, I have joined a local art councils to exhibit and sell works mainly.

 However, after experiencing an artist open call, I noticed something suspicious. Since open Internet calls are not person-to-person, it is challenging to respond with detecting by instinct.   So it is an area that needs further research. I'll do more research on this and keep posting.   When submitting work through an open call, you must check whether the institution is reliable. 

  Also, I am often in a situation where it is ambiguous whether this is vanity or not. The standard is the expenses. In other words, from experience, there are many opportunities to expose my work without spending overpayment. It seems that something that looks flashy to see and hear must be verified first to avoid being deceived.

 In that regard, I modified the career section of my homepage. I plan to update again after confirming the parts that need verification.

The path of an artist is not only a path to painting but also an arduous side. You have to protect yourself, and you have to plow through the rough sea like a ship breaking through the waves. There are many temptations and shortcuts, but you have to close your eyes in front of the sweat calling. Sometimes I get deceived and upset, but I have to shake it off and get up again. Still, I have to go this route again. If you are an artist who has a hard time making a living, this process can be even more arduous.

 In the future, I plan to study how to protect myself as an artist and show and evaluate my work more authentically.

Reference : ​https://fineartviews.com/blog/33648/vanity-gallery-art-scam-or-art-opportunity

 A new semester begins in September. I've been busy buying my daughter's kindergarten supplies lately. A friend named Ana, who has the same name as me, directly and sincerely helped me with my first kindergarten supplies. With her help, I completed a task that would typically take me over an hour by myself in just 30 minutes. She said it was so hard like me when she bought the new school supplies for the kids when she first knew nothing. She has great empathy. I am genuinely grateful for her warm heart.

Buying her school supplies and putting them in her pretty purple bag, my daughter is so happy she's already tying her bags as if she's going to school and looking at herself carrying backpack in her mirror. Most of all, I truly seems to be the greatest happiness to be educated and to be able to receive it.

In a news article, I recently saw a picture of Afghan schoolgirls on the way to last school day who could no longer go to school due to the Taliban occupation. Can they go back to school with their bags like they used to? Seeing my daughter running happily with her backpack on, I feel my heart aches at the sad reality of Afghan girls who may have to burn their backpacks with despair and fear, deprived of even her most fundamental rights in the corner of the globe. Just because they are women and girls, I are worried about the gloomy future they will have to face just because they are children.

  Looking back on our history, women have been subjected to much oppression and sacrifice just because they are women. In the book "Remember Our Names (By Bridge Queen, Artbooks)," a book that introduces sixteen female artists who left their names and works in an era when women were not readily known for their names, the book discusses the social status, right of women in art history. The author reminds us that only 16 female artists 'officially' recorded in over 800 pages of Ernst Gombrich's "History of Western Art", which documented more than 3,000 years of art history. Right now, if we ask ourselves to write down memorable female painters in art history, the reality is that we cannot list a few.

 Life as an artist is also like a pioneering life. It means that artistic activity requires more passion and effort than anything else. This is especially more harder for women with many restrictions on their activities and freedoms. 

Na Hye-Seok (28 April 1896 – 10 December 1948) , the first Western painter and women's rights activist during the Joseon Dynasty, is evaluated as a person who left essential achievements in modern and contemporary history during the Japanese colonial period. In a conservative society based on male-dominated Confucianism, she held her solo exhibitions as a woman and a painter. The funny story was told that when the children who saw Western oil paint for the first time thought it was candy and tried to eat it. When she didn't even have a concept of art, especially when women were confined at home and depended on men only and thought it was her destiny, she struggled to live alone. She took great interest in her independent life as a painter and human rights issues as a woman. 

 ​Among Western female painters, I like Prada Kahlo, a Mexican surrealist painter. From her childhood polio to a severe train accident at the age of 16 and to her husband's Casanova-liked life, she brought the hardships of her life to life through her works. Due to her physical disability, she spent a lot of time alone, and she painted many self-portraits of her with the belief that she was the subject she knew best.

