Artists! Get It Together!

So let’s run a scenario: you teach and have the opportunity to make some money teaching somewhere.  People want to know what you know!  So the organization you are going to be teaching for asks you to fill out some info on a form like:

1. a class description – please describe what you will teach.
2. materials fee and what does it cover?
3. submit an image or two of examples of what you will teach.

The form is pretty simple.  Obviously the organization will be promoting your class and doing all of the work of registration.  Make it easy for them to do this for you. Pleeeeeeeeeeeease!

I can’t tell you how predictable it is to not get what is needed to sell someone’s class, art work or to promote THEM. Why is that?

Exhibiting Your Art Work

I know…its been quite awhile since I've posted. I've been using the time to make my own work which really is a good thing. But I came across this article today – thanks to Cynthia Tineapple, for pointing it out! I think it is important enough to share since it's about the 5 crucial things to do AFTER an art opening. It's great info and really made me think about the exhibition process:

 

Typically we work like crazy to finish the work for an exhibit. Everything leads up to the exhibit and then once we get past that blip on the calendar we pat ourselves on the back for getting through the work of it. But there are some really good things you can do to stretch the momentum of an exhibit and resulting PR. Alyson Stanfield is known as a creative ArtBiz Coach. Check out her simple ideas here:

http://www.artbizblog.com/?mc_cid=d4c6101fcc&mc_eid=fc1f732b6d

To add to her ideas would be to:

1. Photograph the exhibit in place. Photos of an exhibit are useful for showing a professional display, future PR and adds credibility. Images for future postcards, etc. are always useful.

2. Always thank the gallery formally: send them a nice note. The personal touch from you recognizing their effort in your behalf helps to create a good relationship with the gallery. Fostering that relationship can only help you in the future.

3. Ask the gallery for PR materials to help promote your exhibit and periodically see if there are other times/other exhibits you can help to promote for them. This is good pay back and will ultimately pay YOU back in the long run because you have made a lasting impression with the gallery.

Good impressions, positive relationships, great connections accelerate an art career.

 

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April Brings Exhibits!

I’ve been very busy!

Personal Maps #1: Breakthrough   Collage/assemblage with paper, paint, birch bark

 

 

 

April 6 – May 13 my collage/assemblage work will be featured at the Gallery at Towne Center in Lake Forest Park, WA.

Also April 16 – June 12 my jewelry work will be on display at the ArtsNow Gallery in the Edmonds Conference Center in Edmonds, WA.  The opening for this show will be April 16, 5-8 PM.

 

 

Gift to Life

Personal Maps #2: Symmetry

 

 

FREE Class on Craftsy!

Enter to win my new class for free on Craftsy!

Enter before Tues., Jan. 23 by clicking on this link:

http://www.craftsy.com/ext/MeredithArnold_Giveaway

I will contact the winner on Tuesday. I hope to see you in the class forum for my class on Craftsy!

 

 

 

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Making a Video!

I know I have been rather quiet of late… I am in the midst of my wonderful, new project: teaching online for Craftsy.com. I have been in the pre-production phase for many weeks now. What does that mean? It involves creating a 7 part video first. The video comes down to figuring out what is important to teach, how to say it and show it as well as creating the pieces that show the methods on the way to the end result in at least 3 steps plus the finished piece: so think 4 pieces for each 'chapter' or segment. Wow. That's busy!

We film the video next week! I'm so excited to do this! But here is what happens as an artist: cycles of pure confidence in what I know and can teach but then…a crises of confidence: consuming nervous anticipation that I'll be a total flub on camera. It's crazy. Where does this come from? I know what I know. I can only be me. They can edit, stop, start, reshoot, edit and did I mention EDIT? BREATHE! It'll be fun. REEEEALLLLY!

 

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Busy Artists Must Focus

Okay, so I got super busy here… The Edmonds Art Studio Tour was in the middle of Sept. so I was deep in production and getting ready for that.  The studio tour was great.  I met a lot of people and made some sales.  Woohoo!

Next up was the annual fund raiser for ArtWorks we call the Previously Loved Art Sale (www.artworks-Edmonds.org).  People donate their previously loved art and Art supplies all year for this sale.  We truly get some wonderful work by contemporary artists, local artists and also work that has been loved for decades, too.  It is amazing what comes through ArtWorks.  The money raised goes to the Edmonds Arts Festival Foundation who in turn, pays the bills for ArtWorks so it all comes to artists.  How cool is that?  The artists in our community have no idea how fortunate they are.  Look around folks: do you see a lot of towns with so much support for artists?  They provide us with a place to work exhibit, hold shows, meet, hang out and as if that weren’t enough, there are the grants and scholarships they award to…yup, ARTISTS.  Lucky, lucky, us!

