You Gotta Have Heart

[JoanFrances]

All the best of luck with you're showing on this one Annabelle

[annabelle]

thanks for all the good input!  The subject did not really appeal to me, either, but I knew there were going to be lots of doctors on the invitation list....I like the idea of dropping the leaves, and almost did that with this one...and a different color for the background of the heart part also ....I even considered leaving off the bottom piece, and leaving the leaves....Lots of variables are possible with this pattern....  Right now I am working on a glass/wire sculpture....and I want to enter a vessel with a nice etching on it, or a mirror, as I thought to do earlier....With just a week to go before the event, I better just do something!!
annabelle

[Tre V]

Annabelle, how do you do the etching?

[annabelle]

I have a super high speed engraving tool that runs on compressed air...
annabelle

[annabelle]

OK   ...the art event was last night.  The room looked amazing ....Our members are wizards when it comes to setting up the room for an art event.  Everyone I spoke to talked about the fact that the funeral home chapel had been turned into an upscale New York gallery for the evening....It was just awsome!...I offered "You Gottah Have Heart", a red dragon mirror, "The Tree of Life", a couple of Victorian hand mirros, and a green bottle hand etched with a mermaid....The only thing I sold was a hand mirror.....I heard LOTS of conversation about the other pieces...just not many sales were made....But it was an absolutely wonderful event...Folks were wanting to know where we were showing next.....
I am currently president of our artists group, and when we first started planning this event, the idea occured to me that to put our group on the map, we should think outside the box, and not do what other groups in the area might be doing, and our group has done for years....There are certain events we are sort of expected to do on an annual basis, but if we don't change our approach to showing our work, the group may not survive....So I have come up with an ongoing series of small, short showings I call "Art in Unexpected Places"....Maybe a new business opens and want publicity cheap....we could go in and hold a showing.  We get publicity, the business gets publicity....I will start out with showings quarterly, and hope to go to monthly....On October 10, we are sponsoring an evening called "Art After Dark...In the Grove" in a tiny town with stores across from the railroad that runs through town.Each merchant will host an artists from 6 til 10pm..The City Council is hosting a dance from 8 - 11pm...So not I have to get back into planning mode immediatly....I don't think I will be president next year, so I am mentoring a young person to take over for me....I still will participate and support her, because she has no experience, but I think she wants me to do the planning for next year so she can just execute what I put into motion.....Life is an adventure!

[Anne]

great ideas Annabelle, and I agree with you, you do have to think outside the box today.  If we always do the same shows we get the same people out.  By going to the other venues we hope to get a new audience and expand our horizons.  There is a city in our province that does a similar thing to what you're calling Art in Unexpected Places. They do it a little differently wherein they have a lot of businesses participating in the showings over a period of about 6 weeks and the shows are changed every two weeks.  It took a couple of years to really get it up and running but I believe now they have business and artists lining up to participate! The public are told which businesses are participating and it has generated more traffic for the businesses and exposure for the artists.  It's too far away for me to participate but I can't imagine the artists would be interested in this unless they were generating sales.

It's awesome what you're doing for the local community.  Kudos to you!!

[Tre V]

No kidding. What a great idea. Business is difficult in small towns and that's a great way to get people inside. And if our community is any indicator, folks are looking for things to do.

[PiscesGlass]

Yes, what a great idea "Art in Unexpected Places" is.  I sure wish someone up here would kick off an idea like that!  Sounds wonderful!