Awesomely exciting exhibition opportunity !

OOO people! There's a seriously exciting thing happening on the other side of the world! The awesome guys at Stitch London have organised STITCHED SCIENCE, where people can send in their knitted/crocheted/sewn science items. Dinosaurs, Bunsen burners, rocketships, skeletons, whatever you can think of that has a science theme. 


How awesome is that? 

I'm sending in my heart and brain... What would you make? 


You can find out more about the whole thing here.


Come play with science!

Images of Modern Evil (and why I love social media)

I was on the Heide Museum's facebook page the other day and they had a competition running to coincide with their upcoming exhibition, Albert Tucker's Images of Modern Evil. You simply had to name your favourite painting from the series and why and you'd go into the draw to win a double pass to a talk by one of the main scholars of Tucker's work, Gavin Fry, in the exhibition and then brunch supplied by Cafe Vue.

Albert Tucker is one of my favourite artists and Heide and it's circle of artists is one of my favourite things about Melbourne. It's such an incredible story filled with creatives and it unfolds around and through the history of Australian art, and it blows my mind that it happened only a few suburbs from here rather than yet another art story from overseas. I love that I can go visit places from this fable of Australian art royality, walk down streets that are familier to both me and them, to visit galleries and shops they frequented, to know the places they lived and worked and to wander the gardens they planted and tended. It's incredible that a history that I'm so drawn to is so tangible and real and solid and local.

So how could I not enter the comp?

I chose Memories of Leonski as my favourite Tucker work to nominate (image from Trouble's website, found here)

Eddie Leonski was also known as The Brownout Strangler, an American GI stationed in Melbourne during the second world war. He murdered 3 women over a period of 2 weeks around inner Melbourne. When he was caught, the Americans wanted to extradite him but as the crimes were committed on Australian soil, the Australian government refused. This stand off threatened the negotiations over the ANZUS alliance. The trial was held in Melbourne by the Americans and Leonski was sentanced to death. He was hung at Pentridge Prision on the November 9, 1942 and his body was buried on an island off Hawaii in a military cemetery.

The story goes (but I can't seem to confirm it either way via searches on the internet) that he said of his victims "I only wanted their voices", hence the bird in the painting.

That's all a little morbid, huh. All that knowledge is product of a mis-spent youth researching Melbourne history for various plays and artworks.


But so that's my favourite of all the paintings, and I entered the comp with that.

And won!

Whoo!

So this morning we took ourselves off to Heide for the talk and the artwork and the food. A number of my favourite things, all in one place :)

Gavin Fry was great to listen too, not only does he know his subject back to front but he also personally knew Tucker, who died in 1999, and so could give a few antidotes of the artist himself. One of my favourites was that Fry has seen Tucker's medical certificate from the examination he had before he entered the army. Down the side the Medical Officer had written "Prone to hypochondria".

I love these little facts, the stuff that only people who knew their subject, or had researched them thoroughly, would know. Those tiny details that don't make it into the official records. It's that kind of detail that I love about good film sets too, those tiny touches that show the humanity behind the characters and the story.

After the talk, we had brunch, and can I just say, Cafe Vue does an AWESOME sandwich and excel in their pastries. Sitting in a comfy room with a glass wall, gazing over Heide's grounds as we munched our bakery treats and drank our coffees, so tranquil and beautiful!

After brunch we went back to the exhibition to take in the art. SUCH incredible work. I've seen Tucker's paintings only in books and on the net, and these things do in no way do justice to the man's talent and ability. The oils are deep and complex and incredibly painted and the colours and textures just cannot be captured in photos. It was great to see the whole series side by side too. Some of the later works become increasingly abstract, which I wasn't the biggest fan of, but putting them all in a chronological line on a wall means you can see the progression and follow the logic through the work which helps to give an understanding of the reoccurring symbolism and shapes.

I'm so glad I went along and so happy to have won the tickets!

Tucker's work has also inspired me in a number of new ways, but they have to wait a little until I get a few more of these commissions finished and out on their way...

