All posts by chasenfratz

My Former ‘Zine and Mail Art Days

Art, Rubber Stamping, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
A black and white collage faux postage stamp sheet I made around 1997.
A black and white collage faux postage stamp sheet I made. I used to get these printed on gummed paper and send them to other mail artists. Circa 1997.

I’ve been out of the Mail Art and ‘Zine scenes for over 20 years now, and to my surprise for some reason I’m getting nostalgic about it and thinking about getting back into it a little bit. I’ve never stopped making faux postage designs, rubber stamped art and Dada-influenced collages, but I stopped networking except through my web site because I got spooked by some of the extreme networkers I was occasionally in contact with. I figured I no longer had the stomach to participate in the “underground”. I mainly was networking for art and creativity and I’m still inspired creatively by what I did back then. I was not in it for anarchy, political change or social change except for some social commentary that I occasionally included.

I think part of the reason I feel like possibly participating again is that when I got spooked, I was in the middle of a couple of Mail Art group projects that I didn’t finish and I never sent out the documentation. I’ve felt guilty about this for a long time. One was called the “Turn Off Your Television Project” and another was called the “Fish Tapestry Project”. After writing the research paper I just published yesterday, I think I might want to finish that documentation and fulfill the obligation I took on myself 20 years ago. I probably won’t be able to get in touch with all the people who participated but I can try.

The Turn Off Your Television Project on display in my 1998 art show "Areas Affected by Shapes".
The Turn Off Your Television Project on display in my 1998 art show “Areas Affected by Shapes”.
A graphic I made to promote the "Turn Off Your Television Project", circa 1998.
A graphic I made to promote the “Turn Off Your Television Project”, circa 1998.

My friend Mark Reed who co-hosted the fish tapestry project with me passed away late last October and it would be a great tribute to him if I could finish that one too someday. I have only this week been able to bring myself to look again at some of his artwork that his family gave to me. I always thought he threw away too much of his old work and I’m glad that I have some of it. I may even finish some of the stuff that is unfinished. We collaborated and shared ideas a lot back in the day. I think he would like that.

Oh how I used to love making animated gif art!
Oh how I used to love making animated gif art!

I would be pleased if someone finished my old work after I’m gone. I’d rather have that happen than it be thrown away. I always have a lot of unfinished projects that I take up and put down at various times. I’m sure I’ll be leaving some unfinished ones behind someday. Actually it’s been painful for me to look at a lot of my old work and archives for a long time because so many of the people that I lived that time of my life with are dead. Maybe now I’m finally able to start dealing with the memories. Also I felt like much of my old work was an embarrassing failure. Looking at it now, some of is indeed embarrassing but some of it is not so bad! A former abusive relationship made me feel like I should not do any art because I was no good and didn’t deserve to do it just because it was good for me and made me feel alive. There was a time when I wasn’t sure I was ever going to take it up again.

My 1997 Artist Statement

My 2000 Artists Statement

Here is a faux postage design I made as a computer graphic when I was a beginner at learning Photoshop. 1997.
Here is a faux postage design I made as a computer graphic when I was a beginner at learning Photoshop. 1997.

My Mail Art name was Carolyn Substitute, my ‘zine was called the Lime Green News, and my faux postage was produced under the name “Lime Green Post”. I decided today to do an online search and see if I could find any references to my old Mail Art activities.

If you would like to explore this world I found the following:

John Held Jr. – Collection of Mail Art Periodicals

A Little Introduction to Mail Art

Mail Art Periodicals – MoMA

Links of Mail Art / Visual Poetry

Welch. 1995. Eternal Network. A Mail Art Anthology. Part 2.pdf

Tutorial: Carving Stamps

IDAC Jas W Felter’s “The International Directory of Artistamp Creators”

The Translinguistic Collaborative Poetry of Serge Segay, Rea Nikonova, and John M. Bennett – I can’t find specifically why my search turned up this web site but I did used to correspond with a couple of the people mentioned here so maybe a deeper search would be fruitful!

ArchivesSpace at the University of Iowa – Looks like they have at least a few issues of the Lime Green News in their archives.

stardust Memories Mail-aRt-Links and projects – bless this person for putting a link to my old web site on archive.org! I haven’t seen it in so long. I redesigned it in 1999 and I don’t think I looked at the old one since then because it made me so embarrassed!

cbanle

Lime Green Evolution World of Art – 1997-1999 – My first web site, how I transitioned from analog networking to digital networking. Thinking back on it, printmaking class in 1987 led to rubber stamping, rubber stamping led to Mail Art, Mail Art led to ‘zines, ‘zines led to taking a class to get better at desktop publishing, which led to published a web site, that led to being a web designer, which led to doing marketing which led to me working on a marketing degree. No wonder I called my first web site Lime Green Evolution. And I didn’t even put in all the other tangents I followed along the way! I used to stay late a lot after my web design job ended at 5 pm to work on my personal web site and wait for the traffic to die down.

One of the things we are studying in my Mass Communications class is how people make media meaningful for themselves. Back in the ‘zine / grunge / Mail Art era we used to do a lot of collages, small press publications and mixed media projects. I’m sure there are still people out there doing these things and with technology we have a lot more options available. Most likely I’ll be exploring this in a future research project.

Edit: here is my new page on the International Union of Mail-Artists web site. I’ll be putting some old and new work there.

Carolyn Hasenfratz Winkelmann

Attempting to Protect the Vulnerable from Violence

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DISCLAIMER: The following is graduate student work. I’m uploading it after grading from the Professor. I rewrote one sentence that was awkward but didn’t change anything else. I made a couple of minor formatting changes for online viewing, the printed version attempts to conform to MLA style. Comments on any of my blog posts are encouraged at any time and if you have any critiques that would help me write better I especially would welcome those.

Attempting to Protect the Vulnerable from Violence

Social scientists have been studying mass media for decades to see if there is a link between consuming violent media and real-life violent behavior. All social scientists do not agree but over time the majority have come to accept that there are causal links (Baran and Davis 193-194). Many researchers use social cognitive theory as a framework for explaining how and why people learn behavior from the media (Baran and Davis 193).

