Success as an Artist Seminar offered on August 8, 2004.
Almost as soon as we opened our first gallery in Georgetown in 1996, artists began pouring in seeking representation. This continues to this day, and between visits, emails, packages in the mail, etc. we generally receive around 600-800 inquiries a year.
Because we obviously cannot represent or sell the work of such a huge number of artists, a lot of good, talented artists are turned away, after we have recommended follow on steps on what to do. However, in our first few months, Catriona soon discovered that she was spending most of her of time with emerging artists discussing many of the same things over and over, which generally consisted of giving out career advice about such things as gallery representation, contracts, grants, competitions, resumes, etc.
This was not only time consuming with scheduled appointments, but many unscheduled visits caused her to spend several hours a day just meeting with artists and essentially passing out the same information, over and over.
Then her mother came out with a brilliant idea: Why not come up with a structured, formal seminar for emerging artists to pass out this information as well as other important information. Not theory, not review of artwork, but practical advice, usable handouts and a forum to answer questions all at once.
We held our first seminar in 1999 – it was supposed to run for four hours but it ran for seven. So eventually we changed it to a full day, seven hour seminar, and have now presented it to over 1,000 artists and art administrators from nearly every Mid Atlantic state – with attendees coming from as far north as New York and as far south as South Carolina.
It has been spectacularly successful in offering practical business advice to the emerging artist on many areas not covered by any art school curriculum that we know of. The information, advice and details taught at the seminar are not based on theory, but on actual practical experience and hands-on effects. That’s why it has been so successful!
In its seven hour format, the seminar covers a wide range of structured issues including:
1. Materials
Buying materials – strategies for lowering your costs, where and how to get it, etc.
2. Presentation – How to properly present your artwork including Conservation issues, Archival Matting and Framing, Longevity of materials, a discussion on Limited editions, signing and numbering, Prints vs. Reproduction, discussion on Iris Prints (Pros and Cons).
3. Creating a resume - Strategy for building your art resume, including how to write one, what should be in it, presentation, etc.
4. Juried Shows – An Insider's view and strategy to get in the competitions.
5. How to take slides and photographs of your artwork
6. Selling your art – A variety of avenues to actually selling your artwork, including fine arts festivals, corporate acquisitions, galleries, public arts, etc.
7. Creating a Body of Works
8. How to write a news release
9. Publicity – How to get in newspapers, magazines, etc. Plus handouts on email and addresses of newspaper critics, writers, etc.
10. Galleries – Discussion on area galleries including Vanity Galleries, Co-Operatives, Commercial Galleries, Non-profit Art spaces, etc.
11. How to approach a gallery – Realities of the business, Contracts, Gallery/Artist Relationship, Agents.
12. Outdoor Art Festivals – Discussion and advice on how to sell outwork at fine arts festivals, which to do, which to avoid, etc.
13. Resources - Display systems and tents, best juried shows and ones to avoid.
14. Accepting Credit cards – How to set up your art business.
15. Grants – Discussion on how to get grants in DC, Regional and National, including handouts on who and where and when.
16. Alternative Marketing - Cable TV, Local media
17. Internet – How to build your website at no cost, how to establish a wide and diverse Internet presence.
The seminar has been a spectacular success, and the feedback from artists can be read online at here and we continue to receive tremendous positive feedback on the practical success that this seminar has meant for those who have taken it.
The seminar lasts for seven hours and is now offered twice a year. It costs $80 and the next one is scheduled for August 8, from noon to 7 PM at our Bethesda gallery. Interested artists can read more details or print a registration form online at www.thefrasergallery.com/seminars.html or just call Catriona at 301/718-9651.
The seminar is held at the Fraser Gallery of Bethesda, located at 7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E, in Bethesda. The gallery is one block from the Bethesda Metro stop on the Red Line. Ample free parking is also available.
Thursday, July 01, 2004
Job Opportunity for Photographer...
