KURIOLOGY Cornish Outsider Art Brut Sculpture creations are influenced by an eclectic interest in museum Cabinets of curiosities, Roman Greek mythology and their homoerotic male nude sculpture.
Other influences include dark macabre of Gothic, memento-mori, witchcraft artifacts, occult, and even steampunk
Unique & unusual items escaped from Kuriology Art Laboratory
Unique & unusual items escaped from Kuriology Art Laboratory onto eBay #Handmade, #Oddities, #FolkArt #Folklore Sculptures & Cabinet of Curiosity Creations
*’Art of Kuriology ‘– Self-taught disabled Outsider Artist *Museum & Gallery exhibited *Handmade in Cornwall *Primarily created from recycled materials
*International Shipping (40% of our sales go to overseas collectors) We have overseas collectors in the USA, Canada, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Hong Kong & Finland, New Zealand ...Oh, & the Isle of Wight. *Sells on eBay
Affordable, Original & Unique Outsider Art Sculpture
Kuriology make stuff from other stuff in our Art Laboratory. . Unique & unusual items: #Handmade, #Oddities, #FolkArt #Folklore Sculptures & Cabinet of Curiosity Creations
*’Art of Kuriology ‘– Self-taught disabled Outsider Artist *Museum & Gallery exhibited *Handmade in Cornwall, UK *Primarily created from recycled materials (EcoArt) *International Shipping (40% of Kuriology sales go to overseas collectors) We have overseas collectors in the USA, Canada, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Hong Kong & Finland…Oh, & the Isle of Wight.
My poor Kuriology blog. It has been a little neglected.
In part this is due to spreading myself a little thinly. An Etsy store, folksy store, ebay sales, twitter, tumblr, pinterest, google/mybusiness & the untimely death last year of my dear disability service dog. (NB: Although this is not really a business, but the downsizing clearing of creations made as a result of coping strategy for disability). Basically posting about all over the place without a proper plan or process.
Kuriology Cabinet of Curiosities Heart
Time to stop & access, or as dear old Fagin said -'reviewing the situation'.
The idea being that through Kuriology to keep myself, hands & more particularly my brain, cognitively occupied to suppress the impact of clinically & forensically clinically diagnosed agoraphobia, PTSD, anxiety & panic attacks. But not to stress myself out adversely.
Kuriology Feejee Mermaid
To a degree my self devised strategy works - mostly.
*Kuriology had held off from venturing into international sales due to the fiasco which is Brexit causing all sorts of strife & woe in the UK (Brexit = The result of trying to appease some right wing neo-nazi types in the British conservative party & now a concerning massing & manifesting of same ilk in the Brexit party).
There is genuine concern that Britain may be teetering on the brink of accidentally sliding into a quasi- fascist dictatorship under the rule of a privately & secretly funded party. One with no political manifesto other than that of those willing to follow a virtual cult of perceived personality!
Drinking pints in a pub does NOT make a man 'one of the people' - its just good PR for suckers & has been enabled by main stream media.
Eventually we said - 'to hell with it'...& we started listing Kuriology for international sales.
Kuriology Extinct Non-existent Species
Bingo-A result - Americans, Canadians, French, Belgians, Germans & Chinese have all been buying Kuriology creations.
Approx. 50% of all Kuriology listings are now selling overseas!? #WhoKnew?
To Snipe or not to Snipe, that is the online auction. whether tis noble to bid manually than use tech software.
Like many people back in the early 2000's, I fell in love with the ebay auctions.
The fun of bidding on an item which you may otherwise not find on the high street. The possibilities (frequent back then) of picking up it up as a real bargain. That was as a buyer.
One man (or women's) junk was another's treasure
As a seller, always the chance that your item would fetch far more than the value you yourself placed upon it.
However, I could not understand how sometimes I was pipped at the post in the bidding at the very last seconds. It was a few years before I was tipped off to 'sniping'.
Auction sniping is the practice, in a timed online auction, of placing a bid likely to exceed the current highest bid (which may be hidden) as late as possible—usually seconds before the end of the auction—giving other bidders no time to outbid the sniper. This can be done manually, by software on the bidder's computer,[1] or by an online sniping service.[2][3] Use of an online service is said to decrease the failure rate of the snipe, because the website has more reliable servers and a faster Internet connection with a less variable delay in sending data (jitter), allowing the bid to be placed closer to the deadline, even arriving within the last second.
