I've said before that I wanted to help, and now we're going to do it.

Many months ago Marty and I came up with a cunning plan to help struggling artists into the digital universe. It's incredibly important for a new artist to have a presence on the web. If it's done right, the artist's visibility can skyrocket -- and when your work is about visual media, you need it to be seen. Especially with my eye on Youngstown this year, I know that there are brilliant artists out there who just need the right break, who can do amazing things. (Well hell -- I'm living with one!)

Our plan was solid, and we took it forward. We're calling it the Thriving Artist Project and you can consider it officially launched. We're starting things off with the inimitable Karen Wennberg. If you'd like more information (who wouldn't?) you can check out the Thriving Artist Project page at Virtual Magpie Design. If you want to help out, you can find her contact information there, or you can feel free to Digg, del.icio.us or otherwise bookmark that page. You can definitely help us by spreading the word, if you are so inclined; and I daresay I'd be grateful if you did!

If you're not as excited as I am, you obviously haven't read the project page yet.

Go! Get excited!

It's high time we got started around here, don't you think?

The original purpose for Virtual Magpie on Zaadz was to make use of zPro, which, if you've been paying attention, went a bit awry!  However, we don't see any reason to abandon Zaadz or zPro while they're in the process of deciding what's what, and Zaadz has always been an incredibly interesting community of minds and hearts -- people are what we're about, these days.  And I'm pretty sure that Zaadz is the best place to find that, whatever (and whoever!) it turns out to be. ;}

Since we're just getting started, after all, I'm going to post a few links I think you might enjoy.  Virtual Magpie has been blogging for awhile now, but we've made a lot of excellent connections along the way.  I think I'd like to introduce them (and us, for that matter)!

• First of all, feel free to take a look at the Virtual Magpie blog.  I call it the, er, Equivocal Adventures of Megan M. (that's me!).  I chatter about business quite a bit, which you may already have realized. ;}
  
• Another site you might find really interesting is the Connection Paradigm blog -- this site was started by some friends of ours and they've got an incredible idea that we appreciate fabulously.  If you're not sure what they mean by "connection paradigm", this post should shed some light!
• Cloud Nine Staffing is blogging these days, too!  (I'll admit that I had a bit of a hand in that -- whoops!)  Check out the awesome Cloud Nine blog and see what we've been up to lately. In the last few months I've been working very closely with Cloud Nine, and it's apparent that we're in the same business, regardless of how different our services may be!
  

If you have questions, please feel free to comment -- I love getting and answering comments and emails, and you won't find any shortage of speculative responses. ;}

Until next time!

Megan M.