The Associated Press seeks a Photo Editor responsible for working with photographers, photo editors,news editors to improve and guide the Washington, DC., photo report. This position will be responsible for planning, organizing and executing coverage of major news and sporting events. Photoshop and computer skills necessary.
Contact:
John E. Hall/ Assistant Bureau Chief/Photo
2021 K st. NW
Washington, DC. 20006
202-776-9511
jhall@ap.org
Call for Artists...
Deadline: Friday, July 30, 2004
Alexandria Festival For the Arts: Regional Artist Juried Exhibition. Open to all artists living or working in Northern Virginia working in all media. Exhibition Dates: September 11 and September 12, 2004, as part of the national Alexandria Festival for the Arts. Juror: Peter Dubeau, Associate Dean, Division of Continuing Studies, Maryland Institute College of Art, former Director of School 33, Baltimore, MD.
Cash awards available. Postmark Deadline for Submissions: Friday, July 30. Entry fee: $15 for slides or JPEG digital images of up to three (3) works. For prospectus, please e-mail: regionalartist@hotmail.com or call 703-838-4565 x 6.
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Organized and curated by our own Olga Viso, the energetic Deputy Director of the Hirshhorn, the show will be on view in New York from July 1 – September 19, 2004 and then it will travel to the Hirshhorn.
Ana Mendieta was a Pedro Pan child and her interest in exploring the female body and its social and political implications through performances, sculptures, and “actions” has a tremendous impact, which although clearly evident, has not truly been recognized - hopefully this exhibition will plant Mendieta very firmly as one of the last century's most influential (and under recognized artists).
This show is a survey of fifteen years of this exiled Cuban artist’s career, and it includes the well-known Silueta Series, made in Iowa and Mexico from 1973 to 1980, as well as Mendieta’s sculptures and installations of the early 1980s.
Look for Hollywood to "discover" the spectacular life led by Mendieta and her even more spectacular death. Mendieta fell from a window of her 34th-floor Greenwich Village apartment where she lived with her husband, the sculptor Carl Andre. He was charged with but eventually acquitted of her murder.
Leslie Cahmi wrote a really good article about Mendieta in the Sunday New York Times. Read it here - at BookofJoe.
Joe Barbaccia points out an interesting story in today's Post.
Creative minds do create in many different avenues and forms.
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Thanks to AJ...
The Democratization of Cultural Criticism by George Cotkin is a must read.
"If literary criticism is marked by vicious prose and petty bickering, then art criticism exists without firm judgments... The state of cultural criticism today, in the view of many, is debilitated, perhaps even moribund... our present generation of cultural critics, arriving after the assault of postmodernism and the increasingly widespread commercialization of culture, has been cast adrift, without any firm basis for judgments... Critics today, it is also claimed, are too cozy behind the ivied walls of academe, content to employ a prose style that is decipherable only to a handful of the cognoscenti."And does this sound familiar in reference to a couple of our local art scribes?
"Today the complaint is that literary culture lacks civility. We live in an age of commercialism and spectacle. Writers seek the limelight, and one way to bask in it is to publish reviews that scorch the landscape..."
Aaaah! The power of the Internet...
A few days ago I commented on a striking photo on the front page of the NY Times by someone named Jae Hyun Seok.
DCARTNEWS reader Sarah Schumacher was nice enough to drop me a note with the information that Seok is South Korean. He was held in a Chinese prison for 14 months while reporting on North Korean refugees.
This is an interesting story about him, and his stuff is online here.
Thanks Sarah!
It's official now.
Arts-related businesses make up 4.3 percent of all the companies in the United States, and employ almost 3 million people, according to this study commissioned by Americans for the Arts that I received a few days ago.
The study is the most detailed account yet of their economic impact on our daily life. The New York metropolitan area (including Northern NJ, CT and PA) ranks No. 1 nationally in arts-related businesses, with nearly 55,000. Our area, as expected, ranks fourth, after LA and San Francisco Bay Area, but ahead of Chicago.