Human beings sometimes observe and then imitate behavior, but imitation doesn’t happen in every instance (Baran and Davis 170). How does a violent idea escalate to violent action? There are many variables in the content itself that influence behavior. If the subjects receive punishment for their actions, the content will be imitated less frequently (Baran and Davis 176). The Hays code, which the US Movie industry imposed on itself from 1934-1965, was an example of self-censorship to avoid consumer outrage and government intervention. The strictures that filmmakers had to follow indicate early awareness that the moral and legal contexts in which violence and lawbreaking were shown did make a difference in how they were received by audiences (Hays Code).

Experiments have demonstrated that there will be more imitations of violence if the behavior is rewarded in the character’s world, the content causes emotional arousal, if the violence is portrayed in a realistic way or with humor, if the motive of the subjects is seen as justifiable and if viewers identify with the characters (Baran and Davis 176).

The circumstances under which violent content is viewed are another area of influence. Violent effects are worsened if people become de-sensitized by frequent viewing (Baran and Davis 176). Content in which the user is active rather than passive, such as in a video game, has greater effects on the user (Baran and Davis 181).

From the beginning of the study of mass media, researchers and theorists have been interested in what the individual who is viewing the content brings to the interaction between the consumer and the media. Some of the earliest mass society media theorists did accept the paternalistic view that certain members of society were more vulnerable than others to the undesirable effects of low-quality media products (Baran and Davis 21). They feared that changing populations no longer protected by older institutions would not be well-served using the media as a substitute (Baran and Davis 36).

The story of the legendary 1938 radio broadcast War of the Worlds is well known by many Americans, but it has been greatly exaggerated into myth (Pooley and Socolow). The majority of people who heard the broadcast were not fooled into thinking that the Earth was really being invaded by Martians. There were, however, some people who were affected in alarming ways and researchers did attempt to find out why. The listeners who believed the broadcast was real and in turn responded with panic tended to be fatalistic, had low self-confidence, were afflicted by phobias and were emotionally insecure (Dixon, 2). These findings are an example of acknowledgement over time by many researchers that media does not affect all people the same way, an observation known as the individual-differences theory (Baran and Davis 105).

Even as limited-effects theories were becoming more dominant among researchers in the middle of the 20th century (Baran and Davis 22), they did not discourage other theorists from examining what kind of people were vulnerable and why. Neo-Marxists conceded an advantage to elites because of their economic power (Baran and Davis 23). Carl Hovland who led a research group for the US Army about the effectiveness of propaganda in training new recruits found that in general the films they tested did not have a great effect. The team did find that balanced presentations that explained both sides of an issue were more effective on people with more education (Baran and Davis 99-100). News-flow research associated poor news information retention with lower educational levels (Baran and Davis 110). Cultural criticism based on deterministic assumptions rose in popularity among 1970s academics as a humanities-based counterpoint to postpositivist limited-effects theories (Baran and Davis 24).

Children view media differently according to their level of development, therefore the age of the person viewing the violence is another factor that determines susceptibility to media effects (Baran and Davis 178). Ever since the first generation of people raised with television came of age in the tumultuous 1960s, researchers have been interested in trying to see if there is a link between exposure as children to violence in mass media and actual violent behavior (Baran and Davis 166-167). Enough causal relationships were found to cause the Surgeon General of the United States to commission research in 1969. After the findings became known the television industry engaged in some self-policing to quell criticism and prevent government-imposed regulations that might harm their interests
(Baran and Davis 167).

In the United States communication freedom is so essential to our form of government that freedom of the press is written into our Bill of Rights. That does not mean that no legal limits on media are allowed at all, but it is difficult to create new regulations that protect some rights without curtailing others (Baran and Davis 66). Media creators who subscribe to social responsibility theory may choose to create content they believe is in the public interest but the government has a very limited ability to compel them to do so (Baran and Davis 80), assuming there would even be a general consensus on what content is actually in the public interest.

Real-life violence has many costs. Obvious direct consequences are death and injury. Even indirect exposure to violence has detrimental effects on mental health, social interaction, cognitive function and academic performance, especially in children (Sharkey 2287). Since consumption of violence in the media has been determined to be one of many contributors to real-life violence, reducing exposure or taking steps to mitigate the effects of violent media content should help reduce violence at least to a degree (Fingar 183). Since consumption or non-consumption of most media can’t be compelled by law any more than the production, would education about media help consumers make better choices?

One attempt at mitigation is media literacy, “the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and communicate messages” (Baran and Davis, 293). Participants in the Media Literacy movement believe that education is a powerful tool in the hands of consumers, particularly young consumers (Fingar 183). Studies undertaken in schools have shown enough positive changes in behavior for researchers to recommend that Media Literacy programs be more widely accepted and implemented (Fingar 189, Scharrer 82-83). In a society founded on Libertarianism (Baran and Davis 55), perhaps media literacy will gain more influence as new technologies draw people even more deeply into the world of media (Baran and Davis 192-193).

Works Cited

Baran, Stanley J. and Dennis K. Davis. Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, and Future. Seventh Edition. CENGAGE Learning, 2015.

Dixon, Robert. “Limited Effects Theory.” September 2019. PowerPoint presentation.

Feilitzen, Cecilia von, et al. Outlooks on Children and Media: Child Rights, Media Trends, Media Research, Media Literacy, Child Participation, Declarations. Compiled for the World Summit on Media for Children (3rd, Thessaloniki, Greece, March 23-26, 2001). Feb. 2001. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED450947&site=ehost-live. Accessed 13 September 2019.

Fingar, Kathryn R., and Tessa Jolls. “Evaluation of a School-Based Violence Prevention Media Literacy Curriculum.” Injury Prevention, vol. 20, no. 3, June 2014, pp. 183–190. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1136/injuryprev-2013-040815. Accessed 13 September 2019.

“Hays code.” Siteseen Limited, 2017-2018, www.american-historama.org/1929-1945-depression-ww2-era/hays-code.htm. Accessed 14 September 2019.

Pooley, Jefferson and Micheal J. Socolow. “The Myth of the War of the Worlds Panic.” The Slate Group, 2019, https://slate.com/culture/2013/10/orson-welles-war-of-the-worlds-panic-myth-the-infamous-radio-broadcast-did-not-cause-a-nationwide-hysteria.html. Accessed 14 September 2019.

