My Bliss Body – an experiment

I would like to tell you about an experiment:

At the end of August 2020 I received an unexpected email from the PR manager of an international brand “Blissbody”, saying: “We came across your Instagram profile “hannalie.t”, and LOVE your style. We’d love to have you as one of our Brand Ambassadors. To celebrate our new Sportivo collection, we want to give you a FREE pair of leggings so you can post a picture of you wearing them and drive more exposure to our brand. Being an Ambassador will also get you commission from the sponsored post(s)! An easy way of making money with Instagram! I’ll leave below some key points:…”

Yours truly wearing Bliss Body leggings with my artwork in the background titled: “Little masochist”.

At first I was very sceptic, because one has to be it feels these days, since news about scams are all over, which makes it very hard to trust people. But I decided to do some research into this brand before making assumptions. I had a thorough look at their Instagram account and their website. Wondering why have they ‘chosen’ me based on my Instagram:

"And on a farm, the strangers lived happily ever after.

Final week to catch my solo show: "Eugenics " @mcontemporary .

"The unicorns were captured near a small house in the forest and lived happily ever after. "

"The Good fairy visited the mother and the father and said: " One day, this child will prick her finger on a unicorn's horn ."

I don’t really have anything in common with their brand, perhaps just ‘yoga’ but I don’t post pictures of myself doing yoga – I’m way to sensitive about my body especially after picking up so much lockdown-weigh AND I stopped smoking- which only makes me want to nibble all the time.

Personally I don’t spend that much on my ‘outfit’ – yes I love wearing leggings underneath my thrift-store dresses, but theirs is quite expensive when translated to Rand.”

But if one day I do decide to become brand conscious, I could get 40% if I agree to become an Ambassador by just paying for the shipping, then take a photo of myself wearing it and post it to Instagram. Sounds easy enough, but the shipping from the UK alone would basically be the price of 2 pairs of leggings from Mr Price in S.A, and I know that I cannot possibly do the same type of photo which normally are associated with their hashtags, but ok…I’m game to see if this is legit. (worst case scenario= I won’t be able to buy 2 pairs of leggings for a while, or best case scenario I could score a pair of possibly very fancy leggings, and it would give me some insight into the life of an ‘ambassador’ – which makes me wonder if it is almost the same as an “influencer”. I mean, how hard can it be?

“Expanding your idea of what an influencer is, is so important,” Sherman said. “Because it’s everyone. It sounds very philosophical, but it’s just so true.”

I found the quote above from a very interesting article on the National Retail Federation’s website – https://nrf.com/blog/how-influencer-marketing-helps-brands-build-authenticity

In the end I did learn from the same article why brands like Blissbody ask people to be ambassadors for their products:

Powell added a quick list of actionable takeaways: Invest in influencer marketing; diversify your brand’s use of social platforms; remember that it’s about creating community; and invest in digital workflow. She believes 2021 will be about relationships: “Healing, mending, moving into the future together,” she said. “See your influencer partners as that.”

After some deliberation with my husband and friends, I did pay the shipping costs. After about 2 months I wrote them and email to say I haven’t received my leggings yet. I received a very quick and courteous reply:

We have checked your account and we saw that your order has been shipped, but we are unable to provide a tracking number because a number of packages are experiencing delayed or missing tracking information at the moment. Your package may take a few more weeks to arrive because the Coronavirus outbreak is slowing down postal services globally. We seek your kind understanding and patience regarding this matter.

Eventually I gave up and haven’t bought any leggings since then but today I received word from the post office that a parcel arrived!

So….Starting the weekend with a new pair of leggings. “Thank you MyBlissBody for sending me these adorable leggings! Get teh for 15% off using my code hannalie.t15”

Would I do it again, you may ask….no I don’t think so.

Well, maaaayyyybbeee…..only if it is for alternative footwear next time;-)

studio experiments

Studio news/blog

PVA paint and embroidered rubber mask experiment nr 1

“Horror is the removal of masks”

-Robert Bloch-

(quote of the day)

embroidered rubber face mask experiment nr. 2

Behind the scenes 😉

Father, I killed my monkey

Art portfolio- my work

“Father, I killed my monkey” 2015 cotton thread, rubber, oil paint and found object

Sometimes a work is inspired by a title, sometimes a title is inspired by the work.

In this case the work was inspired by the title, and the title was inspired by lyrics from the song called “Bliss” by Tori Amos:

I always wondered what she means by the words: “Father, I killed my monkey”?

To me the monkey represents curiosity and playfulness, so maybe that’s what I’m killing when I am too serious sometimes.

Who needs courage?

Art portfolio- my work

“Who needs courage?” Embroidery on rubber and found objects, 2014/5 (photo credit: Dejavu Photography)

A lion-finger-puppet was the inspiration for this piece. The finger-puppet belonged to my 4 year old son, and I figured that since he doesn’t play with it, I might as well use it. So the actual toy is stitched onto the rubber. Boy was he upset!! but we’ve reached and agreement of sorts …(strange – as soon as they see that mother is having fun with their toys, only then do they want to start playing with it!)

Anyway, so a lion represents courage to me, surely because of the Wizard of Oz story:

The Cowardly Lion is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum.^[1] He is an African Lion, but he speaks and interacts with humans.

Since lions are supposed to be “The Kings of Beasts,” the Cowardly Lion believes that his fear makes him inadequate. He does not understand that courage means acting in the face of fear, which he does frequently. Only during the after effects of the Wizard’s gift, when he is under the influence of an unknown liquid substance that the Wizard orders him to drink (perhaps gin) is he not filled with fear. He argues that the courage from the Wizard is only temporary, although he continues to do brave deeds while openly and embarrassedly fearful. (wikipedia)

In a sense I needed some courage for this piece above, because it was the first time I experimented with combining a little bit of oil paint & thread on rubber.

I found this quote recently (wish I could remember where)….

“Courage is to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart!”

love that!

(*This work: Who needs courage?” will be on show during my 6th Solo exhibition #Crossmyheart at the Erdmann Contemporary Gallery in Cape Town. Opening on the 10th of February 2015- hope to see you there…)

June update

Art portfolio- my work

According to the encyclopaedia the month of June is neither here nor there:

“Two figures come next, disputing the sixth place in the pageant. One is the goddess Juno, and the other is a man Junius. Some people think the month belongs to Juno, and others to the great Roman family of Junius. We will let the two figures fight it out. Neither of them interests us very much. Juno was the beautiful but jealous wife of Jupiter, who drove about in a chariot drawn by strutting peacocks, and Junius was a proud and haughty man, without modesty, humility, or sweetness. These two contend for the brightest and grandest place in the calendar, the month of roses and garden glory”

They must refer to the Northern hemisphere, because our garden is in a terrible state! Its freezing, and the weather bureau predicts snow on the mountains.

This month is also a neither here nor there month for me. In between projects and exhibitions. A variety of work in progress. A lot of things in the pipeline. Stay tuned for updates.

Meanwhile I’ve started to experiment with oil paint combined with embroidery on rubber:

“Alien: pneumonia diploccus” (detail) Oil paint, embroidery on rubber in progress

The above image was inspired by a tummy bug I suffered from earlier this week. (Not that the one in the picture above is a stomach bug, but it is a bacteria!) So I decided to make an Alien= foreign body.

I will see where this experimentation leads to, but for now I have to FOCUS and keep warm!