So what we in the trenches have been hollering about for years has been now empirically quantified. We have one of the top art scenes in the nation here and yet we are (at least in the visual arts) woefully ignored by the mainstream press.
In fact, according to this article in the Washington Post written as a result of the study, our area art related non-profits employs more people than the legal profession - now that's a shocker!
The DC area nonprofit arts industry provides $1.24 billion in direct expenditures and supports nearly 26,000 full-time jobs and is responsible for nearly $896 million in personal income for area residents.
What makes this study even more important, is the simple fact that our area is perhaps the smallest (in terms of population) of any of the top 20 areas. So that means to me that we then have the highest concentration, per capita, of these cultural assets.
When will the Washington Post and the Washington Times (not to mention any of our local TV stations) get this point? Here's the list:
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Opportunity for artists...
The City of Greenbelt sponsors an annual, juried art and craft fair in early December. Media typically include paintings and prints, photography, ceramics, glass, jewelry, clothing, quilts, furniture, and holiday crafts. All work must be hand-made by the exhibitor and of professional quality.
Their next show will take place on Saturday, Dec. 4 and Sunday, Dec. 5, 2004. Contact John Norden at 301-397-2208 or jnorden@ci.greenbelt.md.us to request an application. Apply at your earliest convenience for best chances of inclusion. Artists are selected on a rolling basis from January through October based on artistic merit, originality and other factors. To be considered for an exhibition, please forward the following materials to Nicole DeWald, Arts Coordinator, using the contact information provided above:
1) Letter of introduction commenting on your work and your concept(s) for a visually and conceptually unified exhibition
2) Images of your work (no limit). Please send slides, photographs, or digital images in jpeg format
3) Artist’s resume
4) Proposal for related workshop for youth, teens, or adults (optional but desirable)
5) Self-addressed, stamped, padded envelope for return of your images, if desired. Images will not be returned otherwise.
Deadline July 15
Rockville Arts Place 2005 Call for Entries. Rockville Arts Place is accepting exhibition proposals for its 2005 schedule. Thematic and media-based exhibitions will cover all media. Special category for ceramic artist entries for a clay exhibition, February 20 - March 26. Group and individual entries accepted. Work must have been completed in the last three years.
The entry fee is $25. Rockville Arts Place is a membership organization that serves artists with exhibition opportunities, professional development programs, and master workshops. Visit their website to download a 2005 Call for Entries or contact Shelly Brunner at gallery@rockvilleartsplace.org / (301) 309-6900.
Deadline August 2, 5pm
BlackRock Center for the Arts in Germantown announces 2005 Call to Artists. Executive director Nancy E. Petrisko recently announced an invitation for artists to submit slides and proposals for artwork to be displayed in BRCA's exhibition gallery in 2005. The call is open to individual artists or artist groups with original work only and covers exhibits in the gallery from January through December 2005.
A jury of local art experts will select works for approximately 10 exhibits of five weeks each. Most exhibits feature solo artists, but some may include more than one artist, based on the judgment of the jurors. The application deadline is August 2, 2004 at 5pm. An application fee of $25 is required.
To receive an application, call 301.528.2260 or write info@blackrockcenter.org. Artists will be notified and exhibits scheduled in September 2004. For information about the 2004 gallery exhibits, call BlackRock Center for the Arts at 301.528.2260 or visit their website. BlackRock Center for the Arts is located at 12901 Town Commons Drive, Germantown, Maryland, near the intersection of Middlebrook Rd. and Route 118 (Germantown Rd.).
Deadline August 6
VSA Arts and Volkswagen of America, Inc. have launched a call for entries to identify promising young artists with disabilities. This year's theme, "Driving Force," challenges artists to consider what motivates and inspires creativity.