Scharrer, Erica. “‘I Noticed More Violence:’ The Effects of a Media Literacy Program on Critical Attitudes Toward Media Violence.” Journal of Mass Media Ethics, vol. 21, no. 1, Mar. 2006, pp. 69–86. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1207/s15327728jmme2101_5. Accessed 13 September 2019.

Sharkey, Patrick T., et al. “The Effect of Local Violence on Children’s Attention and Impulse Control.” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 102, no. 12, Dec. 2012, pp. 2287–2293. EBSCOhost, doi:10.2105/AJPH.2012.300789. Accessed 13 September 2019.

Links to things I didn’t use

If you are interested in the above topic and the media in general you might enjoy some further reading.

7 Ways to Limit Your Child’s Exposure to Violence in the Media

Protect Your Brain from Images of Violence and Cruelty

Tips on How to Deal with Media Violence

Blocking kids from social media won’t solve the problem of cyberbullying

Effects of television viewing on child development

A Comparison Between Emotional Abuse and Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”

Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals

The media exaggerates negative news. This distortion has consequences

Facebook Has Seized the Media, and That’s Bad News for Everyone But Facebook

The Real ‘Fake News’ Is The Mainstream Media

The Media Is Obsessed With Bad News

Speaking of the Lime Green News and studying other cultures…

Art, Mixed Media, Paper Crafts, Rubber Stamping, , , , , , , , ,
Collage made with paper and rubber stamps
Collage made with paper and rubber stamps

I made this collage right at the time I stopped publishing the Lime Green News in paper form. I’m pretty sure I have a draft written on some floppy disc somewhere about how I made this collage and some others using outlines of black paper that I cut out with paper edging scissors to make compositions that look like postage stamps. I was going to publish the tutorial and a copy of the background for people to make their own stamps. I made several stamp sheets using this background as I recall. Such stamps are also known in the art and stamp collecting world as “Cinderella Stamps”, “Postoids” and “Artistamps”.

I never went back to the idea with this pseudo-postal background because I assumed that with computers and desktop publishing becoming more prominent people would not be interested in making faux postage stamps the “analog” way any more. But looking at this collage now that more than 20 years have passed since I made it I actually like it a lot. After going to that Gauguin show that I wrote about in my last blog post I’m reminded of how much I loved studying other cultures and abstracting some elements from them into and combining them with Mid-Century Modern type of abstraction. A lot of the black line work was made by rubber stamps. The Egyptian hieroglyphics stamp is a commercial rubber art stamp, but I carved all the others.

The above collage rearranged and with the colors inverted to use as a Facebook header
The above collage rearranged and with the colors inverted to use as a Facebook header

For some reason if I scan a collage and invert the colors in Photoshop, the results are often better than the original. I needed a new Facebook header so I rearranged the above collage and did a quick inversion. Fun!

Here is another collage I made using the same background
Here is another collage I made using the same background

Gauguin was a zine publisher! Who knew?

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Tom is in red, Mike is in Yellow.
After Gauguin we looked at some of the other galleries. Tom is in red, Mike is in Yellow.

Yesterday my husband Tom and I attended the last day of the Gauguin exhibit at the St. Louis Art Museum, Paul Gauguin: The Art of Invention. Our friend Mike went with us and treated us to the tickets that he had earned from doing volunteer work.

When I first became interested in studying art, I wanted to be a painter. When I took ceramics and printmaking for the first time, I lost interest in painting and stopped reading about it as much as I used to in favor of my new passions. Over the years I also have done some pretty intense study of fiber arts, various crafts, collage, Dadaism, neo-Dadaism and Mail Art, ‘Zines, book arts, Outsider Art, Pop Art, photography, computer animation,  web design, architecture, graphic design, the decorative arts, archaeology and anything Mid-Century Modern. Impressionism and Post-Impressionism were the first kinds of painting that drew me in but over the years I came to prefer Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism as painting styles. I hadn’t done any reading on Gauguin for a long time.

If you missed the show you can listen to the audio presentation and view some of the images here:
https://www.slam.org/audio/paul-gauguin-the-art-of-invention/

Here is a transcript of the audio guide for the show:
https://www.slam.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/gauguin-audio-guide-transcript.pdf

Some of Gauguin's wood cut prints and a handmade book.
Some of Gauguin’s wood cut prints and a handmade book.

I really enjoy artists and designers who work in a variety of media, such as Alexander Calder, Henri Matisse and Frank Lloyd Wright. A lot of times I feel guilty about having so many interests and dabbling in so many different occupations and areas of study. Today’s society seems mostly to expect you to do only one thing but that is not and never will be “me”. So at this Gauguin show I was very intrigued to see some of Gauguin’s ceramics, wood carvings and woodcut prints alongside the paintings. There were ceramics and decorative objects from Gauguin’s personal collection as well as Oceanic and Peruvian art that was representative of the cultures Gauguin was influenced by. He was also at various times a sailor, a stockbroker and a writer. People like this make me not feel so weird!

ceramics in the Gauguin show
The bright green and bright red ceramics and the one that kind of looks like a gourd are from Gauguin’s collection. The other more figurative ceramics were made by him. Some of these ceramics were inspired by paintings he owned by other artists, and the green jug was in one of his paintings. It’s always interesting to see artists’ personal collections!

guaguin_masthead

As a former ‘zine publisher (Lime Green News 1991-1998), I was excited to see a woodblock print graphic in the exhibit that Gauguin carved to help him publish his own newspaper, which could be considered a type of ‘zine. I’m currently taking a Mass Communications class and in our textbook Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, and Future by Stanley J. Baran and Dennis K. Davis, I’ve highlighted a very intriguing sentence: “Extremists were often forced to rely on older media like pamphlets, handbills and political rallies.” I don’t know if Gauguin would have been considered an “extremist” in his time but he was critical of religion and government and his lifestyle was, to put it politely, pretty “bohemian”. When I read the above sentence in my textbook I thought of the history of self publishing and the many forms it can take. Before movable type printing presses, documents were hand written or perhaps laboriously printed with hand-printing methods such as stamping and wood block printing. Later there were typewriters, carbon paper, mimeographs, copy machines, desktop computers with printers and the World Wide Web, making self-publishing easier and more accessible.