Once I exhibited some paintings about singing woman at an exhibition at Huntington Art Council. The woman in this picture is singing with her eyes closed. Nearby her, many beautiful flowers blossom endemically. Where even women can dream and sing to their heart's content, the community I live in now. However, many women do not have this kind of freedom somewhere in the world.

On the contrary, many women still have gone back in time and have been locked up in the past again. I sincerely hope that the time will come when they will be able to laugh again, sing, enjoy art, and draw again freely. I hope that my paintings can be a little comfort to them.

 On August 15, the country of Afghanistan disappears behind history. It is genuinely shocking to see a country closing its doors in the 21st century.

 I'm a Korean. Every Korean grows up hearing war stories. And always live in fear of war. But as time goes by, they get used to battle and go about their daily lives despite any threat. Some day a foreign reporter who visited South Korea was astonished to see South Koreans having a winter fishing festival right in front of the border at the moment when North Korean leader Kim Jong-un threatened with a missile. As I read the article, I felt some difficulties for not being able to express about the psychology of these Koreans. Every human being goes through an intense trauma at some point. And when the trauma repeats itself, they get used to it. If they get used to this kind of thing, their mind will become dull no matter how strong a stimulus is given. 

​As a child, I was regularly trained to hide under my desk when the sirens sounded loud in the classroom to prevent damages from a war. I spent my elementary school days reading anti-communist books and drawing related posters. Probably it is likely to the childhood of all Koreans my age. And additionally from my parent's generation, I have heard through their real private stories over and over how cruel war is. So even though I didn't experience it directly, I got enough indirect experience. Perhaps, almost all Koreans have dreamed of a nightmare about this war at least once in their lifetime. And even now, the war has not ended in Korea. North Korea still fires missiles, and it reminds us of all nightmarish things. Koreans are nervous and nervous. And even though there are many social conflicts that continue to prevent these tragedies from repeating themselves, they have been united again and again.

  I feel sad about the situation in Afghanistan. When I think of the socially disadvantaged weak left behind, especially children and women, my heart aches so much that I couldn't even sleep. Do you think there will be a future for them in the future? It hurts my heart even more because they have been abandoned with no place in the world to turn to. Indeed I can empathize even more by hearing the horrors of war and experiencing it indirectly. Many painters have been steadily drawing pictures of war hoping that future generations will recognize the horrors of war and pray for peace.

Artist Whanki Kim(1913–1974), Korea's representative a pioneering abstract artist, captured such a tragedy in his paintings to the extent that the Korean War completely changed the personal painting pattern itself. Through the 1951 evacuation train, he tried to inform the sorrow of the refugees who have recklessly driven to Busan and the horrors of war. Looking at his paintings, it seems that the pain of the generation that went through the war is concise.

  Personally, I painted to record the 4.3 Incident, an incident in Jeju Island, with a painting called Camellia. This painting is a vivid, true record of my deceased father. The Jeju 4.3 Incident was an armed clash between the armed forces of the Namro Party and the subjugation force that occurred on Jeju Island from March 1, 1947, to September 21, 1954, and a large number of residents were sacrificed in the process of suppressing the subjugation force. It is said that during the Korean War, the elderly in mountain villages always carried two flags. They showed American flag when the US troops came, and the Communist Party flag was shown when the communist party arrived, and they tried to protect their family. Poor people had no greed about political power and religious beliefs. They had only dreams of eating with their families, educating their children, and watching them grow. Perhaps not now? More than any ideology or faith, we want our families, especially future children, to grow up beautiful and healthy. I think that's enough. But the world is not so benevolent. Those who have power in the world always do it for their benefit. 