I love going to galleries, and I love seeing great work from other artists. It energises and furthers my own artistic practice. I think as artists, we all inspire each other, like a massive bunch of ping pong balls all madly bouncing around a small room.

Thank you Heide!

ebay, craft and exhibitions

I've just put a copy of the Gentle Arts book up on ebay! I found it today in a dusty old shop that hardly anyone frequents, and I couldn't just let it sit there.

Go HERE to check it out.

If you're into the history of craft, and the history of Australian craft, you should really consider it. It's an awesome book and I'm delighted to have a copy in my library. You can read my thoughts while reading it in this post.

In other craft related news, Rayna from Radical Cross Stitch has an opening tonight at Platform Gallery as part of the Interventionist Guide to Melbourne. If you're around, go check it out!

An example of Rayna's awesome work:
(Originally uploaded on Radical Cross Stitch)

Things to eat, things to see, things to marvel at

A Book About Death is an exhibition about to be held in New York of artist postcards, of which I'm a part.

They've just put up a wall of images for those who wish to view it a different way than their blog. Check it out! Otherwise, my image can be found on their blog here.

In other news last night I had for dinner some home made little pies, filled with leftover curry,
with some of Sadie's chutney.
I also had some mushrooms fried with garlic
with some of Sadie's chutney.
And some fresh peas
with some of Sadie's chutney.

And lo, I felt that it is good chutney.

And this was out a window of an empty house and I thought there was something wordlessly beautiful about it. A pot that can grow sticks and autumn leaves is a pretty wonderful pot.



Grow, little pot, grow...

now, it's Art Selling Girl!

Everyone has a superhero name, and mine changes weekly. This week it's Art Selling Girl.

One of my works sold from my Gallery Obscura show! One Shot, at your right, sold unframed. Yay! I love, love LOVE selling work for a number of reasons. One, the money is always nice. Two, it's always uplifting that someone likes your work enough to buy it, take it home and put it on their wall, and Three, the more stuff that sells the less art I have to take home, which is great. One of the things about being an artist is that you end up with a hell of a lot of art. It's good, because art is a wonderful thing to be surrounded by, but god damn it takes up a lot of space!

I also sold an artwork on etsy, since I've been moving I'm having a sort of art garage sale on etsy, I've put up old works I don't really need anymore but would hate to throw out. I did toss a bunch of artworks too, but some I know will find someone out there to love them. So one of those has gone too. One less in the storage container, which is great.

Gallery Obscura is also having a VIP night and they want me to to a talk on digital art work. I don't know a lot about digital stuff, so I have to now do a bunch of research. But that's fine, I'm ok with knowing more about the artforms I use, as you've probably guessed! But it appears that although digital stuff is usual for the advertising and computer game world, it's not anywhere near as wide spread in the art world. So it'll be an interesting adventure to learn about it.

Art Selling Girl... aaaaaaaaaWWAAAAAYYYY!!!!!

When you really focus on something...

So I've become obsessed with Peacocks, since I made that peacock for my swap partner, and I was reading the Meet Me At Mikes book, which had a project by Kristen Doran in it. Kristen was one of my Totem artists, so I popped along to her blog to see what she was up to. From that I wandered over to her shop blog to see what she had on offer and right up the top, the very first item I saw, was an embroidery pattern for two peacocks. So I bought one.

It arrived yesterday in the post. God bless the internet for first taking away the need to send letters and then giving us so many more reasons to post things around the country and indeed the world.

At the top is the pattern, and since I'd had a chat to her over email about the aforementioned peacock obsession, she popped in a fat quarter of peacocks in gardens too. How nice was that? I'm so happy, I can't wait to start it. As soon as I finish moving and finish all the other half done projects I'm currently mired in. I see it as a late night telly in front of the heater kind of project. Thanks so much Kristen!

The other thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is the CWA. I've read the 50 years book and asking around, I've got this idea that I'm currently thinking a lot about. I was in a retro shop yesterday and on top of a pile of folded teatowels i saw this

So I opened it up curiously and found this
I didn't buy it, but it made me think of Curlypops and her beautiful aprons made out of retro teatowels. What could be cooler than an apron made out of a CWA tea towel?

