September 30, 2004
It is time for a second opinion.
Finding the purr-fect doctor is not always easy.
Posted by photocartoonist at 10:51 PM
September 23, 2004
The History of the Greeting Card: e-Cards
According to iMedia connection, online greeting cards sales accounted for less than 1% of the 7.5 billion dollar greeting card market in 2003. Putting that into perspective, an estimated $52 million in e-cards were bought and sold in 2003. An ecommerce analyst at Jupiter Research projects this number will increase to $79 million by 2007. Not bad for an industry that had been growing at less than 4% a year prior to 1996 when Blue Mountain Arts created the online category.
This miniscule percentage held by the e-card category is based mostly on the fact that the leading site offering e-cards, Hallmark.com, does not charge for its online greeting cards. And there are many more free e-card sites; notably 123greetings.com, the largest free e-greeting site on the Internet.
According to 123greetings, they have been on the Web since 1995 but Blue Mountain Arts brought the e-card to worldwide attention being in the top ten web properties in 1998. In 1999 they sold bluemountain.com for $780 million dollars to Excite.com. Only two years later, almost to the date, Excite sold bluemountain.com to American Greetings for just $35 million dollars. And within two months, American Greetings introduced paid membership for e-cards. History was once again made in greeting cards.
Posted by photocartoonist at 9:34 PM
The History of the Greeting Card
Having read on a site that the Valentine was the oldest known greeting card dating from the 1400's. According to riverdeep.net:
"The oldest known Valentine was a poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, from his prison cell. It is on display at the British Museum."
That is hardly what I think of when I think Greeting Card. It wasn't until cheap printing came along that the greeting card as we know it was popularized. Before 1860 the greeting card was a piece of fine art.
The Greeting Card Association claims that the custom of sending greeting cards can be traced back to the ancient Chinese, who exchanged messages of well-wishes for the New Year.
The first commercial valentine greeting cards produced in the United States were created in the 1840s by Esther A. Howland (1828-1904), the mother of the American Valentine.
I read that Christmas cards were introduced and popularized by John Calcott Horsley (1817-1903), the artist of the first Christmas card and I see that Sir Henry Cole supplied the idea. Louis Prang, known as the father of the American Christmas Card but his first cards were sold in England.
For years I believed that the first commercially produced paper greeting card was a Christmas card, manufactured in Germany. But now I am seeing that the greeting card was popularized in England, first with Valentines Day and birthdays. Common tradition was to visit someone on their birthday to wish them well and the first birthday cards were apology cards when one couldn't make that visit. Louis Prang, a German immigrant who started a small lithographic business in Boston back in 1856, is often credited with the start of the greeting card industry in the United States.
I was surprised to discover in 1990 when I did my first research on the greeting card industry that 90% of all paper greeting cards are sold in the United States. The business has grown to 7 billion dollar plus worldwide annually and with the addition of e-greetings, the industry has started on a new road of history.
I wonder who sends all of the e-cards now?
Posted by photocartoonist at 8:17 AM
September 20, 2004
It's Time to Celebrate
Holidays. I love the rituals, the food, the colours! As the Internet brings the world closer together, it also brings us all closer to all of the festivals, holidays and holy days celebrated on this wonderful planet.
I found this fascinating article on the History of Greeting Cards which claims that the oldest known greeting card in existence is from the 1400's and is in the British Museum. It's a Valentine. The introduction of the postage stamp popularized the sending of paper cards in the mid 1800's. And a German immigrant, Louis Prang, is the father of the American Christmas card. He manufactured his first card in 1875.
Conspicuously missing from this history is the e-card. The e-greeting, created first by Blue Mountain Arts in 1996, has opened up a new world of possibility to greeting cards. And it has brought to my attention a whole new list of holidays when people send greeting cards.
Posted by photocartoonist at 11:24 PM
September 18, 2004
Ganesh Chaturthi | September 18, 2004
Om Shree Ganeshaya
There is a world of celebration out there and today is the start of the festival in India celebrating the birthday of Lord Ganesh. There is a beautiful devotional song, called an arti, for this holiday and we recorded this especially for Ganesh Chaturthi on the sitar.
I am making a list of all of the holidays all over the world where people send greeting cards to celebrate their special festivals. My motto is, No Holiday Left Behind.
Posted by photocartoonist at 2:11 PM | Comments (2)
September 15, 2004
Shana Tova | Rosh Hashanah
Our Wish for a Sweet New Year
This is a beautiful time of the year for Jewish people; a new beginning. It is also solemn time of the year; a religious time. The ten days starting with Rosh Hashanah and ending with Yom Kippur are commonly known as the Days of Awe. This is a time for introspection, a time to consider the sins of the previous year and repent before Yom Kippur.
