Attached Link: Fractal Forum

If one of your images is chosen for the calendar, and you need help converting to CMYK format,  then I will be happy to assist.

All the information you need to submit is at www.fractalforum.com .

For those that have submitted, I thank you:)

Panny

The bloggers at Orbit Trap have repeatedly asked many specific questions seeking clarifications about how the Fractal Universe Calendar competition is run.

Our questions were not covered in the Fractal Universe Calendar's current web site's FAQ pages, which clearly state that "if you have any questions or queries regarding the process which have not been answered in the FAQs please contact Panny via the enquiry form."

We posted the questions on our blog. I also wrote the editor personally through the "enquiry form" -- as specified on the web site. Eventually, I wrote a letter and sent an email to Avalanche Publishing, the company that produces the calendar, and posed questions to them.

To date, we have had no reply at all from either the editor or the publisher.

Since the editor is posting a reminder about the calendar competition deadline here, I will use this opportunity to also remind her that our questions about the Fractal Universe Calendar remain unanswered and will use this opportunity to ask again: Will either the editor or the publisher please address the questions we have raised? If so, when? If not, why not?

Thank you.

Fractal Forum readers can view questions and trace the history of events pertaining to this year's Fractal Universe Calendar competition in these Orbit Trap posts:

Facelift

Incoming

An Open Letter to Avalanche Publishing

Never a Discouraging Word

and here are a few earlier posts touching on the Fractal Universe Calendar:

The Price of Professionalism

The Fractal Alternate Universe Calendar 2008

Again you've raised this topic. But in the first sentence you already got it wrong: it's not a competition. The publisher just picks the images they think will sell. Commercially, so not particularly artistic. As is stated on the website as well. If you don't want to be part of it, then don't.

I would like to thank the Orbit Trap bloggers for helping me to decide whether or not to submit my fractals last year for the 2009 calendar. Having not done a lot of fractaling for the past year and a half, I was originally not going to bother with it. However, after reading OT blog and realizing that the topic was apparently going to reiterate into infinity, all fractal-like--no matter the zoom level--I chose to submit a few entries of my fractals to the publisher. Imagine how surprised and pleased I was that one of mine was selected for December, 2009, and without the exposure to the writings from the Tim and Terry reiterators, this wouldn't/couldn't have happened. Really wish I had some to submit this year, but there's always next year.

Allow me to reiterate: Thanks guys! Typographical friction can work unexpected wonders!

Stephanie

I find it difficult to understand why this is still an issue, unless it is some Grand Guignol exercise in absurdity. 
To the Orbit Trap person...people, whatever, how long do you beat the horse before you realize it's long dead?  How many posts do you make before you realize nobody cares anymore.   But, because my internal censor is on leave of absence, I have to make a few comments, and feel free to attack me at will.

You make an issue out of the ethics of those who do not respond to your questions, comments and suggestions.   I say to you that some time back you made reference to something I said in DA, and you referred to me as "he".  I  privately emailed you to correct the mistaken notion that I am male.  I received no response, nor did you correct the error in your blog.  I have to question your ethics as you have done with others.   My female gender is of importance to very few, but it is of extreme importance to me.   Please correct your error.

The rest of these ridiculous issues with the calendar and Mandelbrot contest have frankly become tedious. 

By the way,I would have been happy to comment on Orbit Trap, but I don't care to make an account only to find that I'm banned.  (not that I wouldn't be in excellent company)

mountmous,

I’m afraid the actions of the editor and publishers do not match their words.  The Fractal Universe Calendar is indeed run using a competition framework.  The editor is actually a screener who prunes the initial submissions down to a more manageable number.  Images sent by the screener are then selected by “the publishing team” who act exactly like judges; they choose the “winners” who will appear in that year’s calendar.  Editors are paid with the standard stipend ($200 for an image or $400 for a cover) and one of their own images is also included in the calendar.  However, editors also have the option of including more of their own art (how much, we’ve asked without receiving an answer) into the whittled down samples that are sent on to the publishers.  Because of this arrangement, editors appear to enjoy insider privileges.  Just over 40% of the art in the Fractal Universe Calendar from 2004-2008 was the work of just four people: three former and one current editor.  Last year, one of the editors had two images included in the calendar -- including the cover.  He also collected $600 -- the largest payment made to any artist that year.  These facts raise questions of propriety tied directly to the manner is which the competition is managed.