When I was ‘zine publishing, I used to make my originals on paper to be copied on a copy machine at the office supply superstore. I started out with text printed out on an inkjet printer on my 1983 Commodore 64 computer, which I used for all my word processing until 1995. I essentially made big collages for my pages, combining the printed text with a variety of graphics, collages and hand-drawings. If I wanted to add color I would sometimes carve a rubber stamp and stamp it on the finished prints. I think the largest edition I ever made of my ‘zine was 100, so stamping 100 times to add a bit of color was feasible.

I got a Windows computer in 1995 with a black and white laser printer. At that time I got Internet access for the first time and started reading on the World Wide Web. My first web site went live in 1997. Gradually I made my ‘zine using more modern desktop publishing methods and by learning software such as the Microsoft Office suite, Corel Draw and Photoshop. The last years of my ‘zine incorporated more and more “modern” techniques but were still made as big collages with some hand-embellishments before copying. In 1998 I just switched my ‘zine content over to my web site, which although a bit out of date in spots is still live (www.limegreennews.com). It needs some (ok a lot of) work because I’ve been neglecting it in favor of the blog you are reading now.

Publishing online is very satisfying, but I miss the lower-tech, handcrafted methods of self-publishing sometimes. I still like book arts in various forms. I’d like to write about or engage in some self-publishing as I work on my master’s degree if possible. It’s been on my mind ever since reading that sentence in the textbook. I got out some of my old ‘zine originals to go down memory lane and think about some possible research ideas. ‘Zine publishers do a lot of trading and I had a big collection of other people’s ‘zines plus material they sent me for consideration for publication. I donated the bulk of my collection to the Poetry and Rare Books collection at the University of New York at Buffalo some years ago but I did save a few things I especially liked. I have no idea what they kept of my collection if anything, but they did have a subscription to my ‘zine when it was in publication and I didn’t know of anyone else who might be interested! I didn’t save much of the “extremist” stuff for my own collection because it frankly scared me and was one of the reasons I dropped out of the printed ‘zine scene – it helped contribute to a major anxiety attack that I eventually received treatment for and recovered from. I don’t think I’ve ever said publicly why I dropped out of the ‘zine and Mail Art scene suddenly but that is a major part of why I did that. I do miss aspects of it though. I’m kind of hoping that working on my degree will bring opportunities to do some research on this era of communication or even get back into it in some way. I might even re-publish on this blog some things that are not too embarrassing that aren’t yet online. We’ll see!

lgn2_cover

Just for fun, since the art show I just saw included Oceanic art and some work by Gauguin that shows how he was influenced by that art , here is what the cover of Lime Green News #2 looked like. I took a postcard with rubber stamped art work that I liked from another mail artist and taped down some sketches from my then-current Oceanic art history class. I drew and stamped crudely around the sketches and the postcard to make a cover. On the left is my original, on the right is a simulation of what the cover would have looked like after copying it on a black and white machine at the office supply superstore. I don’t know if I even have a printed version of this issue in my archives, I probably just have the original. At that time, if my memory is correct, I used to print about 10-15 copies just to trade with people.

What do Ross Perot and Oceanic art have to do with each other? I had no idea then and don’t now, but one thing I have not ever grown out of is making collages out of random things. Now I call it Art Journaling and use it as one of my artistic outlets since I don’t really try to make “Fine Art” type art any more. It’s not that I don’t have plenty of ideas, I do, I just don’t see what good it would do for anybody. But I never know what older ideas I’m going to go back to!

The Film “Good Night and Good Luck” and Theories of Propaganda

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DISCLAIMER: The following is graduate student work. I’m uploading it after grading from the Professor but no corrections were made. I made a couple of minor formatting changes for online viewing, the printed version attempts to conform to MLA style. Comments on any of my blog posts are encouraged at any time and if you have critiques that would help me write better I especially would welcome those.

The Film “Good Night and Good Luck” and Theories of Propaganda

Propaganda is a communication strategy that aims to influence the ideas and behavior of people without the subjects being consciously aware they are being manipulated (Baran and Davis 43). 20th century theorists in the United States differentiated between different types of propaganda. White propaganda was defined as the suppression of some ideas in favor of other ideas favorable to the goals of the propagandist. Black propaganda was the deliberate spread of misinformation (Baran and Davis 43). Gray propaganda was defined as information that made no claims to being either true or false (Baran and Davis 44). White and Black in this context are old-fashioned terms that are not accepted today because they can give offense but at the time these theories were first promoted they were shortcuts for Good, Bad and ambiguous (Baran and Davis 44).

The effectiveness of propaganda had been demonstrated to the satisfaction of many elites and social theorists by the events of WWI and the rise of totalitarian governments in Europe by the 1930s. In the United States there was concern about whether democracy could survive when the world was full of enemies willing to use propaganda as a weapon (Baran and Davis 45-46).

New York Times columnist Walter Lippmann was one of those who advocated for the formation of an intelligence bureau that would disseminate information selected by scientific methods to be distributed to government decision makers and media (Baran and Davis 51). An example of opposition to Lippmann’s view was philosopher John Dewey who believed that education was the best defense against propaganda (Baran and Davis 51). The educational prophylactic approach as a guard against propaganda came to be known as media literacy (Baran and Davis 51).

World War II and the Cold War further encouraged mass society theorists who nurtured ambitions to control information for the public good, although a formal government intelligence agency for that purpose was not formed at that time (Baran and Davis 51). Limited-effects theory advocates conducted studies that gave them confidence that leaders and the public could mitigate the effects of Communist propaganda on average people. Senator Joseph McCarthy did not share that confidence. As an apparent mass society theory believer, in the 1950s he and his allies began a campaign to purge communists from the United States government and media which came to be known as the Red Scare (Baran and Davis 22).

The 2006 film “Good Night and Good Luck” is based on historic events and chronicles the public clash between journalist Edward R. Murrow and Senator McCarthy (Clooney). George Clooney is the director of the film, the co-writer of the script and also stars as Murrow’s producer Fred Friendly. As depicted in the film, Murrow is host of a television news segment on CBS. He and and his team decide to produce a story about an Air Force officer who becomes collateral damage as a result of the Senator McCarthy’s anti-Communist actions. They fear McCarthy and his power to bring ruin to people by accusing them of being a Communist or associating with Communists. Because of their concerns about civil liberties they decide airing the story is worth the risk to themselves (IMDb.com, Inc.). Murrow is depicted as someone who is conscientious about avoiding factual errors, reporting both sides of the story, preserving his reputation as a serious newsman and taking the role of the media in a democracy very seriously (Clooney). Both antagonists try to use their best weapons to take down the other after the fight gets personal toward Murrow and some of his associates (Clooney).