Which jsut all goes to prove that if you're thinking really hard about something, it usually turns up in some form or another...


In totally other news, I sent my contrubution off to A Book About Death. It's now on the website, with heaps of other entries. If you're not going to be in New York over Sept/Oct, go check it out online!

Exhibition coming up!

I'm in an exhibition in 3 weeks! The gallery hasn't named it, so it's jsut the artists' name. So come along to the

Deborah Hally, Sayraphim Lothian, Tebani Slade exhibition

at Gallery Obscura,1st Floor, 284 Carlisle St, East St Kilda

You can see Deborah's work here on RedBubble, her still is beautiful! I can't wait to see it in real life. I can't find a net presence for Tebani, but if I do I'll post it.

Opening night is Sunday, July 5, 2009 from 4 til 6. Come along!

I'm pretty excited, seeing my work that large (over a metre on the longest side) is pretty amazing. I've always wanted it that big, but had yet to find a reason... Until now!

The next exhibition - Echo's Lost (artist callout)

I'm curating another exhibition for Fringe this year. Info below:



Omnific Assembly is calling for submissions to their latest exhibition, titled Echo’s Lost, which will be held during the Melbourne Fringe Festival in 2009.

Echo’s Lost is an exhibition focusing on the idea of Memory and an exploration of what is left behind when memories fade. Rather than look at specific memories, Echo’s Lost concentrates on the idea of memory itself and the space left behind when the memories are gone.

The venue for the show is an early 20th century glass fronted cabinet in the window of Circa Vintage Clothing on Gertrude St., Fitzroy

We are looking for small 3d works that have some kind of vintage feel and fit the classy ambiance of the Circa store.

The exhibition:
The cabinet is a semi-circle with 3 glass shelves measuring approx. 920mm in length. The top shelf is 310mm high, the middle shelf is 340mm high and the bottom shelf is 350mm high. The shelves are 310mm wide at the widest point, tapering to 140mm at each edge. The entire front of the cabinet is glass, and the back is totally mirrored, giving pretty much a 360 view of the works. You can see a photo of the cabinet at http://www.omnificassembly.com/echoslost.html

In the photo the cabinet is fairly full, we envision that for the exhibition there will be less items in it. We don’t want it too crowded.

Depending on the works, we are looking for around 12 to 15 artists to create 3d works of no greater than 200mm wide and able to fit into the dimensions above.

The exhibition cost will be $30, and the dates will coincide with Fringe, which is 3 weeks across the end of September and the start of October.

The company:
Omnific Assembly is gaining a reputation for interesting and unique group art exhibitions. Curated by Sayraphim Lothian, they have produced five highly successful exhibitions since 2005, including 21 Dead Bugs as a Gift, a unique cross platform project and Totem – Dolls with Souls at Federation Square for Fringe 2008. More information can be found at www.omnificassembly.com. Omnific Assembly is focused on developing cross platform projects that involve a diverse community of artists, from digital to traditional craft.

Submissions:
Please email submissions consisting of a description of the artwork (including size!), photos of the work if it has already been created and a quick bio/cv to curator Sayraphim Lothian on them (at) omnificassembly (dot) com

Submissions close July 4th. Artists will be notified by July 15th

Echo's Lost image fragment by SaraMae Belle Page

Phew! What a lot of things to cram into such a short time

Oh, there has been much art, much business and a internet connection MIA. Damn technology!

On the weekend, I worked on a short shoot of a showreel of a film written by local guys. Well, Jude and a friend of his. It was great to work on a professional shoot but stacked full of mates. It's set in an office, but one where weird and strange things go on. We shot it in the office where my studio is housed, and it was fun running around dressing the set with subtle and not so subtle weirdness. No photos to show, the day was too jam packed with action, but I had a ball. It was one of the best organised and smoothest run film shoots I've ever worked on, plus like I said, about half of the actors and crew were people I knew, so it was a good day. But like every shoot, it went for 11 hours and I stood up the whole time, bar the half hour for (homecooked!) lunch.

