"Make, Do" seeks to leverage the potential of arts and culture industries, grow the creative economy, and inventory communities' cultural assets. The program builds upon findings in the City of Madison's Cultural Plan, which identified lack of workspace as one of the greatest needs. At the same time, underused or vacant commercial, retail, and industrial space suitable for art workspace is available throughout the county with an untapped potential for the reuse of a variety of structures, from storefronts to barns.

I love the idea of looking at vacant commercial, retail, and industrial space and saying, "Maybe instead of leaving this empty and not creating any revenue, let's see about renting it to artists." I don't know exactly what it will lead to, but it's an excellent way of thinking outside the normal lines, and I'm certainly going to keep this on my radar.

The are currently looking for input from artists, creative workers, local government zoning/building staff, and property owners, managers and agents. Go take a look and take one of the surveys if appropriate.

How often do you come across a nifty picture on the internet, and you want to know more about it, but can't because it is without any sort of useful caption? I often find this on Pinterest and Facebook: someone will post something cool, but when I follow the link to find more information (where was that photo taken? who built that cool house? what movie is that from?) I find that the link goes to someone's Tumblr page with an "isn't this neat?" caption and nothing more, or an aggregator site with similarly slight info. I find it incredibly frustrating.

"But where did they get the photo?" I wonder to myself. Somewhere along the chain of Tumblr and Pinterest re-posts, someone posted it first, and that person might have the information I need. They might even be the original artist.

Well now I know a way to find this, and because it is so simple, I want to share it with you.

Step 1: Open Google Image Search. Click on the little camera icon in the search bar.

Step 2: Paste the URL of the image itself into the search bar. (You can usually get this URL by right-clicking on the image and choosing "Copy Image Location.") Then hit "search."

Step 3: Look at your search results. It may take a bit of looking, if it is a popular image to post. If you have a lot of hits, try site that don't have tumblr, pinterest, etc in the URL. Places like Flickr or DeviantArt are more likely to be original sources. It may take a bit of sifting and clicking to find the right source. You can also limit your results by image size. It is easier to make a big image smaller than a small image bigger, so there is a good chance that a 200 pixel wide image is a copy of the 500 pixel wide image.

For example, I was very excited today to track down the origin of this lovely photo, that had been making the rounds all over Pinterest and Tumblr:

I could read about the location and see the rest of the photos in Pete Blakemore's lovely set. Thanks, Google Image Search!