response to artfuldodgerish & rhomany comment exchange

ok, writing this with a lot of sadness in my heart, but really wanting to respond and attempt to truly CONNECT over this.

as some of you know, rhomany will be running a course on my ning network soon and recently received the following comments on her video:

from: ArtfulDodgerish
LOL such a Tam wannabe even down to the gloves and fan paintbrush - don't tell me you've been using them for years. YAWN

reply from: RhomanysRealm
I'm not going to dignify that an answer other than to say I'm amazed that you think Tam would allow someone else teaching on her network who was merely copying her.
Think what you like dear. Other people, including Tam herself, know otherwise.
Thank you for taking the time to watch & comment.

from: ArtfulDodgerish
Tam is the sweetest person, she has no agenda unlike some of her followers (yes I mean you, amongst others). She is sweet and niave and unaware that you are just jumping on her bandwagon and riding her gravy train.

Most people who joined the willowing network joined to connect with Tam, to work with Tam and to learn from Tam, not to have to listen to your comments on everything and your point of view and how wonderful you are at everything. You haven't been at it for years as you profess.

Oh and perhaps you should get a wide screen camera too, real life video can be quite scary compared to those edited pictures you use on your blog and avatars!

Good Luck with your workshop, I think you will need it because it is quite weird to see you learning on a course yourself and then regurgitating and rebadging it as a course yourself (and quickly creating a youtube account to back up your creditials) a few weeks later.

Of course I may be wrong, Tam might be totally self aware and happy for you to join the gravy train and together fleece as many people as possible with the same content over and over. I'm sure she is in for a cut of proceeds.

Never done one of her courses myself but have been told they are little loose on structure and content.

Good Luck!

reply from: RhomanysRealm
I suppose my Flickr account set up in January 2007 with art journal pages and ATCs dated as far back as 2005, and my Elfwood account from 2003 are figments of my imagination then.

If you're going to try and put someone down at least do your research. You might start by asking Tam whether she asked if I wanted to teach a course.
For someone who dislikes what I do so intently you do seem to spend an inordinate amount of time fretting over it.

---

quite a few things come up for me when reading the above comment chain (having been accused of similar 'crimes' myself, this is painful to see happen to someone else) and i'm commenting back here in my blog as youtube has a 500 character limit - feel free to respond back here in the comment section.

first up, artfuldodgerish (gonna call you art for short if that's ok, how fitting! ;)), if i may try to connect with you!

what i'm hearing you say is that perhaps you're irritated or annoyed when you hear that rhomany will be running a course on my site as you'd like there to be integrity and authenticity in your world and you somehow hold the judgement that rhomany is copying some of my work or my "styles" which wouldn't be in line with being authentic. is that right?

something else you're bringing up sounds like you're irritated around the fact that people are wanting to connect with me on the willowing network but are now somehow being asked (or encouraged) to connect with someone else as well who they perhaps were not interested in connecting with in the first place. i'm guessing this is about being seen/ heard & acknowledged?

wondering what you're hearing me say when you read the above 2 paragraphs?

i would prefer to first hear your response to what i've said so far, but as we're not face to face and i don't know when you'll respond, i'd like to let you know what was going on for me when reading your comments. i'd like to explain beforehand to optimise a sense of connection with you rather than division/ polarisation that this does not come from a judgement paradigm, but from a; 'letting you know what is alive in me' type way of expressing. i'm hoping this can be heard without you seeing it as naive or an "on the fence" way of communicating, i am perfectly capable of being a 'right-wrong warrior' but i choose not to be in order to find a way to really create a deeper understanding between all of us. (hope that makes sense! :-))

ok, so when i read the comment thread between you and rhomany i was feeling pretty sad & deflated as i so very much value respect, care and consideration for people in general in life, which isn't something i could find in the comment exchange. i was also feeling frustrated around some of the statements made as i value clarity, understanding, for my intention to be seen, fairness and justice. when i read some of the statements made, the frustrations came from noticing many factual inaccuracies (justice/ fairness/ to be seen for who i am/ and who rhomany is).

so for clarity, i'd just like to respond to some of the statements you made, again, this is simply for clarity so that you (and others) can understand how the sequence of events have actually happened.

rhomany has from the start of my ning network been one of the most active users on the site, always responding to other people with helpful tips and advice, at some point, i asked her to become an administrator on the site to help with issues once i was going to be on 'maternity leave'.

administrators on my site get free access to all courses as a way of compensation and me saying 'hey thanks'. rhomany had not intended to follow my art journal course, but as it was free to her; she attended because she could and it was free [ie: she did not sign up to the course in order to re-run it (it was a take it or leave it option for her) and her course has a completely different focus to mine - the course works great as a follow up to my art journal course in fact]

there are quite a few other ning sites that have a team of artists running different art courses, and i liked the idea of having a few different people running courses on my site as well! as rhomany always seemed to have such a wealth of information in her head and as she was always so helpful on the my ning site, plus i was aware of her work as an art teacher with special needs kids, i thought of her to perhaps run a course on the site, she herself had also wanted to do so and we more or less sent each other an email on the same day suggesting the idea! [ps. i was aware that rhomany hadn't taught online and that she didn't have a youtube account yet, but i did not think that would sit in the way of her teaching online. rhomany does not claim to have online teaching experience as such, she claims to have taught children 'in real life'

because i've been so grateful for rhomany's support throughout my time on ning, i do not charge her for running the course on my site. it was -again- a way of saying 'thank you', and also, i enjoy helping out other artists and people who are just setting up or 'in need'! - i am intending on having more people run courses in the future on my site (and perhaps i will charge something in the future, but at this point, i just enjoy contributing to others this way!), and anyone who's interested in running a course is welcome to approach me! (not saying that i can give a spot to everyone, but i am totally open to seeing what people have to offer), i love the idea of having a team of artists all teaching a variety of courses - i have already offered another artist to run a course on the site as well). HOWEVER, i've just become aware due to your comment (art) that some people might not like having other artists teach on my site as well, so i'm planning on doing a poll about that, i obviously, value what people want from the site, and i would've perhaps liked to have done that earlier, but it just didn't occur to me that people might not like this idea! so gonna check up on that.

i'm wondering if you're feeling any different reading the above list?

i'm also imagining that rhomany can't be feeling quite that happy after the comment exchange and i'm experiencing a concern for her. i imagine she'd like her intentions to be seen for what they are and that she'd like to be understood, respected and valued as well as you would probably like Art! (as all of us do).

i'm wondering how you heard all this and am wondering if you're willing to share what comes up for you, my request would be to avoid (in your response) as many judgements and accusatory statements as poss if you're comfortable doing that.

i'm fine with anyone jumping in on the comment chain but would again like to make the request of EVERYONE to attempt to express what is going on for you in such way that we avoid using moralistic judgements and/or accusatory statements (i know that isn't an easy request to make as most of all of us are not "trained" that way, but i think that that is the most fruitful/ effective and peaceful way to talk about painful stuff).

thanks for reading/ listening/ connecting.

willing & open to hearing what is going on for anyone/ everyone.

♥