Meet The Community Team

Certainly a quality community team. Bravo!

Being a forum moderator, at any level, is not an easy task. Thank you all, so much, for everything you do to keep these boards running smoothly. Your efforts are appreciated.

About me? I don't care to dilute the intros of our fine mods. I'll just say I'm an old-fart photographer who's been fooling with this craft for six decades. I enjoy life at the beach and on our various travels and like to share some of what I see via medium of photography.


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~ Bill
BillSwartwout.com

I agree with Bill. It is so much nicer to come on this forum than look at posts on social media which are full of Politics and vile abuse from trolls.

Thank you for your excellent work!

Thanks to ya all for keeping this place one you like to go to :o)

Me? Who me? A paragraph?

Merely a Post Modern artist, glad you asked.

I work on the premise that if you might have seen it before, you need to see it differently.

Who am I? I am your regular joe not sure what to make of this world, but willing to comment.

Thanks for asking,

Dave
Post Modern Artist

I worked in television as a director for most of my adult life and always wondered what I would do with myself when I retired.

Until one day my daughter returned home from work and said they were selling older photographs for thousands of dollars at an auction, and maybe I should pull out my 35mm slides from my army days in Europe.

Hmmmmm. And that's when my life became interesting again.

Many thanks to Abbie, Rudy, Susan and all former members of the community team who have helped to make FAA/Pixels such a nice place to be a part of.

I began my adult life as a soldier in the Army during difficult times for our country and was one of the fortunate ones to continue on to a normal life. After a variety of jobs, I finally ended up with a large corporation for over 20 years. Shortly after I retired from that busy and stressful career in an office with no windows, I decided to pursue my dream from many years ago to become an artistic photographer in addition to now being able to devote more time to enjoying life as a husband, father and grandfather.

Then I found Fine Art America, became a member in 2009 and began uploading photographs from our travels to places far away as well as those nearby our home. Here, I have been able to learn more about art and life, from so many truly talented artists. It has been a very rewarding experience and I hope to continue doing so for years to come.

Best wishes to all !

http://ScenesFromFarAndNear.com

My first name here is Nikolyn as given by my parents when I was born, but everyone calls me Nikki. I am a retired teacher and an active grandmother. Photography is my serious hobby and I am interested in just about any subject or style. I try to be nice and, when I can be, helpful. I do enjoy a forum with a positive attitude, so I am very grateful to Abbie, Susan, and Rudy (and, previously, JC) for their time, helpful additions, and diligence.

To make a long story short, I am actually from the moon, an astronaut named Neil found me there and brought me back with him to Earth.

Thank you Earthlings and all the mods here on FAA, keep up the great work.

oh i thought we were going to finally meet bill the programmer.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

My given name is Mary Melinda, thus the ‘MM’ in my art business name, but friends and family have always called me Linda, so I guess the folks on this site might do that as well. I majored in art over 30 years ago when I couldn’t decide what to do with my life. But I didn’t do much with it until after being laid off from my last office job around 11 years ago. In the past couple of years the increased practice has really improved my work. I have a goal of completing one traditional piece per week which has helped me add many images to my portfolio. My preferred medium is soft pastel on paper but I also work in charcoal, graphite, and computer graphic illustration, plus a bit of photography. I live in Eastern South Carolina and enjoy working with subjects from nature and the animal kingdom.

www.mmandersonart.com

My given name is James Whalen, I go by Jim. I am an old fashioned abstract painter who also works in mixed media. I am a published writer and poet who loves to cook and entertain family and friends, and I am an avid birdwatcher who likes hiking and bicycle riding.

Thank you Abbie, Rudy and Susan for everything that you do here and for doing such a great job of it all!

Thank you for all the thank you's, but they should all go to Abbie, she is driving :)

Very cool. What a talented team, making the world safe for artistic discourse.

And... Hi Rudy, I'm a former federal Contracting Officer, warrant, NCMA cert., all that. We have that background in common, I did a lot of 8(a) contracting, set-asides and competitive.
FAR 'R' US
Or were you DFAR? In aerospace it could be either, or both.

Great idea to introduce the community team! Thanks for doing that, Abbie.

