License my song…please
June 28, 2010
Ain’t never been a problem that somebody can’t turn into an opportunity. The latest is potentially a boon for musicians and videographers, and possibly the next step in a reeeeeally interesting trend in creative digital rights management, by a Portland-based company called Rumblefish.
What’s interesting is not necessarily the new service they’re proposing, which lets home movie makers legally add popular music to their videos, but its implications for other artists: Would this be a good service for other types of content rights management, too?
Once, several times
June 10, 2010
Once is a lovely, lovely little film.
Yeah, I may be the last human on the planet to see it (it’s three years old, after all), but I was thoroughly charmed by both the movie and the music. And I think what charmed me the most was the actionless plot and an unsatisfying ending.
Because isn’t that the way it happens in life?
Never puzzle a juror
May 29, 2010
“Uneven. VERY uneven,” said the man sitting next to me, “I can’t decide if she’s brilliant or a D student.”
“Yes,” concurred the lady on the other side, “She’s still looking for her voice.”
We were paging through a computer slideshow, evaluating artists’ work for a competition. Applicants had been asked to submit a body of work, not just one or two pieces, and the dozen or so from this artist were looking a bit dicey.
Making an art fair booth
May 5, 2010
Staffing a booth is fun, but not nearly so much fun as designing and building it. (And taking it down is hell, but that’s another story)
Having exactly ONE art fair under my belt, I’m not gonna suggest that I’m an expert at booth design or management. Terry Belunes and I took our new artfair booth out for a test run last weekend at our first show; we were pleased with the results, but found lots of room for improvement. Don’t take this as showdesign gospel, but the following is booth design from a newbie perspective. I welcome ALL suggestions and helpful hints.
Art fair, day 3
May 3, 2010
Wrapped up the Oregon Glass Guild Spring Gallery show last night and tallied my results:
- Roughly 825 compliments
- 26 signups for a class in casting/pate de verre
- Two customer referrals to see another work I have, in another gallery
- One request to turn Riverflow into a low wall for a center kitchen island
- Two potential customers for architectural tile
- A business card from an interior designer on the Oregon coast
- Two expressions of interest from potential shows/galleries
- Several new friends
- Met some old blog friends I’d never met in person
- Three requests to do signage for other artists in exchange for their glass (yummy)
- 12 suggestions for more effective lighting (from customers, no less)
- A second place finish for “people’s choice best in show”
- One request to design another artist’s booth
- One stalker
- One hug from a total stranger
- No sales
…and an amazingly huge amount of new information on buyer and vendor behavior, booth and lighting design, ideas for new work, etc..
Art fair, day 2
May 2, 2010
Riverflow is doing its job as a showstopper quite well--we're attracting visitors from across the hall.
So, at the end of day 2 of my first art fair, this is the tally:
- Lots of compliments
- Conversations with couple of interior designers, a gallery and an architectural firm
- A couple dozen requests to teach casting, pate de verre and moldmaking
- Four requests to cast glass for other artists (a sculptor who works in bronze, a glass artist looking to upscale, a ceramic vessel-maker and one other)
- Several photographs of booth and layout by other artists (and two requests to barter for signage and booth design help)
- One sale (Terry’s)
Conclusion: Our booth may be the hit of the show…for other artists.
A day in the gallery life
April 12, 2010
Sometimes ya just gotta get a little French into your system. Arrived at my friend Becky’s gallery a bit early this morning, so I stopped off at a nearby cafe and enjoyed a leisurely peoplewatch with juice and brioche.
My friend Becky’s out for a few days, so I’m babysitting her gallery (do you call that gallerysitting?) and writing this between sales lulls. Becky and her husband Len are lovely folk; their gallery, Fireborne, is in downtown Portland near Pioneer Square. [Read more]
Lessons in artsmanship: Dealing with galleries
March 28, 2010
It’s official: I’ve had my first “me” show in an art gallery, where I was one of the attractions instead of one of the crowd. And boy did I learn a lot, mostly about what NOT to do.
(For the record, the show is at Guardino Gallery on Alberta Street in Portland–if you missed the reception you missed a really nice party and a really beautifully laid-out show, including Leah Wilson’s wonderful paintings. It’ll be up until April 27.)
Biggest lesson: It’s one thing to send a couple of pieces to somebody else’s show. It’s quite another to BE the show. [Read more]
Partied hearty
March 25, 2010
No idea who these folks were at the gallery tonight, but when they saw me snapping iPhone photos for the blog, they wanted to be in the shot and say Hi.
Wow. That was fun.
One thing I discovered tonight: People like to pet cast glass. "It's silky. How did you get it like that?" "Four pieces of wet-dry sandpaper and two full-length movies," I replied, and she shook her head.
Leah did her paintings in a town about 100 miles away, and we only met once. We were amazed at how well our work paired. I guess that's a sign of a great curator. This is Wave Vessel, in Bullseye pate de verre.
Just got back from the reception for my first advertised art show, and I had a ball. The work got a pretty positive reception, I loved the way it fit with my gallery partner Leah Wilson’s paintings (so did she) and people couldn’t have been nicer. The folks at Guardino Gallery (and the myriads of friends and family who showed up to support me) made it a wonderful experience.
Riverflow, sitting under my favorite Leah Wilson painting in the show, probably took the award for "most petted sculpture." I used a pre-show shot because people's hands were usually in the way during the reception. The piece, BTW, is about 25 inches long and 5 inches tall, 3 inches thick. It's in Gaffer lead crystal, so it weighs a ton.
I got a kick out of watching how people responded to the work. Most saw it as extremely tactile, which surprised me. I’ve spent most of my life struggling NOT to touch the art in galleries, but tonight’s crowds pretty much petted everything. Obsessively.
Dayjobs, realjobs
February 16, 2010
She was about as far from my mental image of a wildlife painter as you can get, the classic nerd-in-glasses. Her work called to mind tramping up mountains, crampons in one hand, paintbrush in the other. Where else were you going to see the mountain goats she painted?
“Bighorn sheep,” she corrected idly, “Although I suppose they’re pretty closely related.” Her work glowed with life but was only a cherished hobby. In real life, she designs quality control processes for embedded operating systems.
In other words, world-class nerd. And she set me to thinking about people who only get in bed with their art at night, when they get home from work.