Among the customs of these holidays, is to seek reconciliation with people you may have wronged during the course of the year. Another custom is to dip apples in honey to symbolize the wish for a sweet New Year.
Posted by photocartoonist at 11:39 PM
September 13, 2004
The Making of the perfect Christmas Tree
It's Christmas at Kat Caverly Studios
The whole studio is a buzz with Christmas. We are making a list and doing things twice! Everyone is involved as we prepare to make the best Christmas e-greeting ever.
I decided to be the one to create the perfect Christmas Tree.
This animation will feature an illustration of a Victorian parlor on Christmas morning, with a traditional tree decorated with beautiful ornaments. These ornaments and the lights will actually be photographs and the special ornaments will feature the technology of Object VR (virtual reality), all built and coded using Macromedia Flash.
I decided to create the tree using a 3D program and after days of research, ended up using XFrog. To create the look of the branches and needles of my precious spruce, we travelled to Central Park and did a detail photograph of a blue spruce leaf, on location.
I used Photoshop CS to create the texture map and after days of testing, arrived at the solution for the look I wanted!
Because I am using both a full image in a 800x600 pixel animated e-card, and close-up inserts for the Object VR, I needed to render two different resolutions of the tree model. Once the background illustration is complete, I will use LightWave 8 to light the tree to match, if needed. Mostly I plan to make any adjustments using Photoshop CS.
There will be an animated angel who brings the room to life. Snow (of course) and roaring fire in a fireplace and we are producing arrangements of timeless Christmas music to complete our scene.
One of the things I love most about designing greetings cards and e-cards, is that I get to totally immerse myself in the holidays 3 times each year. I love Christmas so much, I have decorated my office with my ornament collection. I have over 100 ornaments and growing!
Posted by photocartoonist at 11:42 PM
September 11, 2004
Remembering Grandma and Grandpa
I love looking at old photographs. We always smile in photographs! I guess because we are told to say "Cheese". Very funny. Cheddar!!
I remember my paternal grandparents very, very well because I lived with them from the time I was one to almost six. And we lived in the same apartment building on the South Side of Chicago until I was eleven years old. I saw them both every day.
I used to "work" with grandpa. He owned the apartment building and he taught me that work was play. Grandma use to try to get me to eat! And she taught me how to tell the truth. They both taught me that I could be anything, do anything, as long as I was willing to work for it.
Yes I love going back to those times. The lake, the apartment I grew up in, and Carmen the chihuahua. Always cutting in on the act, Carmen was a diva and we used to terrorize each other because I HAD to be the center of all attention! My grandfather had a wonderful, dry sense of humor and that little Hitler mustache (grandma and grandpa were from Austria) just tickled me!
I have so many fond memories and I wish they were still here for me to share this day with them. Bless you grandma and grandpa Klutsarets.
My maternal grandparents were also very interesting. I lived 6 months of my first year of life with them out in California. I don't remember anything from then but the fact that I learned to swim. I was eight months old. Or maybe I am remembering my cousin telling the story of the day I pooped in the pool!
My nana was from Limerick, Ireland and she was a drill sargeant of a lady and could scare the smirk right off of my face! I got the gift of the gab from my Irish roots. Contrary to popular belief, the gift of the gab is not the LOVE of talking. It is the ability to talk people into things! And I got that too, thankfully.
My grandfather was from Germany and he had been a detective on the Chicago police force. He taught me to suspect everyone, trust no one. I would make a good cop. My Aunt Lorraine lived in the house my grandparents owned and she was my favorite Aunt. Aunt Lorraine was my mother's oldest sister.
I loved that house and we visited often. Nana if you can hear me honey, I love you and grandpa, I am taking care and have a healthy amount of paranoia thanks to you! This day is to honour you grandma and grandpa Boske.
As you can probably guess I was not born Kat Caverly. My father and his brothers got tired of having everyone butcher their name, Klutsarets, so they changed their name to Klutcharch. Stop laughing. I'm serious! When I was a kid I was just happy that I wasn't born into the Kluts side of the family! Seriously, I have relatives named Kluts.
Yes, humor is a defense and I learned early to defend myself and my name! When I divorced my first husband and I got the papers that said that I could resume my maiden name. I replied, "YOU can resume my maiden name." And Caverly stuck. Kat is a topic for another day!