​At the time of the Jeju 4.3 incident, my father was eight years old. My grandfather was the principal of the Jeju Village Elementary School at the time. On the 4.3th, armed men from the South Korean Labor Party gathered people from schools, civil servants, and local officials in one place and shot them. At that time, my grandfather passed away at such a young age. My father's dad, held my father's little hand tightly and cried before he went to paradise. At that time, Jeju Island was a beautiful season when the camellia flowers were colorful and red. But these camellias flew over and covered the blood of many innocent citizens who were executed for ideology. That day, Jeju was dyed everywhere red. It doesn't matter whose fault it was, who was the trigger, or what wrong decision was made. Because even if it is revealed, the deceased will not come back. Whether by the communist party or by the government, the same things are still happening repeatedly. Historically, these weak people are constantly being exploited and abandoned, with or without an apology. That is one of the tragedies of war.

 Picasso said like this. Do you think you can become a painter with only eyes, a musician with only ears, and a poet with only a harp in your heart? I'm sorry, Never!  An artist is a political figure. Paintings do not exist to decorate an apartment or to decorate. Painting is a combat weapon that attacks and defends against enemies.

To not forget the mistake and not repeat it, many painters will be working hard to contain these real problems today. And I hope that even a little bit of these efforts will provide a little comfort to the weak and us. 

 Most artists announce that there's nothing more effective and relaxing than getting into the flow of a good painting. It takes your mind off your problems and can have a calming effect similar to meditation. Art-based therapy has proven effective at helping people cope with the stress that it is a helpful mental supportive tool for treating those who have PTSD. 

I also know the healing power of painting to relieve stress, increase attention and creativity, and help you to maximize and focus on the positive aspects of life. And throughout my life, I have seen the healing and recovery functions of painting, and I am proud to say that I still do.

Looking back, I am always grateful that I grew up so well despite living with a narcissist who only tells with negative words such as devaluing, ignoring, and cursing me and cuts off all relationships around me. For me, that power was the painting.
​
 Unfortunately, there are many narcissists with various spectrums in the world, and I meet them without me knowing. Because there are people in the world who support others with words of encouragement and love, but there are also people who always have to dominate through the edge over others and suck the energy of others. That's right. All coexist together. So, at some point, I realized that it wasn't important the person who bothered me with words and was more important to me, the myself who could survive in those words.

 ​Fortunately, Painting allowed me to survive in this world. Even amid such harmful verbal abuse, I can confirm, "No, I am not." It helped me to focus on my present life. And it helped me to hold on to my mentality and live in new hopes and dreams every day. Above all, the most incredible power of painting is that it allows you to recognize and find your inner self. If you continue to be verbally abused by a narcissist, you gaslighting and lose your true nature. Then, if it repeats again and again, traumatically, you may believe the fake facts in the frame the narcissist put on despair to you. That's the result they want. Their purpose is to project their unhappiness and inferiority onto others and see others suffer from withdrawing the negative effects.

But painting is like a shield in their psychological tactics. While looking at the picture or drawing something, you feel something moving inside of you. And such an internal process helps you to can identify yourself relatively accurately. It becomes a mental weapon to remind you that it is not true no matter how much others frame and devalue you.

 In my case, during a difficult time last year, I found solace in the paintings of Philippe Charles Jacquet.

 His paintings have particular forms, and it frequently appears a lonely figure who feels relatively small appears in front of a huge sea landscape with waveless emerald color. If you look at his paintings like this, you can find yourself being immersed into the painting. Looking at the lantern in the lonely house at the end of the sea, I try to soothe my loneliness. Even if the narcissist hates, curses, and makes it hard for you, you feel that the scenery in this picture is more actual than reality when you look at a view like this. It seems that the healing energy of the painting will re-energize you and make the world a better place to live. If you're tired of the world's curses and devaluation, it's an excellent way to see or draw a painting  for calm and comfort you. 

And the best way to fight a narcissist who judges others easily without any guilty is to cherish and love yourself because  the energy vampires don't know how to really love themselves.

Enjoy the fun journey of finding and cherishing yourself step by step with the pictures. Please take out the crying inner child, comfort him, and tell him that everything is not your fault. Give him a chance to be brave and tell his story to the world. If there is a picture that gives you such energy, I believe it will be conducive to healing your broken heart if you look at it often and quietly express your feelings.

Reference: 3 Reasons Scientists Say Painting is Good For Your Brain  by Noella Andres