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Humans are liable to experience a variety of afflictions, but they are commonly endowed with a capacity for happiness and respectability. There is no guarantee, however, that they will exercise this capacity at all times and to the maximum, whatever happens. Depression and shame remain a possibility, which increases with the severity of their afflictions and the difficulty of living up to the values that are necessary for their happiness and respectability: courage, efficiency, wisdom, and nobility.

Living up to these values is never easy, even under extremely favorable circumstances. It requires an effort of will. To make or not to make this effort is the question, central to the human existence. This question is difficult in proportion to the weight of suffering that bears on humans, while their dignity hangs in the balance. The more burdensome this weight, the more tempting it is for them to take the easy way out. The fear of losing their dignity, however, is a strong deterrent. There is no greater loss than that of dignity, save the loss of life itself. Yet, the easy way out is a very powerful temptation in extremely unfavorable circumstances. Giving up instead of living up to the values mentioned above is then deplorable but understandable. Excruciating circumstances are extenuating ones.

Art glass means the modern art glass movement in which individual artists are working to generate works from molten glass in relatively small furnaces of a few hundred pounds of glass. It began in the early 1960s and showed continued growth throughout the end of the century. The glass objects created are not primarily serviceable but are projected to make a sculptural or decorative statement.

Prior to the early 1960s, art glass would have referred to glass made for decorative use, habitually by teams of factory workers, taking glass from furnaces with a thousand or more pounds of glass. This form of art glass, of which Tiffany and Steuben in the U.S.A., Gallé in France and Hoya Crystal in Japan and Kosta Boda in Sweden are perhaps the best known, grew out of the factory system in which all glass objects were cast blown by teams of 4 or more men. In fact, the turn of the 19th Century was the height of the old art glass movement while the factory glass blowers were being replaced by mechanical bottle blowing and incessant window glass. In an art glass studio, “production work” shows more hand worked variation than was allowed in pure factory work environment and every piece shows some of the lead glass worker’s creativity. Most studio glass workers also try to turn out larger individual pieces which might be the corresponding of a master piece in the journeyman system of guild and factory work in addition to smaller production pieces.

As a symbol of longevity, amber may have been the first gemlike material used for personal adornment. Beads and pendants of this intriguing substance, the production of fossilized tree sap, have been found in prehistoric burials from as early as 15,000 years before Christ. Amber comes in different colors and is often opaque due to impurities that maxed naturally with the ancient sap. By the Bronze Age, amber was in such demand that it was traded with tin and copper along the major trade routes in the Middle East. The earliest written references to amber are in Homer’s Odyssey, from about 700 BC. The Greek word for amber was lektron, from which we get our word electricity, where amber was said to be the “solidified tears of the Helipads mourning the death of their brother”.

How to Promote Yourself as a Freelance Model

If you would rather promote yourself …

Some models would rather promote themselves instead of listing through an agency. Nothing wrong with this but it does require more work on your part.

If your are signed with an agency, they promote the business, they talk to the clients in your behalf, they set up the shooting dates, they take the heat if you don’t make it to the session, etc.

But, there are many models who are “loners” in the pool of modeling and want complete control over who they work with and why.

If you are one of these models, read on …

There are several ways to promote yourself. I will try to mention some ways for you to promote your modeling talent and a step by step format to follow.

First things first ..

In self promotion, the first step to take is putting together a professional portfolio.

Once you’ve followed the portfolio guidelines from above, it’s a good idea to have comp cards and business cards made.

A) Business Cards – Your business card should have as much information on it as possible. It’s not expensive to have extra words listed and this way you can include things other than the name and phone number.

For best results and at just a little extra cost, I would suggest putting your photo (preferably a headshot) on the card. People don’t tend to throw away photos as quickly as they do just cards. Below the photo (or on your card if you choose not to include the photo) you should list ..

Your name, contact phone number, email and don’t forget to put your web address on the card
You may want to also include in bulleted form your attributes (i.e. height and weight), special skills and the type of modeling you specialize in (your modeling strength area)
B) Composite Cards – You’ll definitely want to get composite cards (comp cards) made to hand out to possible clients / agents and to leave with clients or photographers you work with. A comp card is one of the least expensive pieces of printed promotional material but packs a big punch in saying, “I’m a professional model”.