Yes, I admit to having my own free snipe account. This 'free' account enables me to bid on up to x5 different items a week using snipe technology free. I tend to only use snipe on items which tend to have a higher value or I 'really' want to stand a good/better chance of winning, but do not want to run bidding up early on in an online auction.
Also, using snipe tends to reduce risk of falling victim to 'shilling' bids. These are bids placed by the owner of the object for sale or placed by an associate of theirs to artificially inflate the bid value of an object.
Shilling bids Sniping closes a loophole to fraudulent practice by ashill(an agent for the seller, which may be another account of the seller) to raise the bid to the maximum. They then hope the original bidder will increase their maximum bid even by a small amount to win the auction. The danger to the seller in this case is that the original bidder may not choose to increase their bid, leaving the seller with a futile transaction (selling the item to themselves) which will often still incur a fee from the auction service. Bidding at the last moment prevents a shill bidder from pushing the auction higher, as they have no time to make the incremental bids required.
Many a person I have spoken with have not clearly understood 'how' auctions work & know nothing of shilling bids or sniping. Often bemoaning how they had been winning an absolute bargain item all week at auction to suddenly loose it in the last few seconds to a higher bid.
The bottom line is he/she who is willing to bid most at auction - wins.
...but in my experience sniping can sometimes help you win!
PS. There is also BIN sniping (BIN = Buy it Now), but that's another kettle of fish altogether & not related truly to last-sec online auction sniping.
Kuriology blighted by aliens or a glitchy computer in December. So a belated Happy New Year 2018
Kuriology Alien Taxidermy
Were we attacked by aliens?
As December 2017 progressed, so our Kuriology computer struggled more and more with gliches and gremlins.
A Windows routine update end of November, beginning of December wiped out access to windows movie maker. Things just went down hill from there & became progressively worse
Fortunately, we had already planned not to list any further Kuriology sculptures for sale in the three week run up to Christmas. The need to deal with Christmas, in particular, needs of an increasingly frail & utterly dependent elderly relative, coupled with a temperamental computer meant some things had to go on hold. Some thing had to give - Kuriology blog being one of them.
We carried out various procedures, pseudo voodoo rituals & mock exorcisms over the computer. Tinkered with it, threatened it & swore offensively at it. More practically, we ran various software repair packages.....& eventually a modicum of computer normality was achieved. Even a convoluted method to sometimes access windows movie maker returned -.... sometimes?
The good news, Kuriology is back for 2018 & with more curious & weird sculptures being released for sale primarily via ebay.co.uk
NB: We still have listings on Etsy, however sales were very slow in comparison to eBay. At a ratio of just £1 of sales on etsy to every £10+ realized on eBay. To be fair Etsy remains primarily a North American sales outlet. Kuriology hope/intend to venture into some international sales later this year.
For the last few years (more than a decade+) Kuriology sculptures were created 'not' with the objective or purpose to sell, but to meet a desperate need of being creative whilst the artist is/was disability housebound & with additional family duties as a full time career to an elderly relative, and still is on both accounts. (NB. Except I now Have a Disability Service Dog to enable me to leave the house).
A huge number of Kuriology sculptures have now been created, never with an end consumer or client in mind other than solely for the artist them-self = me, The Kuriologist!
Now primarily due to the need to create some space (hundreds & hundreds of sculptures occupy a LOT of space), some of the sculptures have/are being sold on. Commercially, economically some of the Kuriology sculptures have been sold to-date at a rate which after commissions & costs, would barely cover an hourly rate for UK minimum wage. However, income was never the original objective or purpose for creating Kuriology Art.
Being someone who enjoys a bargain myself & who has won at auction the occasional item well under its actual worth, it is only karma that some of my sculptures should sell to a lucky few for far less than the man hours which have gone into the creation of the said object. Listing an item at a 'come and get me' price well below cost, is what I believe is termed as a 'loss leader'. The purpose to draw buyers into viewing & considering other further objects Kuriology has offered for sale at more realistic price (for the seller). It can also be fun, entertaining & even nerve wracking for me watching a Kuriology item slowly creep up in bid price (or not).
