AUTHOR: Alisha TITLE: Deck the Walls DATE: 9/30/2004 07:25:00 PM ----- BODY:

Just prior to my current position, I coordinated the Mid-Atlantic artist’s registry, housed at Maryland Art Place. My office was lined with hefty file cabinets, overflowing with slides and artist statements. There was a large light table that was usually cluttered with slides, a flatbed scanner for placing work online, my computer, and several fat, well labeled notebooks with four slides each from the over 4,000+ artists in the registry. While my job entailed working largely with artists, curators, and gallery owners in other states, there was one thing anyone who visited the office commented on: “Where is the art?” In fact, aside from a bulletin board, my walls were bare! One day, flipping through one of the notebooks, inspiration struck. Why not email all of the painters in the registry and invite them to hang a piece or two in the office? I would fill my wall space. Visitors would appreciate the work and possibly even inquire about the artist. Also, the artist would be able to ‘store’ one or two paintings in a location that just might generate sales. Recently I visited several Washington law firms, each of which also had wonderful art collections decorating their space. In both cases, they likely worked with an art consultant who mixed contemporary craft with fine art. Why not take a moment to consider if your work would be a nice match for a local law firm, PR agency, or doctors office? Perhaps a simple win-win situation would be to loan several of your wall hangings, photographs, or paintings to a local company for a period of 4 months. Be sure to take responsibility for hanging the work, place a label near the work that includes a price, draft the loan paperwork, and deliver/pick-up the work. Call two or three weeks before you come to pick-up the work. In certain instances, replacing the work with a new piece might be in order. Or, if the company didn’t have rapport with you, move on and try another business. In this arrangement, no one is out anything but a little time and energy. The mere possibility of a winning partnership like this is at least worth that, right?

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Alisha DATE:10/04/2004 04:17:00 PM "watering holes", eh? Well, I don't personally feel this is an awful idea. As you can see by my post last Friday (Selling Art or Selling Out), I feel that creativity DOES count.

Let me think on this one and I promise to post this week with MY ideas for how to approach selling work in a coffee shop, diner, bar, well... or any other alternative eating/drinking establishment.

-Alisha-
(putting my thinking cap on) ----- --------