New You Tube Video - HARO

Sculptor Bridgette Mongeon shares a wonderful resource for marketing and the media. HARO- Help a Reporter Out. www.helpareporter.com

You are welcome to copy this you tube video to your site or blog. I might suggest instead you copy the blip.tv player. It is a better sound and better visuals, and I think the player is nicer. It also has a nice HARO graphic as the cover page for the video. It can be found on my home page. http://www.creativesculpture.com or on my blip tv site at www.creativeendeavors.blip.tv it is also on my Facebook page.

Or if you look to the left of this page you will see a list of my blip.tv videos and Haro is the first. Click on that icon and it takes you to the creativeendeavors.blip.tv site.

If you want to send someone someplace to view the video you are welcome to send them here. I'd love to have the traffic to my fine art web site!

What is it like to sculpt the Famous?

People often ask me what it was like to sculpt someone famous. Really it is the same as sculpting anyone else. Each subject adds their own nuances to the sculpture.

Many of those in the music industry have had people trying to take a piece of them their entire carriers, if that has hardened them to others then it will make my job much more difficult. Because remember, I am trying to capture much more than a likeness, I am trying to capture the essence of an individual.


For example B. B. King was wonderful to work with. Bill Monroe on the other hand was a harder nut to crack. I was able to soften him up a bit, even to the point where he hit me in the arm with his elbow as we were walking from the Grand Ole Opry.

Minnie Pearl was approaching, and Bill said, “Tell er watcha doen, tell er wathcha doen.” It was the first time he showed real emotion over the scupture.

I have enjoyed not only the sculpting of those who are famous, but also the research about them. I love history, and studying about an individual is a study in history. Especially if they have played roll in shaping that history, either politically, like Jesse Jones, or musically like B. B. King Willie Nelson, and Bill Monroe.

A funny story about B. B. King

I was a sitting, next to B. B. King, calipers in my lap and I said, “Mr. King, I will have to touch you in this sitting.”

I know some people have a problem with people touching them especially their face, so I thought I should say something.

He replied, “Oh darling, you are already touching me!”

I looked at the calipers in my lap and him and said, “I don’t know what you mean.”

He said, “Your thigh is against my thigh and believe me the thrill is not gone!”





I love my stories about sculpting.

By the way, I equally enjoy sculpting for those people who just think their subject is a star!

Great Resource! Help a Reporter Out!

I have to tell you about this great resource. I’m about to release a video on it, but thought I would share a bit of the script here.

It is called HARO.
HARO? HARO? What the heck is a HARO?

It is simple it is an acronym for Help a Reporter Out. It is another great resource and definitely something to check out.

Peter Shankman, CEO, Entrepreneur, adventurist and cat lover started this simple Face Book page to help out some of his reporter and friends that were looking for sources. Instead of having to cull through his list of names he developed the Face Book page, and well it grew so quickly he moved it to http://www.helpareporter.com.

If you are writer working on a story, or have a podcast and are needing guests maybe you just have an online blog and want to get some real meat into your blogging. Then fill out the form on helpareporter.com.

Or maybe you are a PR firm that has many different clients that you represent. Then you can request to be added to the HARO mailing list and three times a day you will get requests for sources. All you need to do is find some that fit your clients.

Now I’m not a huge PR firm, I’m just a sculptor and writer work on my own public relations for my fine art sculpting, gift line, and speaking engagements that I do on marketing in the arts, and oh yes, I write articles. So I signed up. As of this date I have worked on both ends. I have given interviews on being a caregiver for an elderly parent, a female sculptor and entrepreneur, fostering animals in my home, being a women techy and of course art.

Three times a day I cull through the listings to see if anything fits, I want my reply to be on target. Can I really help this journalist? I need to be very careful. It is just good PR form not to send my stuff to everyone. And we all want to be very careful not to abuse this wonderful resource.

A few weeks ago I used HARO on the reverse end. I had a quick deadline on and article that I was writing and was looking for resources on a subject that I thought no one would be able to help me with. Writing an article about the Orphans work act. I went to the site and filled out the form and a very short time later I was inundated with sources, all in time for my next day deadline. Be prepared to file those resources. I’ll tell you they come fast. It made my job so much easier as a writer.

How much does all of this cost? FREE! Peter Shankman says that it is worth it for him to take time out of his day to put the list together, after all he gets a great deal of publicity out of it. Now if you want to donate remember he is an animal lover he has no problem with you sending a few bucks to such places as Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, or the National Dog Foundation. What a guy GO SHANKMAN! And thanks for HARO.

Pass the word and let others know about the resources. Having the list grow can only help both writer and source!

New podcast is now up! - Inspirations

As stated in an earlier post, I have been learning about creating podcasts. The podcast series has two channels, one called Creative Endeavors, featuring topics on art and another called Inspirations, about things of spiritual nature. ( creative endeavors podcast is not up yet, I'll let you know)

I started the podcast for Inspirations to help other people and to help promote my collectible series God's Word Collectibles.

