About Us Home What we do for artists and why Why the art festival roves and where we're roving to Why Mike Likes Bikes Guerilla Urban Camping The Artopium Art Troupe

Artopium.com is a website that provides artists, musicians, fashion designers, authors and filmmakers the ability to display and/or sell their creative works online. By creating a profile page, uploading media files, and creating links to other examples of their work, artists can easily and effeciently showcase their creative endeavors. Artopium.com also allows artists to accept credit cards for their work via PayPal and provides an automated tracking system for shipping, providing protection for both the artist and the buyer. The owners of Artopium.com (see below) strive to provide this community based service as an easy to use interface, that is geared towards the artist's experience of the Internet. We will always try to provide each artist with an equal and fair chance to gain exposure to the Internet public. We also strive to provide a secure environment in which artists and buyers can feel safe in their transactions. We are dedicated to bringing new and interested art buyers to the Artopium.com community on a continual basis, and will continue to put an emphasis on promoting the Artopium.com artist members as well as provide them with a means to help promote themselves. The Company & Website Motto We help all artists - ex ars ad aurum (from art to gold) Artopium's Roving Festival is a branch of Artopium.com that provides Artopium.com artist members a chance to come into direct contact with the art buying public. Artopium works within each area that it roves to bring local artists together for an all day festival in which they can vend and perform for their own local community. Artopium strives to make each festival novel and unique by collaborating with businesses not usually associated with art or music, thereby carving out a new "art niche" within the community. This provides a benefit to the local businesses by bringing new faces to their storefront, as well as providing artists with another outlet for their creativity. Artopium's Roving Festival aspires to conduct as wide and broad a tour as possible in an effort to bring new and fresh art, music, fashion, film and books to Artopium.com as well as create many new art "niches" throughout the world. The member owners of Artopium's Roving Festival (refered to as "The Troupe", see below), have dedicated themselves to using the bicycle as their primary method of travel for the roving tour, as well as urban and rural camping as their primary method of shelter. The Troupe has taken up this "neo-gypsy" lifestyle as a humble way of connecting with the art underground, and to provide an example to other struggling artists that "it's not how much you have, but what you do with it". This also provides other benefits such as a more cost effective tour, immediate immersion into a foreign culture, a unique and remarkable vehicle for promoting the website, as well as a wider range of opportunities for sponsorships. The Roving Festival Motto Any place is a good place for art - Iunctis viribus (by united efforts) You may find more interesting information about the Artopium Art Troupe by visiting their personal travelogues and blogs: myspace.com/artopium myspace.com/secondartrenaissance (Main Myspace page used for booking) myspace.com/mike_ix (Artopium Mike's personal Myspace page) artopium.blogspot.com artopium.livejournal.com people.tribe.net/artopium couchsurfing.com/profile.html?id=1PAGP8P (Artopium Mike's personal profile) And you can find Mike on Facebook by searching for "Artopium Mike" Click here to read the first in a series of articles about the Roving Festival by: The owner, webmaster, and operator of the Artopium.com website: Mike Betthauser, President & CFO mike@artopium.com Other important members of The Troupe: Freeman Fly, Director, Troupe Joker freemanfly@gmail.com   John R. Tuttle III, Troupe Headmaster & Festival MC robbo@artopium.com Jimmy, Stage Manager, Chief Sound Operator jimmy@artopium.com Sol Richie, Stage Manager, Assistant Sound Operator sol@artopium.com Nvon Corgill, Director novo@artopium.com