Next, I saw this callout the other day:

Exhibition at City Library.

April 2 - April 28
Blank Canvas
An exhibition by...You!

City Library invites you to 'make your mark' on our gallery wall. Draw, sketch, or write (poems, stories, observations on life etc) and hand your completed creation back to the Information desk to be 'hung' in the gallery. Please ask at the Information desk for A3 paper and art materials.

'Closing' Night Thursday 23 April, 6pm - 7pm
The Gallery @ City Library

(from Fizit's Livejournal)

I was really interested in that as an idea. I was right in the middle of reading Knit Art, by Ferne Geller Cone, a book from the 70s exhorting the joys of freeform knitting as artworks. I was fascinated by it, and itching to try it. So Blank Canvas came along jsut at the right time!

I've recently come into quite a pile of wool and half finished projects, so I grabbed a bag of interestingly textured balls of wool and started knitting.

This is the end product. It's called Abstract Experiment, and it is exactly that. Fascinating process to go through, knitted all in garter stitch, utalising the short row technique. It also incorporates a number of small pre-knitted pieces I found in the bag. I am the first to acknowledge that it's not the prettiest thing I've ever made, but it wasn't created with an asthetic in mind. It was knitted to try a technique out.


It's not a tumor! I was really happy with it.

The other piece I made for the show was something I'd been thinking about for a while, but like everything, I was waiting until the good idea had somewhere to go. I prefer to make things for a specific goal, rather than just randomly knit things.

I present to you KNITTYSCAPE

I love it :) I like all the tails of the yarn just hanging, and it's hung via the needles it was knitted on. This again is just garter stitch, this time utalising Instarta. I didn't have time to steam it flat, but I figured it added a little to the 'just finished' asthetic it has going on.

And just to finish off the news, here is the latest photo of the Mid sized Dragon:


I love the happy expression on his face. But can I just say, OH MY GOD I HATE sewing slippery crushed panne velvet! Ohhh, it makes for much, much frustration. It wasn't my idea, I'd much rather be using fake fur (which hides seams and little hiccups beautifully) or anything that isn't slippery, but I'm matching a costume that's already been made, so I have to go with their design choices. But again, I reiterate, BOO!!!

Presents in the Post (or A Little Bit Of History Repeating...)

Today I received two packages in the mail.

The first was from the delightful Isabella Golightly, who sent me three lavender pyramids in return for the peacock I sent her. How nice is that? She didn't have to, it was all covered, but she sent them anyway. They smell divine! I love the smell of lavender, and now I have three I can secrete around my clothing stashes... Just like Secret Squirrel.


Well, ok in my defense I've never watched Secret Squirrel nor do I really know what I'm talking about. I think he was a detective, but as squirrels, well, squirrel stuff away, I felt confedent in using that term.

Ahems.

So, the second package was a little more unusual. Back during Totem, there was a mishap involving a doll, a knee and some dried bugs. Artist A accedently knelt on Artist B's doll during installation, and broke a number of dried bugs that were attached to the work. Apologies were made and accepted and we continued hanging the show. Artist B fixed them as best as she could, and bought more from home as I recall, to replace the broken ones.

Today I opened a box I recieved in the mail to find a bunch of dried, dead bugs.
Unknown to me, Artist A has been collecting dead bugs and spiders for months now and has just sent them to me, asking me to pass them onto Artist B by way of apology. That was so heart warming! And who would have thought that a box of dead spiders could be such a sweet gift?

However, I do have to admit, I sat peering into the box of dead bugs that had jsut been sent to me in the mail and thought What a weird life I lead

However, it was my duty to perpetuate it, so I trundled off to the post office to in turn send the box onto Artist B.

It also made me think of the phrase 21 Dead Bugs As A Gift, which a number of years ago I thought was such a nifty phrase I turned it into an exhibition.