So anyway, our sale was phenomenal.  I believe it was the best attended and most money raised since I started working at ArtWorks in 2008.  Worth the zillion hours of dragging most every donation up to the attic and then back down for the sale.  I was totally surprised at how much stuff we had for the sale once it was laid out and hung up.  No wonder I’m so tired!  What a generous and supportive community.

Now it’s on to other projects: get new work into the gallery, and a bigger project that I’m not talking about…yet!

Life Changes and It’s All Good

   So I haven’t posted here in quite awhile.  I was slammed at work and life for months.  Then I went to teach at Bead Fest Philadelphia in August and on the way back to Seattle I stopped in Colorado to attend an invitational retreat that I have been trying to get to for years.  Just before leaving I realized that I can’t work like this anymore.  There isn’t any break from the demand, no time to create, everybody always wants my help with something.  This isn’t the life I would choose for myself but here it is.  So before I left I told one college that I wouldn’t be teaching for them anymore.  I also decided that I will not be going out on the road so much anymore.  As much as I love my adventures it is clear that it’s very disruptive.  It takes a lot of time to organize everything, order materials for kits and classes, maintain inventory of the materials, count everything single thing for kits, pay for every single thing…I could go on and on.  Let’s just say that I’m currently a couple thousand dollars out and impatiently waiting to get paid (they take 40 days for goodness sake – ridiculous!).  So why would anyone want that job? I don’t.

  Unbelievably, I got a phone call today for work (on SUNDAY morning, I was barely awake).  It was business.  No emergency.  Just somebody wanting something and they have my cell phone number.  Really?  It couldn’t wait for a business day?  If I were teaching this weekend I would be juggling this call and a class at the same time? Ugh.

  Before I left I was awakened almost every day by a text message or a phone call.  I was scrambling around trying to get everything together to all hours of the night and people were waking me up 5 hours after I went to bed.

   It occurs to me to say: it’s my phone for MY needs.  Please don’t call me before 9 AM.

  So beyond the venting here there is a real life.  The real life I am choosing includes working in my studio, seeing my husband, cleaning my kitchen and even painting downspouts for the house.  Because I don’t work every minute.  No one ever said on their death bed: gosh, I wish I had worked more…

In Honor of Sharks and Summer!

Happy Sun Storm Seattle!

 

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Worthy Creative Advice

“Identify the primary distraction that keeps you from your creative work and deal with it. If you have an issue, be it weight, lack of exercise or family worries, do your best to resolve that issue or reduce it's power of distraction on your time and energy.” – Julieanne Kost (of Adobe Systems)

As I dive into a renewed commitment to my own creative efforts this quote is my scale. It is especially appropriate since I am slowly moving into using Lightroom and yes, that which I have avoided for years: Photoshop. I have always maintained that a good photographer shouldn't need to do much in software if an image is shot properly. I still believe this. Yes, a crop or exposure tweak after the fact may be needed but all the bells and whistles of Photoshop are not required. I realize that Photoshop has become a standard tool and by avoiding it I am just being contrary. Sometimes that's just how I roll.

But now I have owned Lightroom for about six months. I have barely had time to really get to know it. I have found by using the cataloging feature that I have tens of thousands of photographs. It will probably take me years to troll through them much less learn how to use Lightroom. I know… it must be time for a class to shorten my learning curve. After setting Lightroom onto my photographs to catalog them, I had to own that I am a photographer. I should just stop being quiet about it (since it was staring me in the face) and own that since I actually have about 15,000 or more photographs I've taken just from the last 5 or 6 years. Click happy me.

So in an effort to reduce the power of distraction on my time and energy I am going to stop teaching. I already spend a lot of time mentoring artists every day at ArtWorks and through the EDGE Program each Winter. I have come to realize that one can only mentor so much and I need my own creative time.

Light Dawns at the End of the Day, Meredith Arnold, 2014

I have a lot of jewelry to make and am excited about the prospect of digital collage as well as a lot of other projects I have in mind. Onward and upward!

 

 

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A Good Thought

 

Be Brave With Your Life.

 

 

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