George Clooney stated in an interview that his father was a news anchorman who greatly admired Edward R. Murrow (George Clooney Talks…). In another interview, Clooney told of sitting in on his news director father’s meetings and learning how to do his own news reading (Lear). Clooney looked up to his father for writing his own copy and insisting on sufficient sources for stories (Lear), qualities in common with his film’s depiction of Murrow (Clooney). Clooney admits to being concerned about being labeled a traitor and suffering a career backlash for speaking out against the US invasion of Iraq and the Patriot Act. He made “Good Night and Good Luck” when he did in response to things he was observing in post 9/11 America that reminded him of the McCarthy era and the Red Scare (Lear). Later in the interview Clooney states that he thinks the American people as a whole can understand subtleties in programming and don’t have to have their content simplified as much as the establishment thinks is necessary (Lear).

What attitudes about programming and propaganda does “Good Night and Good Luck” try to promote? The film ends with an excerpt from a famous speech that Edward R. Murrow delivered on Oct. 25, 1958 at the Radio Television News Directors Association convention (On October 15…).

A comparison of the onscreen version of the speech with a transcript of Edward R. Murrow’s speech in real life shows that while the onscreen speech has been severely truncated and rearranged, the main message behind the speech is intact (On October 15…, Clooney). The onscreen Edward R. Murrow (Clooney), the real life Edward R. Murrow (On October 15…) and George Clooney (Lear) himself all appear to support the premise that democracy is best preserved if the people are given a chance to consume news and information without having it selected or filtered by decision makers that know better than they what is good for them to hear. The film becomes a powerful argument for a media theory similar to that of John Dewey who believed that media should not be used to manipulate but to facilitate the free exchange of ideas (Baran and Davis 52).

Did director and writer Clooney make his film in a way that shows that he really believes in Murrow’s preferred approach? Some critics did examine whether the film attempted to manipulate the depiction of historic events in “Good Night and Good Luck”. Phillip Lopate includes in his review some mild criticism for film-making flourishes that increase Murrow’s heroic stature (Lopate 32). Reviewer Terry Teachout criticized the film for leaving out information showing that while many accusations of Communism were in reality false, some were not (Teachout 71). Thomas Doherty points out that several historic incidents were shown out of order and attacks on McCarthy that did not originate with Murrow were omitted from the film to give Murrow more credit for his victory over McCarthy than was actually due (Doherty 55). Clooney is also credited for giving nuance to some of the characters (Doherty 55) and including amounts of information and detail in the film that elevates it in quality from many other comparable products of his industry (Doherty 55, Klawans 48).

Clooney may have intentionally blended a benignly intended message about the role of the mass media as a source of information in a free society while simultaneously attempting to protect the interests of himself and his industry associates from the ill fates suffered by some of their on-screen counterparts (Clooney). If that was his goal, “Good Night and Good Luck” is an example of a skillful use of “White” propaganda (Baran and Davis 43, 56).

Works Cited

Baran, Stanley J. and Dennis K. Davis. Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, and Future. Seventh Edition. CENGAGE Learning, 2015.

Clooney, George, director. Good Night, and Good Luck. TVA Films, 2006.

Doherty, Thomas. “Good Night, and Good Luck.” Cineaste, vol. 31, no. 1, Winter 2005, pp. 53–56. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=fah&AN=19418527&site=ehost-live. Accessed 7 September 2019.

“George Clooney Talks About Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck.” Watchr Media, 2005, movieweb.com/george-clooney-talks-about-edward-r-murrow-in-good-night-and-good-luck/. Accessed 6 September 2019.

IMDb.com, Inc., 2019, www.imdb.com/title/tt0433383/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ql_stry_2. Accessed 6 September 2019.

Klawans, Stuart. “Lessons of Darkness.” Nation, vol. 281, no. 13, Oct. 2005, pp. 48–52. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=18506171&site=ehost-live. Accessed 7 September 2019.

Lear, Norman. “George Clooney.” Interview Magazine, 2012, www.interviewmagazine.com/film/george-clooney. Accessed 6 September 2019.

Lopate, Phillip. “The Medium and Its Conscience.” Film Comment, vol. 41, no. 3, Sept. 2005, pp. 30–37. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aft&AN=504082227&site=ehost-live. Accessed 7 September 2019.

“On October 15, 1958, veteran broadcaster Edward R. Murrow delivered his famous “wires and lights in a box” speech before attendees of the RTDNA (then RTNDA) convention.” Radio Television Digital News Association, 2019, www.rtdna.org/content/edward_r_murrow_s_1958_wires_lights_in_a_box_speech. Accessed 6 September 2019.

Teachout, Terry. “Journalism, Hollywood-Style.” Commentary, vol. 120, no. 5, Dec. 2005, pp. 69–72. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=afh&AN=18962558&site=ehost-live. Accessed 7 September 2019.

Unused interesting links: These are links that I found while researching the above that I did not use in my paper. They might be interesting reading for anyone who read my above paper and is interested in the topic(s).

“A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy” – Transcript of the March 9, 1954 See it Now broadcast

Joseph R. McCarthy – Prosecution of E.R. Murrow on CBS’ “See It Now” – transcript and video of McCarthy’s response

Edward R. Murrow – Response to Senator Joe McCarthy on CBS’ See It Now – Transcript and video of Murrow responding to McCarthy on April 13, 1954.

Poll: 73 Percent of Republican Students Have Hidden Their Politics over Fears about Grades

Edward R. Movie. Good Night, and Good Luck and bad history.

George Clooney Biography

George Clooney (and his dad) vs. George W. Bush

George Clooney: Neocon

Hollywood and the Iraq War

“Good Night, And Good Luck”: PE Interviews George Clooney And Grant Heslov

Washington’s Hollow Men

‘Agent of influence’

Popular And Elite Culture

Elite Culture

Pity the Postmodern Cultural Elite

Mass Society Theory Still Influences Media Use in the Contemporary United States

Marketing, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Here is my first paper for my Media Communication class, MEDC: 5000-01, with Professor Robert Dixon at Webster University.