Most Kuriology sculptures have been created just to please myself as the artist, just for fun (or some might say therapy). But now that more than a few dozens have been sold I have felt the insidious creep of beginning to try to second guess what is commercially viable. What someone else may want to buy - Stop!
Sculptures I did not think would sell have whistled away quicker than greased lightning & things I thought would be snapped up, bid up at auction & even fought over with frenetic bidding, have languished. Bringing me to the conclusion as the Kuriology artist I should continue with my original purpose of creating - simply to please myself!
What has been really wonderful, is gaining some true fans of Kuriology Art & even Kuriology Art collectors. I'm told that a person who owns three Kuriology Art sculptures is - 'an enthusiastic fan'
.....but someone who owns five or more Kuriology sculptures....is 'a Kuriology Art Collector'.
I am delighted that I now have a number of both enthusiastic fans & several Kuriology collectors!
ebay.co.uk has proven fruitful, etsy, err, not so much. Thesaleroom.com has been stunning in monetary amounts realized for individual pieces. Bricks & mortar galleries, as well as museum sales have slow ticked pendulously like a long case clock.
Inquiries to buy Kuriology sculptures have come from persons in France, Canada, USA & Japan. Thank you, and I am sorry to have had to disappoint at this time overseas interests. My personal circumstances are such I do not wish to overstretch myself in complexities of international taxes, duties, couriers, customs & excise. That will inevitably change in hopefully the not to distant future (watch this space, well, blog), but for now Kuriology Art sales will remain UK based.
The original title was 'what to make, where to sell it & who too'?
Q. So what to make?
A. That which enthralls, entertains, challenges & interests me as the Kuriology artist
Q. Where to sell?
A. Through those portals which best suit my own limitations, requirements & time constants
Q. Who too?
A. Persons who appreciate the quirky, individual, different, unique....& that can be anybody!
As a teenager I voraciously consumed by reading nearly every science fiction & science fantasy book that I crossed paths with.
Buying a new pulp book each time a new title appeared on the book stand of the railway station newsagent in the under pass through which I went on my way to school
This was how I spent my earnings from my evening paper round (to lazy to get up early for a morning paper round), SciFi books, along with ten No.6 fags every day, the school boys cigarette of my time. I still have several dozens of those now quite tatty paperback books.
Moorcock, Heinlien, Herbert, Asimov, Clarke, Dick, Guin, Anderson, Bradbury, Niven, to name a few. It was ever the likelihood that such consumption would have an effect upon both thinking & development as a teenager and does seem to have lasted a lifetime.
...as has the smoking, but Players No.6 cigarettes stopped production long ago.
Inevitable that in the Kuriology Art Laboratory of GM (gently manipulated) species, an alien plant or two would be created at some stage.
The good news, they don't need watering or feeding, don't grow any bigger & still look like they may might just consume your neighbors cat for lunch
The one in the video has been listed on ebay.co.uk. At the time of writing it has bids & will sell.
Most of us have at one time been stumped when faced with getting a gift for someone which requires being something really unusual, completely off-the- wall, bonkers mad & utterly strange
....especially for Secret Santa!
Then there are the people we need to get gifts for who already seem to have 'nearly everything. Not to mention - 'The Collectors'....whose tastes are, well sometimes a little strange & may be teetering on the edge of what is socially acceptabile.
Kuriology has Good News for gift givers! In all probability their target gift recipients won't yet have acquired weird & wonderful, quirky & bizarre creations from Kuriology.
...and sometimes those of us who actually like the peculiar, strange & quirky need to reward ourselves. Socks, ties & underpants are completely practical, but what was really wanted was something strange....say like a triffid, or trilobite or a big turtle?
Part of Kuriologist's own 'Cabinet of Curiosities' - Kuriology
Yesterday the sun shone, it was a beautiful autumn day & the computer was throwing a major hissy glitch fest of epic proportions. The wizards in the Microsoft towers were obviously casting spells again, I think.
In such circumstance the best thing to do is take Tik-ma-dog for a good long two hour plus walk. Refreshed by a 4 mile+ Cornish countryside bimble, a good proper cup of coffee at a favored watering hole garden centre. Then return home to do battle & continue one sided swearing session with computer. Google Chrome seemed to be the primary villain yesterday.
Tumblr is new to me, or more accurately I tried it once before but could not get on with it,
.... however, Now!
