bubbleBlog!

Today we had an dis­turbingly obnox­ious encounter with peo­ple ‘behind’ a fake art­blog. They seem to think their grade school humor is funny.

Fake names, para­noia, threats, delu­sions of grandeur. Seems like every­thing they throw at you is a reflec­tion of them.

Here’s the e-mail exchange.

1. The ini­tial approach

From the form at heavybubble.com came an inquiry — signed with a false name — ask­ing that the ‘pub­lisher’ of the web­site be identified.

We attempted to reply but the email was rejected by gmail as a bad address.

2. The sec­ond approach, an esca­la­tion and bit of paranoia

On Feb 18, 2010, at 9:55 AM, likesomebodycares@gmail.com wrote:

Harrietta Falloff sent a mes­sage using the con­tact form at http://www.heavybubble.com/contact.

We wrote before ask­ing who are the peo­ple behind heavy­bub­ble. Do you expect artists to join or rec­om­mend you or take your tweets etc. seri­ous if you won’t answer the ques­tion. If you are anony­mous we would like to hear your reason.

If you don’t answer we will pub­lish this email and a story about you includ­ing the fact that you won’t answer emails or reveal who you are.

lovvvveeeeeeeee ya hon!!!!!!!

Harrietta Falloff

3. Margaret replies, sup­ply­ing the requested infor­ma­tion and sign­ing the email with her real name and full con­tact information

We did reply pre­vi­ously but the email was bounced imme­di­ately with a mes­sage that it was not a valid email address.

The web­site, heavybubble.com, is pub­lished by Heavy Bubble Ltd, which is incor­po­rated in the Commonwealth of PA. The busi­ness is described at the site:

Heavybubble is a web ser­vice designed for career artists. Publish a do-it-yourself web­site and mar­ket your work. Choose from a num­ber of pro­fes­sional designs, upload your art­work, and make changes when­ever you want.

We are also involved in the art com­mu­nity, as for exam­ple, a spon­sor of exhibitions.

best,

msa

Margaret Anderson
margaret@heavybubble.com

Heavy Bubble
1622 South Street   First Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19146
215 545 7531

http://www.heavybubble.com
web­sites for artists

heavy bub­ble makes me happy

4. They go off the deep end …

Oh, so because you are incor­po­rated then they are no real peo­ple involved!!?? We will just have to report that. Artists luvvvvvvv cor­pocrassy, espe­cially these daze!!!! You are web 0.1 in our book just like insolvent.com. Didn’t you hear of Saatchi or the other FREE sites where the com­pany of artists is bet­ter and did we say it was free. If you want to make frenz and do well in biz­zness you should be nicer sweetie.

Your answer sounds like you think you’re talk­ing to dotards. Trust us you are the dotards.

Are they your “wall­hang­ings” we saw online? We thought they were called paint­ings unless they were dec­o­ra­tions and not art. ppppllllleeeeeezzz!!!!!!!

Look for our story on you smellybrownbubbles.

Thanks for you frankness.

luu­u­uvvvvvvvvvvv ya!!!!!!!!!

Our thoughts:

Hmmm. I guess they are on a first name basis with the warm, fuzzy, real peo­ple behind Saatchi.

We left the con­ver­sa­tion there since clearly we are going to be trashed, which is such a pro­duc­tive exer­cise, no?

For the record, yes our sites are sim­ple. Heavy Bubble is intended to be an easy entry­way for artists to have a web­site, and to keep the focus on the work. Flashy ‘advanced’ web solu­tions tend to inter­fere with view­ing art and with being found on the web.

There are many free options but these always involve trade­offs. Our ser­vice is not for every­one, but if any­one wants to eval­u­ate it they should talk to our artists or try it themselves.