The reason I chose this topic for my first paper is the authors of our textbook, Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, and Future by Stanley J. Baran and
Dennis K. Davis said that Mass Society Theory does not hold up to scientific studies but it does resurface again and again during turbulent times. I will define Mass Society
Theory toward the beginning of the paper. This information is very interesting to me because I can think of many times in my life that I have behaved as though I believe in it even though I was not familiar with the name of the theory. My parents also behaved as though they fully accepted it. I did an informal un-scientific poll while I was working this paper by asking people in my life if they think the media has a major influence on our society. Some said they believed the effects varied depending on how you react to it but all I talked to agreed it had some influence and some thought it was a major influence. In the class I’m taking now we are not going to be doing our own data collecting, we are going to be using data already collected, but if data collecting and polls were part of this class I know some I’d like to do! I certainly know how to do online polls technically but I don’t have any training in how to do them scientifically (yet).

This paper was difficult to wrap up because I kept finding more and more fascinating pieces of information and I couldn’t fit them all in because it would take me off topic and make the paper too long for the assignment. After the paper, I’m including links to some of the interesting tidbits I found but did not use at this time in case you want to do some more reading. Some of these sources or ideas might be things I come back to in the future but either way they are interesting and I think anyone who enjoys the topic enough to keep reading after my paper might find them useful.

DISCLAIMER: The following is graduate student work. I’m uploading it after grading and corrections from the Professor. He had three formatting/citation changes he wanted me to do but the content was not changed before uploading. One of the main objectives of this class is to learn how to write at the graduate level in an academic style. I made a couple of minor formatting changes for online viewing, the printed version attempts to conform to MLA style. Comments on any of my blog posts are encouraged at any time and if you have any critiques that would help me write better I especially would welcome those.

Mass Society Theory Still Influences Media Use in the Contemporary United States

When mass communication products and ready audiences were first brought together by industrialization in the Western world, the changes that occurred were examined by social theorists of the day. Some were optimistic about the potential for information to improve the human condition while others warned of resulting unrest and moral degeneracy. Many believed that people at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum were particularly vulnerable to manipulation by the popular media of the day, which included advertising and sensational journalism (Baran and Davis 20-21).

As the halfway point of the 20th Century approached, some researchers attempted to test mass society theory using scientific methods. Many of these researchers concluded that the data did not support mass society theory media after all. Their interpretation came to be known as limited-effects theory (Baran and Davis 22).

Postpositivist researchers, that is researchers who use scientific methods to gather data, left mass society theory behind as the century progressed in favor of newer media theories or other research fields entirely (Baran and Davis 14, 23). In addition, mass society theories lost favor in academic circles because they were associated with the Red Scare of the 1950s headed by Senator Joseph McCarthy in his attempt to prevent Americans from being influenced by Communist ideas (Baran and Davis 22).

Baran and Davis believe that mass society theory is not valid but acknowledge that it keeps popping up again and again as technology and society go through unsettling changes (Baran and Davis 20). Are there examples we can see in the recent history of the United States that show that many mass media consumers and creators still accept mass society theory as credible?

Baran and Davis compared the early 21st century to the late 19th century as times when new technologies spurred the creation of new media institutions (Baran and Davis 27). The technological revolution brought about by rapid adoption of the World Wide Web in the 1990s and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 occurred close together in history. Either of these injections of instability would by themselves be presumed by Baran and Davis to bring about the re-examination of media theories (Baran and Davis xvi).

A 2002 article by Robin R. Means Coleman, “Prospects for Locating Racial Democracy in Media: The NAACP Network Television Boycott” illustrates at that time some media users still accepted mass society theory enough to take some kind of action against the “old media” while others were examining how the “new media” might be more effective. Included in the article is an account of the early 2000s NAACP boycott of major television networks motivated partially on the grounds that under-representative or negative portrayals of African Americans in entertainment have a detrimental effect on the real-life conditions of African Americans (Coleman 25). The author includes quotes from members of the public obtained from a 2001 poll on the NAACP web site about whether such a boycott is worthwhile. Three individuals quoted are skeptical about whether it makes any difference while another is supportive but wants to explore ways to make the effort more effective (Coleman 26-27). It’s not stated whether skepticism is the dominant opinion in the totality of the public’s responses that were not highlighted. As the author points out in the footnotes, the comments were not obtained under controlled conditions (Coleman 30).

Does the NAACP still consider portrayals of African Americans in mass entertainment as significant? The NAACP current web site contains eight categories of issues of current interest. Media Diversity is one of the categories. On the Media Diversity page, the NAACP reminds readers that the organization has been fighting racial stereotypes since the notorious 1915 film “Birth of a Nation” (Media Diversity). In 1915 the mass society theory would have been the dominant theory as the limited-effects trend in mass communication theory did not start to take hold until the late 1930s (Baran and Davis 20-21). The mass society theory still seems to have some traction with the NAACP in 2019 as they maintain a Hollywood Bureau which promotes economic opportunities for African Americans as well as encouraging and showcasing positive images (Media Diversity).

The NAACP is not alone. There are many other instances of behavior that indicate activist media users are working hard to combat what they see as the detrimental effects of mass communication. Elites who incline toward mass society theory but have diverse political views have the following in common – they believe they know better than the average person what ideas are ok for public consumption (Baran and Davis 21). According to the article “The Business of Boycotting: Having Your Chicken and Eating It Too”, boycotts can be used to coerce behavior by inflicting economic damage (Tomhave and Vopat 126). That is not the only motivation for boycotting. The aim behind some boycotts is to silence certain views (Tomhave and Vopat 125).

Searches for “right wing boycott list” and “left wing boycott list” on the search engine Bing performed on August 31, 2019 produced examples of lists of organizations that consumers are urged to boycott for political reasons.

Regardless of whether the proposed boycotts bring about the desired outcome, the advocacy of such boycotts in recent history demonstrates that mass society theory still has traction among a non-scientific sampling of activists.

The consumer side of information also appears to still give some credence to mass society theory. Most Americans report that they have encountered fake or made up news and have modified their own information consumption habits to compensate (Pew Research Center 3, 21). 50% believe false news and information is a bigger problem for the United States than violent crime, racism, illegal immigration, terrorism and sexism (Pew Research Center 11). Americans consistently rate themselves as better than most other Americans at detecting misinformation in several categories (Pew Research Center 25).