Speaking of exhibitions (what a wonderful segue!) Friday night is the opening of a group exhibition I'm participating in called The ART of FOOD + WINE at PigmentGALLERY, Level 2 Nicolas Building, 37 Swanson St, Melbourne from 5:30 to 7:30. Come down and have a drink, see some nice art and chat to some nice artists. Details on the Pigment website HERE

When Craft Attacks...

So I had this dream the other night, that I heard about an artist in another town that was making dolls and leaving them around for people to find (al la The Toy Society) and so I went down there to see them. I found a big pile and took two of my favourites, they were all based on the poppets that have Craftster bulging at the moment, and put them in my car. The dream then turned into a crazy nightmare of Chucky-like dolls putting voodoo curses on me.

This, people, is what happens to you when you stop crafting. The craft rebels.

I've been away from the blog for 2 weeks working first on a film and then a tv show. I've worked 70 hours in the past 6 days (and on the 7th day boy howdy did I rest) but readers of this blog will know that it's partly about how craft is part of every day life. And I wanted to share a couple of things with y'all.

Working on the film, we were dressing a set that was a clothing shop. The head of the art department needed two cushions to fit a piece of furniture that had been built. There was a big length of material and some stuffing. 10 minutes and a bit of stitching later (following the Dead Simple Cushion Cover line of business) and there were two cushions ready for on set! The great thing about movies is that, unlike theatre, the idea behind creating anything is that it has to look right while being totally fake in the construction. Theatre sets, especially for the small theatres I usually work in, have to be real because the audience is slow close they're going to spot fake walls and pretend food. But film, everything has to look perfect from the front, but don't need to be painted/finished or even constructed from the back.

I love the Simpsons quote that covers this, in the episode where Hollywood is filming Radioactive Man in Springfield:
[Nelson, Ralph, and Martin watch a man paint black patches on a white horse]
Martin: Uh, Sir, why don't you just use real cows?
Painter: Cows don't look like cows on film. You gotta use horses.
Ralph: What do you do if you want something that looks like a horse?"
Painter: Ehh, usually we just tape a bunch of cats together.

Now I'm telling you all of this because although the cushion looks right from the front and side, to construct it faster as we had limited time and a lot to do, instead of most of the stitching, I stapled it together. Looks fine, works right but you wouldn't want it as a cushion in your house.

Another thing that was needed was little material roses on canvas, for decoration in the shop.
It was a simple creation, spray the canvas black, then fold a length of material in 3, bunch it into a rough spiral and stitch it together at the base. Then I just slit a small X in the middle of the canvas and threaded the rose through. It's gaffa taped at the back to hold it in. Ta Daa! Done, in less than 5 minutes.

Craft is everywhere and useful for so many things.

In other news, I'm currently applying for a bunch of exhibitions and the like, this year is the year of getting my work Out There. I applied for a Sydney exhibition that I found on Arts Hub, that had no mention of a fee at all (awesome, thought I!) I got accepted, but in the acceptance email it said "the exhibition fee is $125 per work, and we encourage you to enter 2 or more works so our audience can get a feel for your style" So suddenly I had to pay $250 to be a part of an exhibition? That's crazy! Had they said that in the initial call out, there's no WAY I would have applied. At least they told me at the second step and not at the end! So I'm not in that one. But I have much hope for others...

It's not that I object to paying for an exhibition, the CCP Kodak Salon costs $88 to enter, and I've entered that. But I think that a) not telling people up front that it costs, and costs so much, is misleading, and b) that i think an exhibition in Sydney isn't going to do me as much good as one in Melbourne, where I'm already a little known. Plus, $250 for two works is pretty steep.

So anyway, hello! I'm back and crafting like a mad woman. Stay tuned...

Tutorial: 6 steps to an awesome exhibition

This stems from my interview with the great community radio station 3CR.

It's how to curate and organise a well thought out group exhibition, using the internet at almost every stage to facilitate it.

Step one: The idea and the research behind it

Every group exhibition needs a theme, some kind of idea that ties it all together. It's not enough that the artists went to school together, or that they're all the same age. There needs to be something that thematically ties all the work together. Usually that's a subject or topic the artists have all been given to respond to, or to re-show work that has already been created but fits in with the theme. I don't mean to say that you can't make exhibitions with school mates, but just that you shouldn't make that the only thing that ties the work together.