I have been focusing on the Inspirations channel which features a show called Generations. Three generations of Christian women sharing their thoughts about different issues and aspects of life. The women... My mom and my daughter, and myself. I has been a great deal of fun, and very interesting to hear what each generation thinks and is going through and how we compare. We have recorded our first 10, and have the first 4 up on the God's Word Website. You can go to the main God's Word Collectibles web site front page and click on blog/ forum. Or go directly to the blog

Sure would love to know what other think!

Giving blood can make a baby dance!

I guess I never had an example of what giving blood can do. It can make a baby giggle, and dance!

My client, in case you have forgotten about this commission, I'll post another picture here

My client posted this short audio.

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In it she describes the fight her little baby went through with childhood leukemia, and just how her receiving blood made a difference. Jenna passed away not long ago and I have created this sculpture that will sit at her grave site. If you have not thought about giving blood, this short audio may just change your mind. When you do give blood, maybe you will have a vision of a little baby, kicking his/her feet up in a dance, just like Jenna.

Deadlines postponed- Sculpture is in pieces!

The sculpture unveiling is rescheduled for the end of September. Which will be a great time to visit Vermont, where Dick Hathaway is going. We figured a September unveiling would bring more people. While visiting the foundry the other day I took this picture. I'm creating a video on the casting process and will post it soon. It is hard to believe that the sculpture is cut into so many pieces and put back together again.

Every creative person should read this article!

Here is the new article at Best of Artist and Artisans "You Could Lose your Rights" Please do not take my word for what the government is about to do to our rights as an artist, writer etc. Check out the links in this article. I have included many resources.

Pulling my hair out

One to one are classes that Apple offers. They are great just $90.00 a year and you can go in and meet with a mac person about anything one to one for an hour. I have learned a lot in the last year, as shown by the former post. Just thought I would give you a photo montage of my session. Notice the sign over my head in the las photograph says, "No pain, all gain."

always learning

Besides sculpting, writing and working on the many different contracts, I have been learning. For seven months now I have been working on putting podcasts together. It is incredible to think of all that I have done. There will be two different podcasts, one for my God’s Word line called Inspirations and the other on art called, what else Creative Endeavors. I keep thinking, “ I feel like I have done so much.” After making this list it is hard to believe I could do all of this and work on such tight deadlines downstairs in the sculpting studio. You probably can tell that my husband and I work all of the time. It is great to love what you do and have a studio near our home.

I am thrilled that this is almost together. Maybe If I put some links then it might help others who are wanting to do a podcast.

• Learned what a podcast was
• Found Adam Weiss page and bought an old iriver on ebay to use while I was waiting for new equipment
• Tried to learn I river, recorded a few things while waiting for new equipment
• Bought a new mac computer
• Scheduled several one to one sessions with Apple to learn audio,
• Learned Garage band, Free audio editing software that comes with a Mac. ( it is funny I have had this for years and I thought it was a game or something. )
• Reviewed microphones
• Purchased the Samson C01U, and pop filter (actually requested it as a gift from husband, thanks hubby)
• Tried to use my own boom arm, didn’t work, tried to make a boom arm that would attach to desk, didn’t work, bought a HEIL boom arm it also came with a spider mount. I am a happy camper
• Tried to figure out how to do a podcast with three people via phone
• Got a skype account
• Purchased Audio Hijack Pro(AHP) ( found this guys post about doing podcasts using sKype and AHP

Posted a bunch of questions, as I was trying to figure it out.
• Still working with AHP techs trying to get better sound
• Scheduled advanced audio sessions with apple
• Studied how to market podcasts
• Recorded 9 podcasts for God’s Word Collectibles
• Edited all of those podcasts
• Tried to find music for podcasts
• Was rejected by one artist but got something even better from Harry Sheppard
• Needed voiceover for commercial begged one person, waited a month and again Harry Sheppard came to my rescue.
• Researched servers for podcast hosting, along with learning about bandwidth etc. Settled on Libsyn, designed libsyn page, figured out how to make two separate podcasts under one libsyn account, complete with rss feed.
• Purchased the url Spotonradio.com
• Paid someone to make a blogger page look like my merchants account page at the God’s Word website http://www.godsword.net so no one would know they were off of the site, unless they look at the url
• Tried to upload podcasts to review sound
• Needed to learn how to make podcasts into CD format so those not having a computer could listen to them.
• Created art for cover of podcast
• Created art and CD sleeve
• Purchased CD labels and created them
• Learned about meta data
• Have had to tell 3 publications that were interested in promoting the God’s Word podcast, It will be up soon.
• Prepare press releases for podcasts

There are still things I need to do, of course promotion of the podcasts once they are up. The copy is going to the proofreader tomorrow, and the podcasts for the God’s Word website are in the hands of my co-hosts, or soon will be for their approval. This is a technicality that we will do away with once we get going with these.

• Learn how to bring them from libsyn and put them on my God’s Word site
• Learn how to make these easy for download
• Get an I tunes account and put the podcast on their through I tunes

Thrilled about learning and absolutely thrilled about these podcasts. It is a great marketing tool for God's Word, and a wonderful way to share art related information with others.

Bridgette