The program's organizers are interested in both representational and abstract work. Artwork may illustrate actual aspects of the artist's inspiration, such as the environment, myth, or personal discoveries. Abstract work that relates to the artist's feelings or emotions is also encouraged. Work may also reflect the experience of living with a disability and its role in shaping or transforming motivations. Fifteen finalists will be awarded a total of $30,000 in cash awards, distributed as follows: a $10,000 grand prize, a $5,000 first prize, a $3,000 second prize, and twelve awards of excellence in the amount of $1,000.
Selected artwork will be included as part of an exhibit in Washington, D.C., during October 2004 that will then tour throughout the United States for the following two years. Art must be an original work that has been completed in the last three years. Eligible media include paintings and drawings, fine art prints, photography, and two-dimensional mixed media.
The program is open to young artists, ages 16 to 25, living in the United States who have a physical, cognitive, or mental disability. (For more information about disabilities that apply, visit: http://www.vsarts.org/resources/general/dag/ ) Complete program and application information is available on the VSA arts Web site: http://www.vsarts.org/programs/vw/
Monday, June 28, 2004
The Bethesda Artist Market is currently accepting applications for the Bethesda Artist Markets scheduled for September 12 and October 10, 2004. Click here for am application and details. I have done two of the three markets staged so far and have sold quite a few pieces. On the average I would say about four to five thousand people have been coming to the Artist Market and that number is growing!
Affordable Housing for Artists...
The Mount Rainier Artist Lofts will open in January 2005!
The Mount Rainier Artist Lofts will provide 44-units of affordable housing for artists and their families adding to the growing revitalization efforts of the Route One Corridor in the Prince George's County Gateway Arts District.
For details, contact:
Angela Blocker
Program Officer, Property Development
Gateway CDC
P.O. Box 306
Mount Rainier, MD 20712
301-864-3860 x 3
301-779-6747 fax
Email: angela@gateway-cdc.org
Bad things galleries do to art collectors...
Our area, like most major metropolitan areas, is peppered with stores that have the word "gallery" in their business name, but are very much far removed from what one would consider a true art gallery.
You will always find them in high traffic areas; main thoroughfare streets where "real" galleries could never afford the rent. You also often find them in malls.
I am speaking of the places that sell mass produced decorative works, either by Kinkade wannabes, Spanish-surnamed painters and worse still, the following scam:
Some of Picasso's children inherited many of the plates used by Picasso to create his etchings. Since them, some of those plates have been printed ad nauseum by the current owners and are sold around the world as Picasso prints.
And then, to make matters worse, some of the plates are signed "Picasso" by his offspring owner, who is (of course) technically also surnamed Picasso.
The sales pitch, which is not technically illegal, but certainly unethical, goes something like this:
"This is a real Picasso etching, printed from the original plate and it is signed."
Note that they never state who signed the print.
Hapless buyer purchases the print for a pretty good chunk of change, takes it home and brags to his friends about his signed Picasso.
This will be a hell of a mess for the Antiques Road Show experts to detangle in a couple of hundred years.
And don't even get me started on the great Dali art fraud.
The Washington Post's online site has created a pretty good web portal to access the writing and video reports of Blake Gopnik, its eloquent and opinionated Chief Art Critic. The portal is here.
Why does the Post force Gopnik to use "Washington Post Staff Writer" in his byline? Why not Chief Art Critic, since that is his title?
In fact, it seems all Post writers use/have to use the same "Washington Post Staff Writer" byline description. Bet'cha it's some sort of union thing.
Boring...
The Elizabeth Roberts Gallery hosts three photographers through July 17: David Smith, Dan Schwartz and Colin Montgomery. The exhibition of these three different photographers really works together, as they all seem to be interested in color and form, principally Schwartz, who photographs Washington scenes and then manipulates them in the computer.
Montgomery, who is originally from the DC area but lives in New York and will soon attend Yale to get his MFA, focuses on several new planned communities in Hong Kong. These vast centers are enormous megalopolises designed to absorb the city’s vast population. Their size and the brutal Chinese variation of Corbusian high modernism, combined with Montgomery’s keen eye and elegant composition, combine to deliver strangely attractive photographs, which somehow cease to be about buildings and people, and move onto the realm of color and form.
