working away on the zine — for real this time

gotta love those weeks of high energy and little sleep!  i’ve worked my ever-lovin’ arse off on the altered bits mixed media art zine and have managed to design 49 pages in the past week.  all i have left is fill a couple of blank spots (you may be able to help here — see below), finish the absolutely amazing artist interview (have all the info, just have to lay it out), add artist bios in the back, then complete an article that you will LOVE and ADORE (it’s not by me — but one of the pages appear to have been lost during my computer crap-out last february when i lost all the pages i’d already designed, blah, blah.  i will fix this or contact the amazing artist who submitted it… but i’m not telling you who it’s by ’cause surprises are good).

(above is a tiny little peek at one of my pieces in the zine… category: artful retelling of history)

so, here’s the deal.  due to many things, such as my inability to properly count, someone silly submitting a piece to two different categories and me trying to add it to both before realizing the error, and my OCD-like need to have all new category sections starting on the right side of the page, there is still a bit of room.  not a lot, but a bit.  if you would like to submit super late for consideration of the zine, please do so by wednesday 10/24 at 9 PM (USA — PST).  i will need: high res photo(s) of you piece(s), your bio, your URL to site or blog, your location and an optional write-up on the piece(s).  and title of piece.  you can submit up to 3 pieces per person however space is HUGELY limited.  email to hi (at) altered bits (dot) com.

this is what’s left:

one half page (portrait orientation) in cabinet of curiosities
one full or two half pages in artful retelling of history
one half page (landscape orientation) in handmade/altered books and book pages (journal pages allowed as well)
tattered and torn is full unless i get two pieces i die over and must include — it would be a pain in my arse, but potentially worth it

i am also working on the tallest handmade book in the world project but i’m too ADD to talk about it right now — very focused on the zine.  i have not forgotten about it and now that school’s back in, art groups are back on.  super exciting news to share, etc.  but soon… this is zine time!  🙂

if all goes all planned, this zine WILL be ready for the holidays to but as gifts, etc.  also, i’ll be giving away at least one to one of the contributors and probably another to a non-contributor.  we’ll see once we get there (gotta save my pennies for little man’s holiday gifts first, hah).

UPDATE (about an hour later):

there is now only half a page in handmade/altered books and pages/journal pages
and half a page in cabinet of curiosities

re-announcing the altered bits print zine

re-announcing, the altered bits print zine! 

i’ve gotten lots of emails stating that i haven’t posted info about the zine on my blog other than the themes so yeps, i’m a huge jackass.  apparently i’ve just spewed off a bunch of empty promises to post about it… so now i’m officially pulling my head out and posting the info for those who are new to my zine or wish to get additional information.

after going through the suggestion and voting process, we came up with four themes for issue two of the altered bits zine.  the themes are as follows:

cabinet of curiosities ( i’m actually working on a piece for this category today.)
tattered and torn (i’ve gotten the most submissions for this category so far.)
an artful retelling of history (this was my choice, so of course i’m quite excited — love the merging of art and history!)
handmade & altered books and pages (this is a super fun one too!)

feel free to interpret each of these categories as you please and use your imagination.  EACH ARTIST CAN SUBMIT UP TO THREE PIECES.

here is a peek at some of the submissions so far.  i’ve muted the color a bit so i don’t give everything away.  i promise you’ll still want to see the zine in the real.  it’s going to be gorgeous!!

the deadline for submissions 21 December, 2011.  i have had to extend this a bit due to all of the recent chaos in my life… so hopefully this will work for everyone.  if you need an extension, please let me know and i may be able to work something out, though i cannot make any promises just yet.

what you must submit to be eligible for inclusion:

• send high resolution photos of your art piece (or photography), at least 300 dpi, no smaller than 6 inches on the shortest edge (at 300 dpi, 6″ = 1800 pixels).  please attach to email rather than inserting into body (some email programs shrink files when you do that).
• indicate which category you are submitting each piece to so i don’t put it in the wrong place.
• PLEASE don’t send small photos.  use name files like this so i’m not confused: lastname_firstname-artpiecename.jpg (you can send jpgs, pngs, tiffs — no gifs or bitmaps — those don’t work for print).
• a short bio in odt, txt, rtf, doc or pdf format.  please DO NOT SEND DOCX files — i can’t open them and don’t want to buy ms word.
• the url to your  website or blog
• optional: a short write-up about your piece and/or your inspiration (these will be space permitting)

what you need to keep in mind:

• kind of a no-brainer but i’ll say it anyway just in case: do not submit anything with copyright restrictions.  for example, don’t use egon schiele’s “standing nude young girl” in a collage or whatnot — i don’t publish copyrighted content as that could ruin it for all of the responsible participants.
• please ensure all of your images are royalty free or have commons licenses.  there are great places to get images like that (flickr commons, wikipedia commons, etc.).

when it will be published:

i will be working on layout and design over the winter holidays and the start of the new year.  i’m shooting to have this published and ready to order by late february or march.  i’ll keep you posted though — if you sign up for notifications on my blog, you’ll be insta-enlightened when i post about it.

extra bits:

if you are interested in submitting an article or tutorial, let me know — i’ve never included one before but think it could possibly be fun to have one in each issue here on out.  if you are interested in advertising in the zine, go to my website to find the rates and info that i will be soon posting: http://alteredbits.com/artzine.php (or email me)

send everything to hi [at] altered bits [dot] com.

thank you so much, friends and fellow artists.  if you haven’t submitted yet and you plan to, i cannot wait to see!!!

zine theme results tallied for issue two

there were an astounding 215 votes for the next altered bits zine themes and the top four are the winners.

the next altered bits zine will have four themes:

cabinet of curiosities (if you know me, you know this thrills me beyond belief!)
tattered and torn (this one actually surprised me)
an artful retelling of history (this was my choice, so of course i’m quite excited — love the merging of art and history!)
handmade & altered books and pages (you know i love this too!!)

i was a little sad that assemblage and dolls/doll parts didn’t win but then i realized that i could still do assemblage for any of the non-book themes, and of course include dolls or doll parts if i so desire… which i probably do!)

submissions are now open!  deadlines for submissions is october 31, 2011 (that’s halloween so you may not want to wait until the last minute).  limit three submissions per person, with one main shot and up to two detail photographs of each piece.  you can read all of the submission guidelines on the altered bits website on the zine page.  please read the submission guidelines VERY carefully as it  is a huge amount of work to follow up with people if they’ve sent improper files or missing information (and i may not have the time to get back to you, thus you may not have the opportunity to be included, sorry).  i am very open to helping if you have any questions prior to submitting so always feel free to email me if desired.