the creative times

[jeanniezelos]

the great value of forums is to share experiences such as yours Lucy. we thought it sounded a bit iffy and now we know that tho prob not a deliberate scam it was once again a case of big ideas but no experience

if you have a contact for "bird/river whatever" you can claim against him for your £200 in the small claims court but you need to know he's in a position to cough up else you'll have wasted your money taking action and we all have too little of that to waste. It costs something like £30-40 but you add that to your claim so he has to pay that as well as the 200 owing ( as he's not produced the mag as promised then its a simple breach of contract and you get your money back.) If you can find him it might be worth asking for your money back and saying if he doesn't cough up you'll take court action - if he wants to continue at some point in the future he won't want to have a court order hanging over him. thats certainly worth a go first - if you want some sample letters there are some to be found on the wbe - i'll have a quick shifty...
here's some info - there's loads more on the web.

and a Gov site here where you can do it all online..https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/csmco2/index.jsp

[BirdTheArtist]

Hello

Bird here. Just read peoples comments, thanks for the nice ones! OK, I shall post the final comment on this stream.

I produced a mini run of the Creative Times, it was 64 pages full colour A4 and pretty blooming good actually. Tried to get more funding to take it to a full run of thousands but by then the economy was collapsing and it became too difficult. I also had my hands full with a new baby girl.
So I also posted it online and emailed everyone in it explaining the situation.
I felt I hadnt done as good a job as I hoped so offered refunds to anyone who wanted one. ( About a dozen artists had paid, I ended up charging about £95 a page I think.) I made refunds to those who wanted one.
The website no longer exists because the domain expired and I didn't want to continue or expand the project.

As a concept I stand by it. Artists can easily self publicise and promote, if they work together. ( Not one trying to organise everything and everyone else!)

Some call this a vanity project, but what could be vainer than needing anyone else to love and validate your work? It's just business, and art, and trying to do something good.

Thanks all for the experience, onwards and upwards. www.BirdLoveGod.com

x