David Smith uses a small portable camera to take spontaneous images of New York City public spaces, where he lives. In this sense, Smith joins the ranks of artists who have been described as “urban realists.” However, Smith does differ from the “typical” urban realists’ emphasis on delivering a modern Ashcan view of New York, with information-filled images, by doing exactly the opposite!
He focuses on blank brick walls, windowless buildings, reflective surfaces and patterns of color and texture that Gotham offers to his perceptive eyes in countless variations. In doing so, this urban realist has pushed the definition of that genre, by bringing to our attention objects of seeming inconsequence in a way that makes them into strange surfaces of beauty and color.
Sunday, June 27, 2004
Bad things artists do to galleries...
This just happened to a Washington, DC gallery:
A person who has a very good professional career is also an artist and approached a local gallery asking to be considered for a show. The gallery owner liked the work and offered the artist a show.
That gallery then sent the artist a contract.
Nearly a year later, a few days before the opening - once all the invitations and publicity have been done - the artist sends the gallery an email stating that the artist thinks that the gallery's 50% commission is outrageous and unethical (the standard commission by DC area commercial fine arts venues is 50% by the way - a few non profits are 40% and by the way, some NYC galleries are as high as 70%).
The gallery is also somewhat at fault here, as they should been in better commmunication with the artist and ensured that the contract was well understood and signed and agreed upon before the last minute.
The day of the opening night, the artist shows up with the work, including several pieces that are not for sale. The gallery informs the artist that in order to pay the rent, the gallery must sell work. A verbal fight follows, and finally an agreement of sorts is agreed upon - but never actually written down. On opening night, some work is sold.
The next day the artist shows up complaining that her work has been sold.
The exasperated gallery owner cuts the artist a check for the 50% commission and asks that the artist remove all their work from the gallery and never approach them again.
The artist takes the check and leaves - probably thinking evil thoughts about the gallery. The gallery is now faced with an empty gallery.
A true story...
Sigh...
Saturday, June 26, 2004
The current issue of the Washington City Paper has some really spectacular photographs by one of Washington's best photographers mascarading as a photojournalist: Pilar Vergara.
And still on the same line of thoughts... there's a great photo by someone named Jae Hyun Seok on the front page of the New York Times as part of this article.
The photo shows South Korean troops dismantling a wall of loudspeakers that had been used to broadcast propoganda across the DMZ to North Korea and their mad, Elvis-hairdo'ed leader. The photo brought to mind a striking - antithesis and in-reverse sort of version of the famous Joe Rosenthal photo later immortalized in the USMC War Memorial, which is by the way, one of my favorite memorials in our area.
Friday, June 25, 2004
J.T. Kirkland writes a really good piece about Sally Mann's beautiful show at the Corcoran in Thinking About Art. It is passionate and explosive writing and a refreshing approach to discussing an art show. And if you haven't seen Mann's show - do not miss it!
Call for Artists...
DCAC has a call for artists. The D.C. Arts Center, founded in 1989, is a nonprofit arts space dedicated to promoting the freshest most under-recognized artists in the Washington metropolitan area.
Please send 8-10 slides or a CD of images, along with a resume, artist statement, and a stamped return envelope (for slide return) to:
Karey Kesser, gallery manager
D.C. Arts Center
2438 18th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009
A Visual Arts Commitee made up of selected curators, the gallery manager, and the director of DCAC will work together to review the slides.
DCAC 13th Annual 1460 Wall Mountables Show
July 16-August 22
Opening Reception: July 16, 7:00pm
1460 Wall Mountables is one of my favorite open art shows in the Washington area and a chance for anyone to exhibit in one of Washington's most respected non profit art spaces!
How does it work? Purchase a 2-foot by 2-foot area in the DCAC gallery and make the best use of it possible by hanging your work, wall sculpture, etc.