Part of Kuriologist's own 'Cabinet of Curiosities' - Kuriology
Tumblr is seemingly on the surface SO MUCH EASIER to use than Google+.
Google+ seems to be based on witchcraft & ritual computer magic, as be damned if I can work it out & it is certainly not an intuitive social media platform for an old fossil like me to use.
So Tumblr it was, & whilst ferreting & furtling around on the site I learned a new term. 'Vulture Culture'. This follows hot on the heels of another recently term I've learned, 'Oddities' collections. Both seem to be primarily terms in use on the other side of the pond in USA & Canada.
Part of Kuriologist's own 'Cabinet of Curiosities' - Kuriology
Now 'Vulture Culture' is not to be confused with a 'Culture Vulture'...confused?
A Culture Vulture is a person (generally UK middle class) who is an avid follower of the Arts, as inmusic, art, theatre, ballet, etc.:
Where as 'Vulture Culture' is seemingly the practice of collecting, gathering of dead things, bones, skulls, taxidermy, natural history objects, Memento mori, even paleontology (fossils), conchology (shells), etc.
From what I have observed from a straw poll of profiles, seemingly this 'Vulture Culture' practice seems to primarily appeal to several demographics, ie. collecting of curious things has always appealed to the young between 6 - 13yrs of age group, but also inquiring minds, goths, persons of any age but of an eccentric inclination, also almost anyone connected to museums, artists (or creative people in general). Interestingly, appealing equally (by profiles viewed) to those of such inclination in both male & female genders.
Part of Kuriologist's own 'Cabinet of Curiosities' - Kuriology
This 'Vulture Culture' practice links & leads to 'Oddities' collections, which in general tend to house aspects of the aforementioned dead things, but also may stray & bleed into such areas of including anatomical models, anatomy, macabre, medical & scientific objects, gothic, occult, witchcraft, folk art, tribal items, etc. etc.
eccentric, unnatural, grotesque, mysterious, occult, wonderful, etc. are best summed up for
me by one term
'Kuriology'
Because as the actress Maureen Lipman said, when playing a dotting Jewish Grandmother in a 1998 old former British Telecom advert - 'if you get an 'ology', your a scientist'
If you are foreign, don't remember or are too young,
the link to British Telecom - 'Ology' advert is below
Finally made it to the 'Alternative Visions' exhibition of Outsider Artists. This touring exhibition throughout 2017/18. The 1st Art Exhibition to which The Kuriologist has submitted work. Although not one of the final artworks selection, a Kuriology sculpture is still featured in the exhibition. Yay! (*Does happy dance)
The quality of work of the exhibits was to my mind excellent, refreshing & art to which mostly I could actually relate too. This was not high brow, arty-farty, bourgeoisie conceptual art bullsh*t, which I have unfortunately come to expect from so many art? exhibitions. So many galleries I have seen conceptual work? which actually excludes me far more than it draws me in to engage with it.
This for me was an exhibition of real art, by real people, untrained, raw, & outside of the academia of a generally pretentious & excluding art world, which I personally believe ostracizes more people from art & its ultimate enjoyment.
I was delighted to find this video on youtube of some of the exhibiting artists & their work
Now I did have to look really hard to find the tiny screen which was displaying some of the x300+ other artworks submitted to the 'Alternative Vision' exhibition. I dutifully stood & watched as equally good work to that which made the final cut slid past my eyes a few seconds at a time.
*It is always a joy to be able to instantaneously recognize a piece of work by an artist when one is not expecting to see it. I recognized a stylized painting of two birds in flight by Peter from Redwing gallery in Penzance, in Cornwall
Kuriologist submitted sculpture to 'Alternative Vision'
The above image is the sculpture I submitted to the exhibition. One of many pseudo anatomical species museum exhibits I have created. Ironically many have now actually been museum exhibited at Helston Museum in June of this year (2017).
Museum Exhibited Kuriology Insects
Why was The Kuriologist one of the submitted artists to 'Alternative Visions'?
I have a full clinical & forensic diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder, suffering from catastrophic trauma, severe anxiety, panic attacks & a form of people related agoraphobia. It left me housebound for ten years & my art creations, self taught, kept me engaged with life.
The 'Alternative Visions' exhibition organised by Outsidein. Thank you Outsidein.
Venues and dates for 'Alternative Visions' Exhibition:
