Biz Card or No Biz Card, That is the Question

A business card is SO 20th century

Wrestling with the biz card idea has consumed way too much time. It got to the point where I didn’t even print any for my last tour. What, go on tour without a business card? In the not-too-distant past that would have been unthinkable! I didn’t bring any CDs either, because downloads and streaming. And luggage. And horns… I went to Europe with three instruments and came back with four.

Now, not only do people just put your contact info directly into their phone, but also they don’t even want your card. It’s just taking up space in their pocket or purse, and it’ll be thrown in the trash at the end of the day.

When you talk business in Japan and give your card to someone, they handle it with care and put it on the table in front of them while you’re conversing, like a sacred object. (At least that’s how it used to be…can anyone give an update on this custom?)

When I lived in New York I took pains to have a great business card that wouldn’t be thrown away. I hired professional designers, put illustrations of my instruments instead of listing them, used attractive colors and thick cardstock, etc. Then Vista Print became my go-to design/print one-stop-shop. Glossy, professional cards at a good price. My last box of cards lasted a long time, as we were overlapping with the cell phone era and colleagues mostly said “beam it to me, baby.”

But I still wanted something I could give to people. Something that costs (and weighs) less than a CD but is more tangible than punching my name, number and email into a phone. Something people would keep, maybe even be inspired by. Something cool. I love it when someone gives me a cool biz card.

In a previous article from 2023 (that’s how long I’ve been fooling around with this business card thing!) I mention a phrase used by Argentine author César Aira: Creator of Symbolic Material. I thought that could be a nice centerpiece for the card. But they never got printed. Procrastination prevented it…or was some other force at work?

This week, though, I was reading the Makeist Substack and saw that Jen Mayer uses the zine format as a business card. What’s a zine, you may ask: here’s an article about it that includes a video on how to make one, sans staples, from a single sheet of paper. (But I recommend using an exacto knife, or scissors, instead of tearing!)

I had made several mini-zines in the past couple years (visual art is kind of my hobby, as if I had time for a hobby….although I recall playing for a grade school assembly years ago with a wind quartet and we asked the kids “what do you call a group with three musicians” and one of them answered ‘a hobby’).

I already had templates that I made in Mac Pages. All I had to do was find some A3 paper (where I live they only use A4) because the narrower width of A3 is more appealing when folded down to the size of the zine. Luckily I still had a stash of A3 in my art supply drawer.

Scroll down to get the PDF template for making this zine. But why would you want to go to the trouble of making the zine when you could just print out the text, or copy and paste it to your phone?

Because the zine, you can carry around and take it out and read on the subway, or while you’re having a coffee before your rehearsal or meeting.

You can ponder it.

Plus, it’s cool. I’ll keep a few in my purse to give out instead of a business card.

Here is the text:

Welcome to the Temple of Artists. Temple: from the Latin ‘templum.’ The word ‘template’ also comes from this root. A structure designed for contemplation and prayer, across all spiritual disciplines.

The Temple of Artists focuses on principles of Artistry. These principles can be applied to any artistic discipline. Music is the Mother of all Arts. It's where the Muse lives.

In music we can clearly understand what is meant by melody, rhythm, harmony, silence, space, and other concepts used in all arts. So it doesn't matter if one is a writer, dancer, filmmaker, painter or photographer. These principles are how Art is structured and how it is imbued with the qualities of transformation and timelessness.

Once we build the temple, it can hold many treasures. Hard-won treasures. They can be recycled back into the creative Universe because they are based on ideas, and ideas can live in Universe forever.

The treasure trove of ideas has value only when we put those ideas to work in our Art, whatever type of Art it is. It's also important to know what our role as Artists can be in society, and on a more local scale, in our tribe or community.

I live in South America, and the shaman culture is still much practiced on this continent. But who are the shamans in North America, or Europe?

WE ARE.

A shaman performs the function of traveling to other worlds. The imagination accesses these worlds in order to bring back information to the tribe. That information is used for various purposes:

• To add meaning to one's life (reinforcing the connection between the individual, the community, and the rest of Universe)

• Solve a problem (new/different ways of looking at a problem bring new and different solutions)

• Heal the sick (how often do we feel better because of a song, or a dance, or a piece of writing, or a painting)

• Show an aspect of reality which is normally hidden. (As a composer, am I just re-organizing the same 12 notes that other composers have used? Or is there something more that is added....something invisible, and powerful?)

Our tools don't change–the same notes, the same colors, the same letters and words, the same movements the human body is capable of. But artists re-organize basic raw material into new things, new sequences, new depths....every day....forever.

There is a wellspring of creativity that I refer to as The Source. Accessing the Source means you will never run out of ideas for your Art. "My" ideas– any artist's ideas–ultimately come from The Source. They're only mine in the sense of how I present them and organize them.

We cultivate a certain quietness inside ourselves when we wish to join with The Source. We hear "a still, small voice." Then we set to work.

Work and inspiration are not always "convenient." Often our best work is done while the daily-life part of us is torn and weary.

What sustains us in the midst of chaos and confusion? We love family, friends, pets...but these, along with our own selves, are lost one by one with the passage of time. There is only one thing that endures, and that is our Quest.

Our art is part of a timeless lineage of all those who have sustained a quest throughout their lives.

Is it still possible, in the 21st century, to create something new? Especially given where we are in the unfoldment of human history– thousands of years' worth of Artists and Intellectuals and Philosophers, and they've pretty much summed it all up according to any possible viewpoint. Yet I feel there is more to explore in the Universe, more connections to be made, more combinations and more discoveries to be revealed.

And this, I believe, is the role of the Artist today: to cross boundaries, to make new connections, to go higher and deeper than we've ever gone before. Only then can we bring something new to the table.
–Su Terry

I wish I could hand all of you wonderful TOA readers my new business card. But since I actually only know a few of you personally, once again a download must suffice.

Toa Zine New A3

174KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Consult this video to discover how to fold and make the cut in the zine to bring it to its 2.75 x 4.5 booklet format:

I’m still working on the Boomer-bashing article. That will come out next week. It’s sure to be controversial!

It will not be a zine.