The details: Works can be hung on July 14th and 15th from 3:00 to 8:00 and July 16th from 3:00 to 6:00. There are no reservations and spaces are granted on a first come, first serve basis. Anyone who becomes a member will receive three free spaces and up to two more for $5 each.
Current or renewing members receive one free space and up to four more at $5 each. Non-member price is $10 per square, with a maximum of five squares per artists.
Artists must bring all necessary supplies to mount work on wall (i.e. hammers, picture hangers, ect.) Collectors will be on hand to purchase works that are available for sale, and a $100 cash prize will be granted for "Best Use of Space".
Also...
The Bedrock Bar Seeking Artwork
The Bedrock Bar is a new alternative art space located in the center of DC's pulsating Adam's Morgan neighborhood. In addition to billiards and bar, Bedrock has an exhibit space and is looking for new art to display. If interested, please contact DCAC.
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Jessica Dawson sends a cosa nostra goodbye kiss to Troyer Gallery (which is closing) in today's Galleries column in the Post (halfway through the column).
This is the last paragraph in the review:
"Like much of the work shown at Troyer in recent years, the show is unremarkable. And the same can be said for most all of Troyer's Dupont Circle neighbors. There is a market for the kind of work Troyer, and her colleagues, have sold. Yet Dupont Circle needs more exhibitions that stimulate and advance contemporary art practice. I'm hopeful that Irvine will lead the way."I have known Jessica Dawson on a professional capacity for several years (ever since she was a freelancer for the Washington City Paper), and I respect her as a writer and as a person. In the past I have both criticized her writing and critical opinions and also applauded it when deserved (in my opinion). This BLOG has ample evidence of both.
At the improbable risk of not ever getting reviewed by her again, let me say that I find it absolutely astounding and depressing that she has used the very little print space that the Washington Post gives for reviewing our area's art galleries to paint "most all of Troyer's Dupont Circle neighbors," with a single negative and undeserved brushstroke.
It is her clear right as a critic to express her opinion about Troyer's last show, and we all know that criticism without teeth is useless.
However.
There are many different art galleries around Dupont Circle. On a month-to-month basis, the more reputable amongst them, manage to present their own individual discourses in the difficult business of offering artwork to the public. And on a month-to-month schedule dealing with the difficult issues of running a type of cultural business in a metropolitan area where the visual fine arts are nowhere near the top of the interest list of any of our area's mainstream media sources, and because of that, our general public. The "chicken and the egg" syndrome is rampant in this last issue; no interest from the media equals no interest (read awareness or knowledge) from the pubic.
Difficult issues that are frustrating and invisible to most people who just "visit" galleries. The goal of a good art gallery is not just to stimulate and advance contemporary art practice. That is an important part of a reputable gallery's business ethic - but it is just a member of a much more difficult and heroic set of goals, which also include paying artists on time and paying the rent, the electricity, the advertising, the catering, etc.
And because most of these galleries are independently owned small businesses, none of them are eligible for grants, which is a proven way for art non-profits to raise financial funds to pay their directors a salary, and also pay their monthly bills, while affording them the luxury of stimulating and advancing contemporary art practice in the eyes of some, without the urgent and delicate balancing act of also trying to sell the work. And that is why a city's cultural tapestry is made up of commercial independent fine arts galleries, non profit art spaces and other alternative art venues such as libraries, restaurants, etc.
But...
The independent fine arts gallery that manages to present art shows that try to advance and stimulate contemporary art practice (and there are many in our area), while at the same time managing to maintain a reputable exhibition program, plus ensuring that the artists get paid (first priority), then the rent, plus all the other expenses, and still survive for a few years, deserves to be recognized as a distinct voice in the cultural tapestry that makes up our area's art scene. Dismissing most of them in one sentence does a huge disservice to that same cultural tapestry.
Slate has a really funny compilation of cartoons inspired by Pres. Clinton's record breaking biography.
