Advise to fellow gallerists

Kriston, over at grammar.police notes in a recent posting that "tell a gallerist in the know that you're a blogger and more often than not she will visibly recoil. God in His Seat in Heaven forbid that you mention you're there to review a show, at which point the scornful glances are likely to make a greater impression than the art on display."

For a gallerist to react like that to a blogger (or for that matter to anyone else trying to get some publicity for an art show, even a High School newspaper editor), is both ignorant and shows lack of understanding of how the media has been revolutionized in the last handful of years.

As Art and other general BLOGs mature and develop, and make mistakes, and get scoops, and generally spread the word and gain readership, I believe that they/us/we stand at the brink of becoming (actually have become) a powerful new voice, adding diversity and volume, to our art scene.

And some gallerists do get it; last Friday as DCist Arts Editor Cyndi Spain and I made our rounds of the Dupont Circle area galleries, for the most part she was warmly received in all but one gallery, where usually anyone can see their own breath anyway.

In one gallery, the director actually pulled out a stack of color copies of the DCist's Arts Agenda from a couple of Tuesday's ago and gratefully thanked Spain for mentioning the gallery and the artist online. "Where can I send you news releases?" she then asked.

I think DCist is getting around 10,000 visitors a day and growing, and sites like this one and grammar.police, and J.T. Kirkland's Thinking About Art and Tyler Green's MAN and Jesse Cohen's Art DC have a loyal readership of hundreds of daily visitors interested in art.

And so, any smart gallerist worth his or her salt should not have to be advised or cajoled into treating a blogger with any less courtesy and interest than any other potential source of publicity, opinion and most important: a digital fooprint.

New Interim WPA/C Director

Congrats to Kim Ward, who has been selected to replace Annie Adj as Interim Executive Director of the WPA/C.

Ward is currently listed as Membership and Finance Director for the WPA/C.

DCist looking for arts contributors

DCist is looking for contributors to augment its coverage of the visual arts. Email Mike Grass if you are interested.

The more voices we get discussing our area's art scene, the better for all of us.

Meanwhile, check out the Tuesday Arts Agenda here.

We hear that there may be a job opening at the WPA/C soon.

Update: I have a second, independent confirmation and I am told that Annie Adj, Executive Director of the WPA/C will be departing at the end of the month for a new job in the Left Coast.

We wish her the best of luck!