Posted by photocartoonist at 12:01 PM
September 10, 2004
A Day of Remberance
September 11th, a day like all the rest but now I will always remember the year too. September 11th 2001. A day that started out like any other and ended like none other I have ever lived. I like so many couldn't help but watch the images being flashed on television. I close my eyes and I still see the towers falling; still in disbelief.
I was in shock. Two days later I woke up in the middle of the night and found myself unable to walk through the apartment. I was scared; truly petrified. I sat in the living room, in the dark, unable to bring myself to walk the 60 feet to the bathroom. I recognized the symptoms. I was suffering from post-traumatic stress.
I had just recently recovering from years of this type of stress and I knew a tried and true technique of living in a dangerous situation - denial! I was no more in danger on September 14, 2001 than I had been on September 10th, so I could go on believing that I was safe, despite the evidence to the contrary. It worked.
Of course our government in an effort to justify their spending billions of dollars does their collective best to keep us forever aware of the danger. I do my best to ignore the obvious and I go on believing I am safe. I knew I had fully recovered when last year when the power went down, not only in my building and on my block, but all over New York City and most of the Eastern seaboard, and thought of a terrorist attack didn't even cross my mind. I was just worried about my computers and the Internet.
To all of those who gave their lives on September 11th, 2001. I will never forget.
Posted by photocartoonist at 11:29 PM
September 8, 2004
Patriot Day | September 11th
Forgive but never Forget
I will never forget that day in 2001 and the following week. New York was in shock. Washington DC was in shock. Pennsylvania was in shock. The airline industry, all of America was in shock. Now, three years later, we are rebuilding; we are getting stronger.
There is still fear but it is not on the streets of New York anymore. It is more in the words of politicians trying desperately to be the voice of their people. It is unfortunate that this is used as sound bites and bullet points. But let us never forget the heroes and the innocence of the victims.
Let us never forget those who have fought, who still fight for our nations beliefs. May their memories be blessed. May they come home safe.
Posted by photocartoonist at 10:49 PM
September 5, 2004
Good Bye Lenin
In Berlin, the crazed city where west confronts east, a son will do anything to protect his mother.
Wolfgang Becker brings to us a delightful film about a son's love for his mother, growing up, and life changing all around. It is sweet, thoughtful, and the music is wonderful. I found myself transported to another place, caring about other people, and delighting in the comfort that both things remaining the same and things changing can bring to our lives.
Good Bye Lenin a film by Wolfgang Becker
Posted by photocartoonist at 10:47 PM
September 4, 2004
If you're feeling funny, see the Nurse!
Humor. It's what the doctor ordered.
What is UP with that hat? How do you keep it on and what's it suppose to do anyways?
Nurse clowns; that's what the healthcare system could use. Spreading a bit of cheer as they spread those cheeks! I know I would feel better.
Posted by photocartoonist at 11:45 PM
September 2, 2004
Mona Moore: the upbeat Beat
Now for something really different. I am also a poet; a comic poet but a poet nonetheless. Mona Moore was created after my character Shirley was invited to be part of a local poetry jam here in Hell's Kitchen. I had always wanted to be a beatnik. As a child born in the 1950's, I loved the whole notion of the beat generation, and even how that turned into the hippie movement in 1964. I particularly liked the clothes. The pointy black shoes knocked me out.
One of the writers I work with is actually a bona fide beat poet, so I turned to him to guide me towards my inner poet. My first performance was two poems, a total of 2 minutes of stage time. I brought down the house! I was even offered my own one hour show at a prestigious poetry venue, The Red Room, that day!
My husband and stage mom, Tom, was amazed that I accepted this offer with only 2 minutes of material. Hey what's the worse that could happen? The audience would discover that it wasn't poetry? Ah duh; "I'm not a poet" I said.
Well I created one hour of material with reckless abandon and soon discovered that this was the very heart of Beat poetry and that the rhythm of the beat was very much the same rhythm of comedy; set and punch. And my first one woman show was a huge success.
As a tribute to Allen Ginsberg I wrote Bark and it is still one of my favorites.
Posted by photocartoonist at 8:27 PM
September 1, 2004
Everyone's a Comedian
A Comedienne Who is EVERYONE!
I have been studying characters since I got a degree in behavioral psychology but my main research has been on the streets photographing the people I meet here in New York City.
My characters are based part in my family, part in popular culture, and all in my imagination. People are funny and they are at their funniest when they are serious. And I am seriously funny about characters.
Posted by photocartoonist at 9:53 PM