It appears as though mass society theories are still considered useful to some consumers and those attempting to influence the masses. According to Baran and Davis this condition is to be expected when society and technology are changing at a rapid pace (20).

Works Cited

Baran, Stanley J. and Dennis K. Davis. Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, and Future. Seventh Edition. CENGAGE Learning, 2015.

Coleman, Robin R. Means. “Prospects for Locating Racial Democracy in Media: The NAACP Network Television Boycott.” Qualitative Research Reports in Communication, vol. 3, no. 2, Spring 2002, pp. 25-31. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=10512976&site=ehost-live. Accessed 31 August 2019.

“Media Diversity.” NAACP, 2019, www.naacp.org/issues/media-diversity/. Accessed 31 August 2019.

Official Boycott List For Conservatives, 2018, www.boycottleftwingers.com/. Accessed 31 August 2019.

Pew Research Center. “Many Americans Say Made-Up News Is a Critical Problem That Needs To Be Fixed”, 2019, www.journalism.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2019/06/PJ_2019.06.05_Misinformation_FINAL-1.pdf. Accessed 31 August 2019.

Tomhave, Alan, and Mark Vopat. “The Business of Boycotting: Having Your Chicken and Eating It Too.” Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 152, no. 1, Sept. 2018, pp. 123-132. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s10551-016-3336-y. Accessed 31 August 2019.

Warde, Samuel. “List of Companies Supporting Right-Wing Causes To Boycott.” Liberals Unite, 2016, samuel-warde.com/2016/05/list-companies-supporting-right-wing-causes/. Accessed 31 August 2019.

Unused interesting links: – food for thought, no promises made about objectivity or veracity.

Bad News – a game that lets you play media manipulator. Challenge your friends! Can’t wait to try this!!!!

Republicans fear prejudice on campus – an experiment was done to test the political climate at the University where I am studying. This article was published on the campus newspaper web site.

You Think You Want Media Literacy… Do You?

Why do people believe the mass media, instead of their own knowledge and experience?

Teaching Media Literacy: Its Importance and 10 Engaging Activities [+ Downloadable List]

The “Nasty Effect:” Online Incivility and Risk Perceptions of Emerging Technologies

Law & Liberty

Medium

Flash Cards: Baran and Davis, Chapter 1

stlmedia.net

Why It’s Prime to Boycott Amazon – they want to boycott Amazon and Whole Foods, and a box at the top says they want to stop Google from boycotting them – interesting!

Facebook flags users who try to ‘game’ fact-checking effort

Facebook to tighten political ad rules for 2019 elections

Wordplay persuades for customer reviews of truffles, but not laundry detergent

Online reviews: When do negative opinions boost sales?

Why You Should Stop Watching T.V. and What to Replace it With

Big Sponsors Drop Support of Tasteless Trump Assassination Play

SocialBook Blog

I am a Gorlok!

Marketing, , , , ,

gorlock_coloring_web

That’s the mascot of Webster University where I just started to work on a Master’s Degree in Marketing and Advertising Communications. I had to look up what a Gorlok is – it’s a Cheetah/Buffalo/St. Bernard mix made up in the 1980s inspired by the intersection of Gore and Lockwood streets. I got the above coloring page in my welcome packet. It’s good to see adult coloring is still really popular! It always will be popular with me I think. However disloyal I’m afraid my favorite mascot will always be the University of American Samoa Land Crabs!

I’m going to be writing a lot of papers, so look for them to appear on this blog if they turn out well. I write all the time so thinking of something to write about does not scare me but it’s literally been decades since I tried to write in an academic style so that will be a bit of an adjustment. My first few papers will likely be dealing with some aspect of marketing theory. That might sound kind of dull at first but after giving it some thought, people and institutions make important decisions based on marketing theory all the time. In our culture we’ve been living with mass media for the entirety of our own lifetimes and so have multiple generations of our predecessors. Because of the type of work I’ve chosen to do, it’s obvious I think media is interesting, important, and influential. If I can learn and share some things about how to better understand this complicated culture we’ve created, I think that is worthwhile. I have to decide by tomorrow morning what the topic of my first paper is going to be. Some topics I’m kicking around in my head are:

  • How do people perceive the influence of media on their lives?
  • How important is media in decision making in certain groups of people?
  • Do people in our culture feel the need to protect themselves from the media?
  • Does the media manipulate or emotionally abuse us? If so, are people aware of it?
  • Does the media affect mental health?
  • How do people use media to achieve their goals or add meaning to their lives?
  • Do people see themselves as active or passive media consumers?
  • What factors make a person an active or passive media consumer?
  • How do people determine what media is trustworthy?
  • How do people take control of media in their lives?
  • What makes certain forms of media fall in and out of favor?
  • How do people think media affects other people?
  • Do people have different perceptions of how the news media should conduct itself depending on political affiliation?
  • Do social scientists follow different theories of mass communications depending on political affiliation?
  • Do people in the United States feel that the mass media supports democracy?
  • Do people in the United States feel that the mass media should support democracy?

As you can see I won’t have any trouble thinking of something interesting to explore. What I will have trouble with is making it fit into a three page paper!

Although I am out of practice in academic writing, I’m not out of practice in being a student. It’s been 26 years since I’ve received my B.F.A. degree but in the meantime I’ve taken numerous Continuing Ed classes and worked in jobs that required constant learning of new material. When I studied for my Master Gardener certification in 2016, that sharpened my mind quite a bit because I had to get used to studying for tests again. Tips we were given in class about helpful technology made that pursuit easier than it used to be. Being tech and media savvy are big help when you’re a returning student as well as in life in general. When I graduated from St. Louis Community College with my A.A. degree, I was the commencement speaker. I haven’t re-read my speech since I gave it because I don’t remember it as being very good and I don’t want to cringe! Some of my writing from that time I still like but I don’t know about that one! My overall theme however, to encourage lifelong learning and to not stop after you graduate, was something I was passionate about and at least following my own advice in that instance has served me well. I’m still passionate about it and that is why I love to learn and to teach.