Once you have what you consider a killer idea (after having discarded a bunch of not-so killer ideas) you need to research it (this is where the net comes in!) Research will help solidify it in your mind as well as making you aware of what other work is out there. It'd be a shame to come up with an awesome idea and put in all the work only for someone to tell you on opening night that the exact same idea was done 6 months ago in a gallery down the road. You might also want to research how other people have worked with your idea. For instance, when I was still formulating Totem: Dolls with Souls, which was an exhibition of internal self portrait dolls I curated in 2008, I did months of research on self portraits, dolls and craft in general so I would know what I was talking about when asked questions by artists. It also allowed me to understand the huge range of craft and dolls out there, which enabled me to broaden my understanding of the term 'doll' and thus of the kinds of work the artists submitted.

It also helps to talk to other artists you know about your idea and gather their feedback. Again, I use the web and networking sites (my blog and LJ) to ask people questions. Basically you're doing market research on your idea. If you think you have the idea to end all ideas, the olympic gold of exhibition ideas and everyone you ask looks at you weirdly or politely excuses themselves from the conversation you need to have another think about your idea. However just because someone you ask thinks it's not a winner doesn't mean it's not. Weigh carefully the advice you're given and keep seeking opinions until you feel you have enough.

You'll also need a killer title. Something clever, memorable and again, fits into your topic. Google it as well, to ensure that it hasn't been used recently for the same thing in your state. No point having the perfect title if everyone acquaints it with a theatre show that was performed 3 months ago across town.

Step Two: The Venue and the Artist Callout
Once you have the perfect idea and the perfect title, you need to start approaching galleries. Artist run galleries are easy to find, do a google search for ones in your town. Pick one that suits your exhibition and budget and apply. Getting a gallery isn't that scary, most have their own websites and a form to fill in to apply. Some will ask for bios and photos of work of artists participating in the show, so this step needs to be done in coordination with the Artist Callout.

You should start an artist callout slowly until you have the gallery. Talk to your artist friends, and gather interest. For Totem, I emailed a number of artist friends and had them on board (with their bios and photos of their work) which I could then take to the venue.

However it doesn't have to be a gallery. It can be a pub, cafe, empty building, anything you can find. Found spaces can make incredibly interesting venues, and can often turn out cheaper.

Once you have the venue, start putting the callout everywhere.

There's a number of theories on how far away from the show itself you should talk to artists. If you talk to them 12 months out, they'll have forgotten they said yes when it comes time to the exhibition. If you ask them 2 weeks out, they're not going to have time to create anything for you.

I usually start about 4 months out, and try to have my quota of artists half or mostly filled by 3 months out.

The quota of artists is a really important number. Stand in your gallery space and decide how many works you can put in it. This will depend on what sort of work you're seeking. If you want huge photos or paintings you're obviously going to be able to fit less work in the gallery than if you were asking for tiny works. Then decide how many artists that means (if you are asking for only one work by each artist or 2 or 3, etc.) For Totem, I decided that I needed 100 dolls to fill the space, so I needed around 100 artists. But if this is your first exhibition, go with a MUCH smaller quota. 100 artists almost killed me, and I've done this before :) My first exhibition was 8 artists, my second was 3. These are good amounts to start with.

Now write your Callout. Explain in detail what you're doing, where it will be and what you're looking for. You can add a little about yourself if you like, to let people know who you are. Add an email address as a contact detail, but I wouldn't advise you to put a mobile number or any other form of contact details on it. Remember that this, like anything you put on the net, could end up anywhere and with anyone. At the bottom of an artist callout I always write "Feel free to forward this onto anyone you think might be interested." That way if it captures people's attention, they'll start doing your work for you. Also write a closing date for submissions to ensure that people won't be contacting you three years down the track asking to participate.

