Art Show To Do List (+ hints)

18" x 12" mixed media on heavy cardboard
SOLD


ALREADY DONE:

• write proposal and get the show
• make lots of art
• choose what goes in the show
• document art work (scan & photograph)
  
• design invitation postcard, send to printer
  
• discuss mailing list with gallery
• frame shadow box assemblage pieces
  
• make decisions about matting and framing everything else, choose a framer
  

MAILING LIST:

• compile Mailing list (friends, family, colleagues, clients)
  
• enter names and addresses into excel spreadsheet (instructions here)
• transfer to Word to print onto sticky labels (same instructions apply)
• make appointment with gallery - have them print out mailing list labels ahead of time
  
• when postcards arrive from printer, apply my mailing list labels
• go to gallery to add their mailing list labels and bulk mailing stamp to cards

MORE ON PUBLICITY:

• design email version of postcard invitation
• design poster version of postcard invitation
• send out postcards, e-cards, put up posters
• post announcement & e-card on Facebook
  
• ask gallery what they're doing re: press release (so as not to duplicate efforts)
  
• possibly write press release and send to local papers along with art image
• pick art image for press release - print hi-res on glossy stock (if mailing hard copy)
  
• send press release to local college radio, and to one dj friend in particular

ART:

• look for response to follow-up email from framer re: price and wire hangers (I spoke to him yesterday - all of the 2d work - 43 pieces - have arrived safely. All matting & framing decisions are done)
• set prices (taking into consideration: materials, framing & shipping, gallery fees, postcard and postage expenses, size, and time to create each work )
• make labels for each piece and decide how to hang them
  
• finish last two pieces
• finish framing last shadow box (add glass)
  
• follow up with company sending clear sleeves for unframed daily collages - make sure order has shipped and will arrive on time
• follow up with framer to make sure they ship on time (I am using P.S. Art Company for the first time - very good prices, good reputation - hopefully good results!)
  
• hang everything on the appointed day (find a friend to help and then to take out for a celebratory meal?)
  

ETCETERA:

• plan for reception: food, drink, what to wear! (note to self: comfortable shoes)
  
• make personal phone invitations, and plans for dinner after reception
• check over contract with gallery to make sure I'm not forgetting anything
• make/get guest book for show, ask for: name, address, email, comments
• print list of art pieces: titles, size, media, price
• print artist's statement and bio
• compile statement, bio, art list into single document to leave with gallery front desk
• take it all down twenty days later
• rinse and repeat - at another venue!
  

Drop Everything - Inspiration and Juicy Links

Cheryl

Constance

Patience

Grace

Natalie

Hope

I heard a speaker say once that the way to shift the focus of your work toward the dynamic projects you yearn to find time to tackle, is to just go ahead and do it. Make those projects your top priority. The other stuff can be squeezed in around the edges, as necessary.

The point is: chores on the calendar are like gasses released into a room - they expand to fill the space allotted to them.

For instance, I have a web design client waiting for a comp, another client for whom I'm working as a web marketing consultant, also waiting for word from me. I have a show in April for which I need to get many paintings framed. I'm on track with all of it, in spite of the fact that Wednesday afternoon I dropped everything because the light was just right on the corner of my desk.

My eye had wandered to one of a series of papier maché angels I have around the studio. I've been meaning to photograph them and put them up for adoption online.

There's no time like the present.

I made these ladies in a fit of recycle/salvage-art passion and they've been faithfully praying over me for years now. But life is good these days. My angels are ready to go out into the world and watch over someone new.

So I pinned up a backdrop and conducted an impromptu photo shoot, and today I'm taking time to share the results. (Prices include shipping, by the way.) (ps. they also make good Christmas tree toppers, since they're about ten inches tall and hollow underneath their dresses.)

Not only that, but I'm also going to share a few of my latest online discoveries. Oh there is so much inspiration to be found on the web!

• Lier at Ikat Bag made the most incredible toys for her kids. Check out the Donut Shop here (be sure to scroll all the way down - the best images are at the bottom).

• Illustrator/designer/quirk-meister: Mike Perry - worth a look.

• CraftyStylish has a great post by Diane Gillead on Weaving on a Cardboard Loom. Lots of photographs and step-by-step instructions make it look so easy, I want to try it. Add it to the list...

• Check out Another Shade of Grey for a unique eye for the delicate and extraordinary. Lots of eye candy on this blog.

• For entrepreneurial resources & inspiration from a female perspective, spend a little time with Ladies Who Launch.

NEWS FLASH

mixed media (ink, pencil, crayon, watercolor),
on 100% cotton paper, 8.5 x 11"

"You're not charging enough for your work."

How many times have we, as artists (and designers, and freelancers), received this dubious compliment? I suppose if we are busier and poorer than we can sustain, it's a comment worth thinking about. Otherwise, it implies a "should." Be very wary of "should"s, people, whether generated by the restlessness of your own mind, or by someone else's.

My response, regarding my daily collages, has been this: As soon as I sell one, we can talk. This may sound flip, but Cay Lang, in her excellent book, Taking the Leap: Building a Career as a Visual Artist (by far the best practical guide to being a professional artist I've come across thus far) backs me.

Says Lang: "At the beginning of your career, you want to place your work inside the standard price range for the type and size of work that you make, and at the lower end of that price range. The advantages to this strategy are many. By pricing the work low, you will begin the process of getting the work moving. More people will buy it, which means more people will want to buy it, and you will start to develop a following. Pricing the work low creates room for the prices to increase, which makes you look successful and places your work in even higher demand."