Hi Cheryl

Neither FAR. At that time I was still in Amsterdam where I worked for Fokker Aircraft. Because a lot of what I did was for the space shuttle (Fokker made the boom at one point), F16 and satellites, I did have all the necessary NATO-AQUAP (level 4 i believe) security clearances though. Fokker Aircraft went belly up 3-4 years after I left and I still wonder if there was a correlation somehow between me leaving and their sudden death right after that lol

Once in the US, the only time I was involved with the FAR was when a project was funded with Federal Grand money. (their money, their rules) I was also the M/WBE officer for the county and sections of the FAR applied to that too . For that job I was a member of an intergovernmental consortium pertaining to M/WBE participation in contracting and the airport was also part of that and they were all federal grand money, so I was a little bit involved with the FAR that way as well. I wasn't that much involved with 8a contracting (different criteria then M/WBE at the time), but I know all about set-asides and competitive (hard to avoid if you do M/WBE lol)

What I didn't mention was that before I started working for the County, I was the purchasing agent and M/WBE officer for the local bus company for a few years (separate entity but owned by the board of county commissioners, so it was kind of county). They had this bright idea to sell student bus passes in schools and libraries and they gave me the job to set all that up. I had to write all policies and procedures from scratch and that included all agreements and contracts, Since they were semi-government, we were able to ask county departments for assistance and such, but when I went to the county's legal department for help they told me, you write it and when you're done, we might look at it for "legal sufficiency" Ugh. Ever tried to write an agreement for a school district? I don't recommend it. lol. That's probably why legal didn't want to get involved. They knew.

So nice to meet you!

I'm some guy with a camera.

Buenas noches a todos. Encantado de conocerlos!
Espero que sea correcto escribir aquí en español. Podría hacerlo en inglés, pero no es tan bueno como debería :)
Es la primera vez que entro al foro (de hecho lo conocí por el mail que acabo de recibir). Veré de qué se trata, a quién puedo conocer, con quién puedo intercambiar algunos trucos del oficio. Me encanta conocer gente nueva con la que comparto algo tan sublime como el arte.

Por otra parte, ayer mi página en FineArtAmerica alcanzó sus primeras 500.000 visitas!!!! Estoy muy orgulloso de ello!!!

Nada más. Gracias a los moderadores, gracias a todos.
A seguir trabajando!!!

Pablo Franchi

Hello,

I am an artist, I create all kinds of different things but sales are few and far between. I have been a member for years but I have never had a sale on this website. Maybe one day. I will keep on creating.

it is absolutely amazing that in today's world people are able to communicate with each other across borders and over oceans and throughout every corner of the planet - and at the same time it is often very difficult to have a conversation with the neighbor next door - but as time goes on and things develop this may change as well - I have been photographing and creating abstracts and collages for what - from some perspectives seems like an eternity and on the other hand - it always feels as if I am just beginning and I have many many many more lifetimes of work inside me to explore and play with and this work keeps on expanding the more that time goes on - I am more concerned - and have been for the longest time - for people to be able to see my work - since there may be something that I have created that may touch them - inspire them - motivate them and hopefully spark and idea or many ideas and I am very aware that people - no matter who they are and no matter what type of art that they will eventually want to purchase - must at least first see that work - compare it with other works that are available and they must of course also be able to think about that work before they even think about making a purchase or are able to afford the money to do so - and while they are doing that - I am continuously doing what it is that I think is the most important thing for me to do - and that is to continue creating - not just once in a while - but on a continuous basis - since no matter how many images that I have created already there is always more and more that I can create both in order to improve - if there is such a thing as improving - but also in order to explore and become skilled at expressing that which lies within -

Layers by layers

Our observations cherish the various layers of life when keenly focused. My Colours, and my life breathing through them makes a vow to relinquish sorrowes and live the dreams. The pride that follows after accomplishment gets poured on my canvas and hails the happiness.........

Pablo, of course it is...we are an international site and welcome all languages. Translate.google.com is my friend :-). Especially in support!

Welcome to the thread everyone.

Walter, something you said rang so true. We can traverse great distances to talk to each other via the web, and yet not know our neighbours. I'm actually friends with many neighbours through sites such as Nextdoor, and Helpful Peeps. We do jobs for each other and watch out for people. I would not have spoken to many of them if not for these sites. I now make a point of smiling at neighbours and saying hi. Community is very important.

Isabella - many people in New York City - are extremely busy - so much so that they do not have the time or inclination to talk with people - or so they say - but it is also an atmosphere here where many people - either those who live here or those 47 million or so souls who are visiting here are afraid - I know this since my main venue of marketing myself both for my art and by photography services is through handing out my business cards in the streets of Manhattan - I have given out over 6 million of these business cards so far since 1976 and I have experienced the different reactions of many people both those who live here as well as many people from different countries - and it is extremely interesting to experience the different moods and attitudes and ways that people react to me offering them my business cards since I have to offer a great many to a lot of people before a single soul accepts a card - but for me it is the original social media - where when I offer my card to a person and they are able to interact with me - right there on the spot out in the streets of Manhattan or wherever I happen to be handing them out - they have the ability to interact with me - on the spot - and many of them do and that is what makes this form of marketing so compelling for me - since I do get to meet a great number of people and over the years by doing this I have connected with and secured assignments from many many different people who I would never met otherwise and who would I would never have dreamt of getting work from - it is an absolute high if you will and I believe - extremely successful a way to cost effectively meet the world -

That's fantastic! Thank you for sharing.