Finding artists isn't as hard as you might think. Start with people you know. Then look online. Seek local artists on etsy (craft), deviant art (art and photography), redbubble (photography), blogs and the like. Blogs are really useful, often you'll find that on someone's blog will be a list of other blogs, and usually a number of these will be in the same town. Remember to stick to your artist quota, so if you only need 10 artists, you'll only need to approach maybe 40 people.

If you already have all your artists, then obviously you don't need this part. For artists you don't know, expect a drop out rate of about 1 in 5, IE for every 5 artists who originally say yes to being a part of your exhibition, 1 will drop out or you'll never hear from again.

A good tip for working with artists you don't know is once they've said yes, get them to fill in a form. This might sound a little silly, but make up a form with their name, address, mobile and email, artwork title, price, media and dimensions. You can't rely on the fact that the name on someone's email account is their real or preferred name. I had an artist who's email name was something like Andrea Harold and her email address was andreaharold@..., so I assumed her name was Andrea Harold. At the opening of the show she came over to me and quietly told me that her name was Andrea and her husband's name was Harold, and she told me her surname, which I'd never seen before. She and her friends thought it was hilarious (which I was eternally grateful for) but it does serve to illustrate my point. Had I got everyone to fill out a form, then it wouldn't have happened and it would have been a little less embarrassing for me :)

Step Three: Timeline and keeping in touch with your artists
Ensure you have written a timeline, and then stick to it. A time line could look like this:
Four months out: Start Callout
Three months out: fulfill most of the artist quota
Two months out: have fliers and posters printed and ready
One month out: Submissions closed. Send out Press release.
Two weeks out: organise opening night
Three days out: Installation
Show Duration: Four weeks
Four weeks and one day: Bump Out of work

The timeline is really important. You can find a great one here at Craft Victoria. You also need to keep in touch with your artists. I send out an email to all the artists at least once a month. This does two things. One, it's valuable to be able to let them know about updates and news, what's going on with the show, how it's all progressing, media interest you might have received, that sort of thing. I find that updates are particularly important for interstate or overseas artists who will not know the local goings on of the art world. The other, and some might say more valuable thing, is that it keeps them feeling remembered and loved and IT REMINDS THEM THEY'RE IN AN EXHIBITION! You'd be amazed how many artists will say Yes to a show and then totally forget about it. Imagine if you have lined up 10 artists for a show, put in all the hard work with publicity and then on Installation day not one of them turns up. So an email a month reminds everyone they're still in the game.

Something awesome that happened during the run up to Totem was that the participating artists photographed their finished dolls and posted them on their blogs and flickr sites. Google has an Alert function (http://www.google.com/alerts) where you can type in a phrase and it will email you every time it finds it. So I created a "Dolls with Souls" alert and an "Omnific Assembly" alert (the name I curate exhibitions under). Every couple of days it found another Totem doll on a website, blog or flickr and would let me know about it. It was like finding little gifts all over the website. It was also useful to find where people were talking about the exhibition and what they were saying!

Also make sure you know what kind of art they're going to submit. A framed piece that will hang on the wall is easy to install. A sculptural 3d piece will need some kind of plinth/table/stack of boxes/ something to hold it off the floor, unless it's supposed to be on the floor! Make sure you talk to your artists and find out how they envision their art in the venue. Sometimes you might need to negotiate if what they want isn't doable, but remember to try to be as flexible as possible, after all this is a collaboration between you and them, not a dictatorship!

If you do need plinths, make sure you talk to the gallery. Most galleries don't have many (or any) plinths, so you might find you need to supply your own. Don't fret though, they don't have to be the traditional wooden box painted white. For an exhibition about a carnival, we had sculptural pieces sitting on piles of suitcases, to tie in with the theme. Think laterally, you can probably come up wit something you can use.

Also check with the venue what they provide for installation. Will they give you screws/nails/picture hooks/ wire/ tools or do you have to provide your own? This is important to know before the installation day.