If this operation were a professionally-run publishing venture, it would behave like one.  The editor would perform an editor’s duties and only contact artists individually to submit to the calendar.  The editor would then turn the solicited images directly over to the publisher.  The editor would be compensated (as in paid), but under no circumstances would the editor's work be included in the final product (or, in the case of the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest, would judges' work turn up in the exhibition).

We’ve made these points numerous times on our blog.

~/~

Stephanie,

You’re welcome.

But, as much as OT might like to take the credit, I don’t really think you can place your submission and inclusion in last year’s calendar at our feet.  After all, you were the one who made the decision to make fractal art that strictly adheres to the Avalanche Publishing aesthetic.  And do you always make artistic choices out of a need to spite people who are critical of some aspect of the fractal community?  I guess I believe that making art is more of a self-expression -- something that comes from within and reveals an artist’s feelings or thoughts or vision.  You seem to see creation as a vindictive, get-even response to ideas you dislike.

You also seem to imply that we desire the death of the calendar when in fact what we want is its rejuvenation.  We’d like to see the Fractal Universe Calendar run according to competition conventions commonly used in the broader art community.   We’d also like to see the FUC focus back on what it has always indirectly claimed to be: the best of the genre.  Nothing will change, though, as long as the editor(s) continue to subvert the whole process by using it for self-promotion, and the publishing company goes on making a profit through its public promotion of clichéd styles and imagery.

~/~

Beebee127,

Sometimes, it is difficult to discern a person’s gender on the Internet.  However, I have no record of ever receiving a personal email from you.  After reading your message here, I have corrected the mistake in the Orbit Trap post you reference.  I apologize for the error and for any discomfort you may have felt because of it.

The conversation you mention was at deviantArt and can be read here.  Fractal forum readers can visit and judge for themselves if I behaved rudely to you -- or, at any rate, was as discourteous as you are to me in this thread.

And now you say we will ban you before you’ve even left a comment.  I urge you (or anyone here) to comment on Orbit Trap and test whether that assertion is true.  Or perhaps such a claim is just an excuse for you and others not wanting to confront us and risk a rebuttal in our house rather than in this relatively safe forum where you believe your friends have your back.  It’s true we have banned several people -- but only after giving them plenty of time and numerous opportunities to engage in discourse.  I have also been banned from Keith’s MacKay’s blog and forum -- and after just one post.  I'm not upset about it; unfortunately, these things sometimes happen.  I bet some of the mods here at Renderosity have been known to occasionally ban members from time to time.  But if you believe we have a blanket policy of not allowing critical comments, you can disprove that theory quickly by stopping by and sharing your thoughts.  Assuming your remarks adhere to our comments policy, and you aren’t one of the chosen few who had their chance and blew it, you’ll see what you said.  But be aware that we are a private publishing enterprise and not a forum.  Moreover, we reserve the right to challenge what appears on our blog.

I’m sorry you find our pursuit of these “ridiculous” issues “tedious,” just as Stephanie worries that the topic will “reiterate into infinity.”  The editor and organizers have said nothing about our questions and have done nothing to correct any of our concerns.  So, I'll guess we'll keep on pointing out what seems obvious to us.  In the meantime, here’s a task that might help relieve some of the tedium.  Use your time constructively to present a rational, detailed explanation as to why so many people in the fractal art community insist that our art competitions are somehow exempt from using widely accepted practices (like not allowing the work of editors and judges to appear in competitions) -- practices that help insure fairness and professionalism.  I would really like to examine such an argument.

~/~

Please don’t get me wrong.  I am content to read and reflect on the thoughts of any Fractal Forum member.  Still, I’d like to point out that my post was really addressed to the Fractal Universe Calendar editor and/or publishers.  I would like to hear them comment on  the questions we’ve raised -- or understand why they refuse to speak to our inquiries.