Matthias Hauser: Photographer and Digital Artist (mainly Fractals), living in Germany.

Also: Husband, Father, Iceland fan, Chocolate lover, Pinterest Course Creator. No sports (but I love to do long hikes). Newest toy (best one ever): Donna the drone.

I haven't posted much on discussion forums even though I've been with FAA for over five years. Nevertheless, I believe I must post an introduction. I'm an artist, now retired. My two loves are writing and art My book; A Harvest of Thorns will soon be released and my art appears here on FAA. I'm hoping to keep active and positive throughout my golden years and keep the creative process going.

Hi Rudy,
Sounds like an interesting career -- cool stuff. I never had a clearance, which was fine with me, I worked for a civilian agency, but did some interagency agreements with various branches of the military. The work with the school system sounds like a headache. I've done things with schools, but only in my capacity as a parent, not professionally.

Try to keep it that way Cheryl, you live longer lol

It is nice to meet the team and members of the community. I have been diligently participating in groups and contests, adding to my galleries and marketing outside FAA, but not being terribly successful. I have won a number of ribbons for my paintings and photographic work, but sales are few. I need to be able to support my habbit, so I keep trying.

I can't seem to hone in on a particular style or subject to develop a recognizable style, but I am starting to lean towards more abstract impressionism.

Thanks to all the posts which have given me inspiration and kept me at it. I do enjoy visiting other artists' galleries and seeing such a variety of wonderful works. Many are like a travelog to places I will probably never get to visit.

Love you all, Susan, Abbie and Rudy. Way to go!

Thank you for introducing yourselves! I am pleased and reassured to be an entreprenuer whose business and creativity is being supported by such talented people!

First of all, thank you to all the FAA admin for the jobs they do and Sean and any other unknown, unseen programmers now helping out.

I am retired from telecommunications where the last dozen years were spent as a training instructor/developer, retiring in 2007.

Growing up... drawing and painting were always my major interests to which I've added many more over the years. I'm often drawn to the unusual and different.

When I joined the World Wide Web, this eventually led me to collecting examples of optical illusions. During internet searches, I came across 3D stereo and how anyone can create them. Until that time I had always liked them but had no idea how they were made. I joined several 3D Stereo Yahoo Groups where we shared info and images. It was a fast way to learn from connected people all over the world.

I began carrying a 3D camera with me and took a picture of someone who happened to be an FAA member. She recommended I consider joining. I joined in 2011 with intentions of only submitting 3D stereo images. A little out of the mainstream but that was par for the course with me. During the years since, I've switched focus on FAA to more traditional 2D art photography. I've been enjoying learning digital processing and learning through experimentation as I go.

Just want to say hello to Abbie, Rudy, and Susan .. thank you for being here for us

We are like a big family of artistic individuals that sharing love and passions of arts!


Sincerely,
-michelle-

I stop by these discussions often and once in awhile will post my thought or seek an answer to one of many questions I have.
Appreciate the effort put forth by all to make it a worthwhile experience to participate!
Thank you
Jim

I hate authority so I'm especially grateful and thankful that Abbie, Rudy and Susan are our moderators. They rule with humor, compassion, fairness, and way more patience than we deserve! Though JC has stepped down, I include him. We've seen the alternative and it ain't pretty!

All I can say about myself is that I've screwed off all my life and continue to pay the price. I'd like to blame it on my enablers but no one's had to twist my arm. Given a second chance, I'd make the same bone-headed choices.

Thank you all so much for sharing your stories. They all speak to me.

As I said before though, Abbie really deserves all the credit. Her love and dedication for this site, the forum, and the FAA community at large is unequaled

Wife and Mom from East Tennessee/Southwest Virginia... right on the line of both in states.
I have always been creative or tried to be. The original Captain Kangaroo debuted his show when I was 2 months old, so I grew up learning about making scenes in shoe boxes and making things out of cardboard and construction paper.
I let myself get distracted from my creative journey by an art teacher who told me I had no business being in her class, I had no abilities. Finally at age 50 I ventured out into the micro-stock world, then into POD's.
I turned 63 yesterday and learn something new about my craft nearly every day.
Thanks to Abbie and all the FAA/Pixels staff and crew for the opportunity to be here.

Hi Denise and a very happy (somewhat belated) birthday. !

I find these threads interesting. It's fun to see what's "lurking" in other people's backgrounds. We have had a couple of "What do you do for a living" threads for people who don't primarily live off their art sales, and there's always a fascinating range of careers. Also we've had a couple of "What are your hobbies that are not art related" threads, (I think I started one of those once), and those are pretty fascinating as well.

I manage a translation company - been doing that for 37 years and I still like it. I don't particularly translate myself, although I can translate to English from Spanish and French, and I do a lot of proofreading in those languages, but I organize the work for the appropriate translator and manage the projects from clients.