A Little Unintentional Garden Humor

Conservation, Gardening, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I just left this letter on a neighbor’s door handle:

“August 27, 2019,

Hi, I’m your near neighbor at (address) – the house where the red Jeep is parked a lot. I’m sorry to bother you but I inadvertently caused a weird problem. I saw the landscaping company that does your lawn working at your house this morning. I have an urgent need for mulch, and grass clippings are perfect for my needs. I asked the workers at your house to fill a few containers with grass clippings for me if they were going to dispose of them and leave the containers there and I would just walk across the street and pick them up. I’ve worked as a landscaper so I know most of the time they just put the grass clippings in a big dumpster that goes to the yard waste facility to be processed. I gave them a small tip for their trouble. What I didn’t know is that they didn’t understand that I wanted them to leave the containers out in front of your house for me to pick up when they were done. They brought the containers back to their shop. It’s not their fault – I should have anticipated this and made a note of what company they work for – but I did not do that. Can you please give me an email or a phone call to let me know what company they work for so I can call them and get my containers back? I thought this would be a simple request that would not cause anyone any hassle but I misjudged. I would have given them a lot bigger tip if I expected them to fill the containers at their shop, I just wanted the sweepings since they had to do cleanup anyway!!!

Thank you so much!

Carolyn Hasenfratz Winkelmann
(phone)
(email)”

It’s not easy being green!

Operation Clean Stream 2019 on the Meramec River

Conservation, Events, Outdoor Fun, Route 66, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

On Saturday, August 24, 2019 Tom and I participated in Operation Clean Stream sponsored by the Open Space Council and many other supporting organizations. I’ve done several of these trash cleanup floats before but this was Tom’s first time. We had a blast because we love to get dirty, we want to do our part to keep our rivers clean and any excuse to get out and be on the water is a good one! We brought our kayaks to the beach on the Meramec River and met up with other volunteers who brought their own vessels. The people I end up floating with on these cleanup days are terrific and we hope we get to float with these folks again. I floated with leader Tim before in 2016 – here is an article I wrote about that day:
Fit and Healthy on Route 66: Two Sections of the Lower Meramec – Part I

untying kayaks at Castlewood State Park
Here is Tom around 7:30 am untying our kayaks that I transported on top of my Jeep. You can tell by his body language he is pretty eager to get started!
unloading the trash
Here is our group’s trash haul in the foreground at Greentree Park in Kirkwood. We were pretty exhausted by this point but the Open Space Council fed us a nice lunch to revive us a little for the trip home! Loading the kayaks is easy in the morning, not so easy in the afternoon!

I took a couple of videos too:

Tom bags a tire:
https://youtu.be/EN4QmrwSWn8

Some of the members of our group share their favorite finds on a sandbar near Highway 141:
https://youtu.be/vrrsEfZF8qg

Water hyacinth I collected on the Meramec River on August 24, 2019.
Water hyacinth I collected on the Meramec River on August 24, 2019.

I found some water hyacinth along the way and picked up as much as I could. I want to use it in our pond which should be finished soon, but even more importantly I want to get it out of the natural body of water because it’s an invasive species. More info about water hyacinth here: http://stopaquatichitchhikers.org/hitchhikers/plants-water-hyacinth/

This is the first time I can recall seeing water hyacinth in a natural body of water in Missouri. Our winters should kill it – that may or may not mitigate the threat – I don’t know.  What if some floats downstream to a warmer state? That’s why I grabbed as much as I could. Here is some Missouri specific information: https://mdc.mo.gov/conmag/2008/01/not-state

Applique Projects with Printed Canvas

Fabric and Fiber Arts, Holiday Crafts, Tutorials, , , , , , , , , , , ,

group

In this project you can practice your skills in fabric painting, fabric coloring and applique. I had a lot of fun with my stashes of fabric, trim, buttons and threads to create different blends of colors and textures. I used blank burlap bags and fabric remnants to make festive and reusable containers for small holiday gifts of different kinds. I wrote this last year and it didn’t get published by Canvas Corp at that time because they got sold to another company and disbanded their Creative Crew that I was on. It might seem a little early for Christmas projects but if you make your Christmas gifts it’s really not unreasonable to start working on them now. Also you can use the same techniques with different themes to fit the season. I had a ton of fun making these. Enjoy!

Materials
Printed canvas sheets
Burlap wine sacks
Burlap shoulder bags
Assorted burlap, trim and other fabric remnants
Gold fabric paint
Fabric markers
Assorted sewing and embroidery thread including gold metallic
Clean scrap paper
Buttons (optional)

Tools
Small paint brush
Fabric scissors
Tape
Scrap cardboard
Pins
Sewing and embroidery needles
Iron and ironing board

Instructions

Select images from printed canvas sheets by Canvas Corp and cut around them with fabric scissors. Tape an assortment of cutouts to a piece of scrap chipboard or cardboard. Outline the images with gold fabric paint. Let dry, and heat set the paint with an iron if necessary. Place the fabric pieces between two pieces of clean scrap paper to protect the iron and ironing board from paint and ink.

gold_outline

Color the images with fabric markers, and heat set if necessary. The particular fabric markers I used did not require heat setting.

colored_images

Lay out the burlap blanks that you are going to use on a work surface. For my samples I used Canvas Corp wine bag and tote bag blanks. I also had some remnants of burlap that I decided to cut into rectangles to make into little Christmas themed door hangers with pockets that could be used as ornaments or to hold object such as greenery or small gifts. These burlap remnants had a very loose weave so I backed them with green fabric pieces. Match up your decorated printed canvas cutouts with a burlap bag or piece and go through your fabric and trim stash to find scraps that look good layered behind the printed canvas pieces. Pin the trim and fabric remnants together with the printed canvas pieces on top. You might want to leave some fabric edges raw or hem them for slightly different looks. You can explore a lot of design options by working on several pieces at a time. Pin your printed canvas piece on top of the fabric and trim arrangements. Don’t pin the canvas/trim/fabric assemblies to the bags yet – some of the sewing will be easier to do before the assemblies are attached to the bags. Here are a couple of burlap wine bags with pinned assemblages ready to be sewn…

wine_bags

…plus a couple of burlap shoulder bag examples…

tote_bags

…and some rectangles that will become door hangers with the addition of a loop of braided trim for hanging.

door_hangers

Sew around each printed canvas cutout with gold embroidery thread. Secure the trim pieces with embroidery thread in a complementary color. If you want to, add a few buttons or other embellishments as accents. Once all the layers on your assemblage are sewn together, pin the assemblage to the front of your bag and sew in place. You are done!

with_buttons