The other Susan Boyle
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
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PDF The global success of the Britain's Got Talent star has had an unlikely impact on one unassuming Texas artist. Stuart Jeffries hears how
There is, you might think, room in the world for only one Susan Boyle. But you would be wrong. The American artist, Susan K Boyle, was living her quiet, unassuming life in the pretty hill country of Kerrville, Texas, when a friend sent her an email.
"It was a link to Susan Boyle's YouTube performance a few days after her audition," recalls Susan K. "I thought she was wonderful - what a beautiful voice and what a compelling story. But I thought it was just an interesting coincidence, nothing more."
Except that back in 2002, Susan K Boyle had set up a website, susanboyle.com, to display her artworks. That site had been rusting in cyberspace for a couple of years - until the Britain's Got Talent finalist sudenly came to the global consciousness last month, and something rather strange happened. "A journalist called me and said, 'Do you know your site is getting 1,800 hits per hour?' I had no idea - I hadn't upgraded the site for a couple of years." Yesterday, she calculated the cumulative total of hits to be more than 172,000.
Susan K's website shows her figurative line drawings and head studies in oil. Like her namesake, she has got talent, though not the sort to irrigate Simon Cowell or Amanda Holden's tear ducts.
And then the madness, as it does in such cases, began in earnest. "A couple of Susan Boyle fans emailed me to say they thought I sang beautifully. Another thought I sang beautifully and liked my artwork! Among the emails were inquiries for price quotes on a couple of my art pieces. However, I have had no sales as a result of this. Yet."
So is Susan K expecting a surge of sales as a result of the sudden celebrity of an unglamorous though sweet-voiced woman who lives on the other side of the Atlantic? "That would be too weird, wouldn't it?"
Next, she started getting calls and emails from people wanting to buy her website's domain name. "One guy, within a minute, had increased his offer from $100 to $500,000. I'm not sure how serious he was, but that sort of thing is very strange to happen to someone like me." She consulted a company called Sedo that sells domain names and, following their advice, has now put her web address up for sale for a cool $25,000. She hasn't sold it. Yet. (She has moved her artwork display, though, to sboyleart.com).
Surely she'll be rooting for her namesake to win tomorrow night's final? "I haven't heard the other finalists, so I can't say." Admirably diplomatic - but Susan K now has a pecuniary interest in the other Susan's success. According to Sedo's director of business development, Nora Nanayakkara: "The value of the domain name really depends on the sustainability of Susan Boyle's popularity."
I ask if Susan K's life story is as heart-rending as her namesake's. "I don't know much about her biography," she replies. I'm thinking of the fact that the 46-year-old singer from West Lothian claimed - apparently as a joke - never to have been kissed, at least until Piers Morgan made her life story even more harrowing by kissing her backstage last week. "Oh, I've been kissed," Susan K replies finally.
The 64-year-old from Kerrville is an art major who has drawn and painted throughout her life, while working mostly in the airline industry. "I was a stewardess, as they were called in the 60s, for PanAm. I left just before Lockerbie [the PanAm crash in 1988]."
In addition to Susan K's new website, her work can be seen in a show called Turning Point at the Hill Country Arts Foundation in Ingram, Texas, from 6 June. She is understandably eager for the media circus (ie me calling her at the prearranged time of 7.30am from London) to move on, so she can walk her "lovely old dog" and then get back to her art.
After the interview, she sends me a disarming email: "Please be kind to me in your article. Another outfit in the UK wrote about me yesterday and made me sound stupid AND greedy - and they hadn't even spoken with me!! Egads!"
For the record, Susan K Boyle is neither of those things (and I'm always a sucker for a woman who exclaims "egads"). She is, like her namesake, a breath of fresh air. The last thing the "other" Susan Boyle says sounds sweet coming down the line to this celeb-crazy nation. "I am an artist and am happiest in my studio working on my art. I don't deserve, or want, fame".
guardian.co.uk ? Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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posted by 88956 @ 12:08 PM,
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Bill O'Reilly fantasized, on the air, about getting his hands on Dr. Tillman
PrintEmailPDF O'Reilly really wanted to get his hands on Tillman. Media Matters found the clip:
Just a figure of speech? Yeah. Wink, wink.
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posted by 88956 @ 11:10 AM,
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'People used to say I looked like Steve Martin. I met him once - he didn't see it'
PrintEmailPDF Michael Craig-Martin, artist
What got you started?
Discovering modern art through a schoolteacher when I was about 12. It was the 1950s, and modern art was still a secret - I thought I'd stumbled upon a magic world.
What was your big breakthrough?
Getting into Yale art school. I happened to be there at the school's golden moment, when it had some fantastically good students - Richard Serra, Brice Marden, Chuck Close.
Who or what have you sacrificed for your art?
Personal life. You can't be an artist without having an unusually irritating level of self-absorption.
Why do some people have such difficulties with conceptual art?
In order to feel really comfortable with art, you have to gain familiarity with it. People might go to Tate Modern and be sceptical in the first room or two, but by the third room they've found something that captures their imagination. And by the fourth room, they've found four things.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Just keeping going. You have to learn to persist in the times when things are not going well, in the hope that some day they will.