As for art, I started as a traditional oil painter, but raising two kids and doing massive overtime kind of put a stop to that. The last 25 years I have spent enjoying the art of photography and I like ALL subjects (except blood and guts and violence - and I don't shoot people because I'm terrible at it), but in particular bits of architecture and macros can really be a pleasurable experience for me. I also live in Michigan so most of what I've sold here are Michigan related - most of them involving water.

Thank you to the moderators for keeping these threads from becoming street brawls, some of which I witnessed when I first joined the site.

Thank you to the team for all you do to keep this site up and running, love your pretty profile pic Abby!!

Thank you, ladies and gentleman, for making this a great community! Best, Georgia

I'm not speaking English well enough to write more often in the forum discussions but I am reading nearly every day. Thanks to the community team who keeps the forum up and running and make it a pleasant, educational, and entertaining place to go.
Thank you Abbie, Susan, and Rudy for your great work!

Thank you Abbie, Susan and Rudy for keeping this a fun and informative place to visit! So glad Sean feels community is important too!

Love the community discussions and insights from others.
With their words of wisdom and experience.

I saw something on the board this morning that made me smile. Way to go, Rudy! Woot, Woot!

Thanks so Abbie, Rudy and Susan for the wonderful work you do here and Abbie I can't help but super admire you for the hard decisions you have to make here in your role as well as the way in which you conduct yourself as a FAA moderator.

Feeling especially sorry for Susan as I just watched a doco on TV called "Vitamania" which explained the awful symptoms of Vit D overdose....hope she's recovering well and will be back with us asap!

Thank you, Abbie, Rudy and Susan for your excellent work!

Blessing Abbie, Rudy and Susan.

Greetings Abbie, Susan and congratulations Rudy as a new staff moderator!!! Thank you all for your dedication as Fine Art America employee moderators in the site discussion forums!!! Wishing Susan the very best and a speedy recovery!!!

Cheers, Michael Hoard

Thank you for your wonderful work in the forums and in FAA generaly

what a wonderful way to meet so many people

Great to read about each of you, and to bump into an old friend in Walter.

After some fidgeting, I finally have a new free account looking ship shape and as I want it. Fidgeting is something I do a lot of. I learn by experimenting and experiencing the ups and the downs that come my way.

I am a retired systems engineer who went back to art college to study drawing for fine art practice. After a life time of creating solutions for other people, I am now creating art for myself. This FAA account is one of many spaces I have used to install my virtual outcomes. If interested, there are links available at REVAD.COM. There is also an artist statement and a CV.

Dave

I spent about 10 years as director of search engine marketing at a Philly online agency and was a huge affiliate for over 100 sites from personals to shoes, hot tubs and tulip bulbs.

In 2010 I was totally burned out and quit the agency but still did the affiliate thing for a few years on the road. The plan was to drive to Snowbird, UT to ski for two months and go find another cubicle. Then Mammoth 🐘 Mountain was skiing every day till July 4th so I put Mammoth into the GPS and headed out, got lucky and found a short term rental.

In Utah I discovered Moab and the parks down there and at Mammoth, Yosemite, Death Valley and everything in between. On the way back to Philly I figured what the heck, I’ll stop by some more parks and spent about a month in Yellowstone/Teton and a few other parks in the way back.

I started a blog at Snowbird and took snapshots for that for a few years and it got up to about 1,000 pages but it earned nothing so I stopped writing and just focused on photography in 2012.

For a while each year I look at dwindling finances and my age and think 🤔 hmmm, I should go find a regular job and start making money again. Then I think if I stay on the road for one more year I’ll see and do more (figuring the average corporate job realistically provides two weeks a year when you can actually take a real vacation) in the next year than most cubicle dwellers will be able to do in the next 26 years and I put it off for another year.

So far the trip has covered 225,000 road trip miles in the US and Canada, every national park in the lower 48 states, multiple visits to most of them. Endless travel through the Canadian Rockies and much of southern British Columbia.

There’s been well over 1,000 nights sleeping in the front seat of a Subaru Outback in random places, hundreds of Hostel nights in Canada and the US, hundreds of nights camping and a luxurious Motel 6 or Econo Lodge when I’m desperate and there is nothing else around.

If photography gets to the point where it pays all the bills by the end of next year then who knows what the future will hold. If not then I’ll have to snap back to reality and go find something that does pay the bills.

I love you all. I am an artist by night and an executive assistant at the Ministry of Education by day. So I am a militant night owl for the love of art. I am also a stork as I live in North Africa (Tunisia) during winter and in France during summer. I don't have a studio as I paint everywhere in and around the house just for the sole reason to be surrounded by my children and wife always. To wrap it up, my life is a paradoxical mess.