Truth be told, I'm not so much strategic as going on gut instinct. I know no better incentive to make more art than hooking up with people who want the art I've already made. But it is difficult, I'll admit, to part with these pieces for just $45 (which includes not only the minor masterpiece in question, but the cost of the envelope, postage, a cut for Paypal, plus gas and my time to and from the post office,). Taking all of this into consideration, I made a promise to myself: Once I sell my first collage, I'll raise prices.

Well I sold my first Daily Collage this week (#32, see below). Additionally, I received word that another sale is looming (the buyer is in the process of choosing her favorite). As a courtesy, I've given this second buyer until the end of the month. I'm extending that same courtesy to you.

Here's my NEWSFLASH: True to my promise, the price on Daily Collages will go up from $45 to $65 beginning August first. (Shipping, within the U.S. anyway, will still be included.) [Note from the future: these prices are out-of-date, and Paypal "Buy now" links have been removed, at least temporarily as I make adjustments.]

Consider yourself fairly warned!

You can see the whole Daily Collage series, as a slide show, in the order it was created, here. And in their original blog entries here. If you want one that isn't labeled with a "buy now" button [or if you want more information], email or post a comment and I'll set up a Paypal link for you.

#32 - SOLD

05924

The other night I found myself sitting in front of the computer, deep in the maze of PayPal, trying to create a simple path for the buyers I imagined would one day be knocking down my door, wanting to purchase my artworks. I was tired. I was cranky and cynical and suddenly I hit a wall: Who are you kidding? I asked myself. No one's going to even SEE this blog, let alone BUY anything! I recognized that inner voice, and dismissed it easily. But still, I sat up for a moment, acknowledging that I was tired, and posed another question to myself: Is this really what I need to be doing right now?

Just then my computer alerted me to a new email. It was from someone who stumbled upon my blog and wanted to know if a certain drawing was for sale. Long story short: my first official sale is complete.

As for the question I posed to myself: I guess I'll take that email as a yes.

To today's collage, the eleventh in my daily collage series, I'll attach my first of what will be many links to make purchasing my works as easy as possible. So so so much more to come.

Rainy Morning

I'm less than a week into this project and I'm already being told repeatedly that I'm not asking enough for these daily collages. I've raised the price once, from $20 to $45, and still, I hear the same thing.

I take it as a complement, of course, but I am also giving this criticism serious thought, considering the time it takes to complete each work, materials, my long- and short-term goals. I've consulted Cay Lang. I've browsed ArtBusiness.com. I'm researching what other artists are asking –and getting– for comparable work.

This is what I know so far:

I want to make collages. One every day for at least the next two months. I want to learn something from the process – about myself, about art, about myself making art. I'm already learning. For instance: I've learned that I need to do some critical thinking about how I price my work!

This project is effecting everything in my life. I go to bed curious, wake up excited. Right now, in this moment, I'm already eager to see tomorrow's collage. I have no idea what it will be.

There are underground shifts in my creative life as well. In the week since I began this project, a long-anticipated much-avoided series of shadow box assemblage pieces has finally seen the light of day. For years I've been collecting materials, in turns feeling urgently and forgetting entirely how much I want to make them. And suddenly, in the last two days, four pieces have emerged. Plus, yesterday I submitted one of my short stories to the first of what I'm sure will be a string of literary magazines.

These may seem like baby steps, but to me, they are huge, and just the beginning.

Years ago, I put on a one-woman show: music, video, slides, spoken word, and a gallery show of my art - all of which I had to price. My goal at that point was to pay off the last of my college debt and to free myself of a stockpile of artwork that discouraged me from making anything new. But I worried that selling beloved pieces too cheap might also dampen my enthusiasm. As I agonized over pricing a favorite collage, an artist friend waved off my worry like a stray mosquito. "Just sell it and make another one," he said. "There's no mystery. It's not magic. Just let it go. And make another one."

I struggled for a long time, trying on numbers like high heel shoes - going as high as I dared, which is actually quite low (and true to the metaphor - I never wear heels). In one night, I sold just about everything. People were literally running to claim their purchases before someone else got to them. It was chaos, and such a rush! Between admission to the show and sales of my art, I netted exactly the outstanding balance on my college loans. Maybe I priced too low, but I felt great. And the new pieces I whipped out to restock for the next show were some of my best works of that time.

Yes, I'd like to sell these collages, but not for so little that it hurts to send them off. Twenty dollars, I realize now, isn't enough. Forty-five feels better. Sixty-five would probably feel good, too. It's more in keeping with what I make as a graphic designer, though on the low end of my hourly spectrum – in other words, still humble. But humble feels right. I'm just getting started at this, after all...

I'm clearly not finished thinking about this, nor have I done enough comparison shopping to have an idea what is truly appropriate to the market. Leave room for your star to rise, Lang suggests, and so I will: No price changes today. Forty-five dollars is it.

The humble truth is that I'm having fun making these daily collages. The process is valuable to me even if I don't sell a one, and I'll keep at it as long as this is true. Also, the thought of a growing stack doesn't bother me. It's a body of work, and that, in and of itself, is a valuable thing. I'd love to see a long row of them, all decked out in mats and frames on a nice clean wall. I want a show, is what I'm saying. At that show, after I've breathed a good deep breath surveying my day-after-day labors, make no mistake about it, the not-humble truth is that I'd like to sell every one of them, for enough money to keep the wind in my sails.

After all, the more I sell, the more I'll have to make another one.