How does Britain's art scene compare with America's?
Britain's art world is amazingly active, considering its size. It sits in a very odd position between Europe and America, and negotiates a strange path of its own.
Complete this sentence: At heart I'm just a frustrated ...
Layabout. I'm essentially a very lazy person.
Which other living artist do you most admire?
Too many to say. Of my own generation, Bruce Nauman, Gerhard Richter, Richard Serra.
In the movie of your life, who plays you?
People used to say I looked like Steve Martin. But I met him once, and I don't think he saw any similarity.
What work of art would you most like to own?
Seurat's Bathers at Asni?res, for its wonderful combination of modesty and grandeur.
What's the worst thing anyone's ever said about your work?
One review of an early show called it a "waste of a beautiful gallery".
Is there anything about your career you regret?
No. Certainly not the years I spent teaching. Many of my students - Damien Hirst, Gary Hume - have gone on to do well. That's a very nice reward.
In short
Born: Dublin, 1941
Career: Exhibited conceptual work An Oak Tree in 1974. Taught at Goldsmiths. Currently co-curating the exhibition This Is Sculpture at Tate Liverpool (0151-702 7400).
High point: "My 2006 show Signs of Life at the Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria. Everything just seemed to work."
Low point: "Feeling, at about 40, that I hadn't come close to achieving what I'd hoped to."
guardian.co.uk ? Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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posted by 88956 @ 8:44 AM,
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Exclusive: Army Wives Enlists Gilmore Gal and Grammy Winner
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Lifetime's Army Wives is recruiting some nifty guest-stars for its third season, which premieres Sunday, June 7.
For starters, Grammy-winning recording artist Shelby Lynne will appear in an August episode, playing ...
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posted by 88956 @ 6:58 AM,
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Public Affairs Must Inform Foreign Policy
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About the Author: P.J. Crowley serves as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs.
Last week, I began my tenure as the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. I am humbled and exhilarated by the task before me and am grateful for the trust and confidence President Obama and Secretary Clinton have placed in me.
Almost 20 years ago, I was assigned to Germany, one of the highlights of my 26 years serving with the U.S. Air Force. I have been contemplating those days as I prepared for this assignment. During my time in Germany, the Berlin Wall ceased to divide East from West. The people of East and West Germany literally pushed until the wall was breached and ultimately removed.
In the aftermath, when given a choice, the people of Eastern Europe rejected Communism and moved swiftly to associate themselves with the rule of law, market economies and responsible and accountable governments. This success was due in no small measure to institutions like the United States Information Agency, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, which helped foreign publics understand that they could have the rights and opportunities of free people. This was public diplomacy at its best, and proved to be a cornerstone of our policy of containment. Now, Secretary Clinton’s focus on using smart power – the full compliment of diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal, and cultural tools is leading us back to a balanced approach to foreign policy that served us well throughout our history.
As we know, global challenges hardly disappeared with the end of the Cold War. Today, we continue to combat extreme ideologies in an expanding conflict in Afghanistan while dealing with festering violence in Iraq. Success in this current struggle will require the same kind of patience, determination and skill that we demonstrated during the Cold War – identifying a clear, peaceful and modern alternative to the people of the world, reinforcing our strategic narrative while diminishing that of extremist insurgents. As Secretary Clinton stated in her recent testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the State Department is seeking the resources to deploy a new strategic communication strategy to buttress our foreign policy. Ultimately, we cannot succeed unless we build and sustain public support at home and around the world.
Today’s global communications environment is dramatically different than it was even a few years ago. A digital image can be transmitted from anywhere in the world at an instant, as we saw with the cell phone image of the execution of Saddam Hussein and its impact.
One of my goals is to have the State Department communicate its message more strategically. In order to do this, we must be dynamic and use all available means both old and new media - traditional methods such as the Daily Press Briefings as well as experimenting with new media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and video through the Internet. The culmination of this effort will be a virtual presence that is engaged in a global dialogue, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in all corners of the world.
Given the expanded nature of the communications environment, Secretary Clinton decided to restructure the Bureau of Public Affairs. I will serve as the Assistant Secretary, but not as the every day spokesman for the department. One of my foremost responsibilities will be to ensure that public affairs informs public policy. This is why you’ll hear me repeatedly coming back to the idea of a strategic communications plan. My task, working with Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale and the newly designated spokesman, Ian Kelly, will be to serve as the senior advisor to the Secretary, contribute to the administration’s interagency strategic planning and lead the Bureau of Public Affairs and the dedicated public affairs professionals at the State Department and around the world. I am an avid Red Sox fan. Judith is a Yankees fan and Ian, a Cubs fan, but we are united by a higher calling and significant challenges.
Tackling these global challenges – extremism, nonproliferation, climate change, global health and food security just to name a few – will require, as Secretary Clinton has said repeatedly, coordinated, international partnerships at the government-to-government and people-to-people levels and all variations in between. In order to build and sustain such partnerships, we must communicate effectively. Effective communication is a two-way street, so as much as I look forward to keeping you informed on new initiatives, I’m even more eager to hear your ideas.
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posted by 88956 @ 6:49 AM,
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