Step Four: Publicity, Media Releases and Fliers
I've already covered Publicity in another post (How to Publicise Your Event or Exhibition) but I'll recover it quickly here. You'll need a press release for the show, and a couple of good publicity shots. Sometimes your gallery will do this, but you might want to do one of your own, or ask for a copy and send it out to all your contacts too. You should send this out a month before the show opens to as many email addresses as you can find. Gather your local papers, community papers, street press, art mags etc and get the contact details from them. You'll have the start of a good media list. Add in as many radio and TV station producers as you can find on the net and you're well on your way. You'll also need fliers to hand and email people. Find someone with a bit of graphic design experience and get them to build you one. You need on the flier:
Title of show
Venue
Address
Dates
Opening times
Opening night (if there is one)
What sort of show (if it isn't easily apparent)
and entry fee if there is one.

The really important thing is to give people enough information so that they can find your exhibition. No point holding a party if no one shows up. I can't emphasis that enough. Make is as EASY as possible for people who want to turn up to be able to. Otherwise only the really dedicated ones will turn up.

Email copies to all the artists with a little blurb about the show and ask them to forward it on. Send it to all your contacts with the same request. Post it on your blog, website, facebook, everywhere you can find.

Take the hard copies and distribute them in cafes around the venue and then places like Brunswick St, Sydney Rd, all the funky places people who might want to come to your show frequent. Always ask the staff's permission to put them down, and only put down around 5-10. Otherwise it's just a waste of paper.

Step five: Installation
The installation process is really important. It's not a matter of slapping the art up on the walls as they come in and going home for dinner. Depending on how much time you have to install the show (some galleries will give you a weekend, some might give you a day) try to ensure that either you have all the art delivered to you in the week leading up to the show, or if you don't have room to store it or there's too much (or too big) try to ensure that everyone turns up in the morning and deliver their work. It's good if you have some idea what you're getting before the installation day, some artists are happy to email you photos of the work once it's done or at least give you a rough idea of the dimensions and how it'll look. That way you can start planning where all the work will go before the day. Installation day is going to be long and stressful, have no doubt. So the easier you can make it the less gray hair you'll have by the time you go home that night.

Once you have all or at least most of the work, start placing it vaguely where you think it's going to go. Lean the framed stuff against the wall where you want it. Place any sculptural items on the floor where you think it might go. Remember to leave spaces for the art that inevitably hasn't turned up yet. Grab a scrap of paper and write the artist's name and/or art title and put it where you envision the work might go.

Once you've laid it all out, take a walk around the space. If you think about each piece as a fragment of the whole and each curated exhibition as an artwork in itself, that'll help with the layout. For example if you have two tiny pieces on one wall and two huge ones on the opposite wall, it's going to look unbalanced. Try to space them all out logically with reference to size, subject and even colour and texture. Something else to think about is what can be seen from the street. Try to pick some of the most visually engaging or bigger work to go where people on the street can see it, that'll help entice people into the gallery. It doesn't mean that small work is less important to the show, but remember the layout isn't a popularity contest, it's about trying to envision the show as a whole and do what's best for the exhibition.

If you are showing at a gallery, the gallery owner or staff might be there to help install, but it's always good to have someone of yours there to help you. Ask a reliable friend or artist to help. Sometimes artists will volunteer, which is great but ensure they understand that the final decision where work goes rests with you. Some artists won't agree with the curatorial choices you have made as to where to place each work. Listen, but be firm. If you feel what they suggest is better than your idea, then change stuff around. But if you think you have made the correct decision, stand firm. Sometimes artists arn't seeing the bigger picture when they suggest that their work should be in the front window rather than someone else's.

You'll also need to organise a catoloug of artists, titles and prices and number all the work. Sometimes there's space for an artistic statement on that too.

Step six: The opening night
Opening nights are important. They're like a welcoming party for the show, and the celebration allows the exhibition to feel officially started. If you're holding the show in a gallery, they might supply food and or drink. This is going to assume that you're doing it all yourself. If you're holding your exhibition in a cafe, you'll have to talk to the owners and see what they are interested in you doing.

I usually do drinks but not food - it's too much for one person to organise. If you're serving drinks, it's good to have a accredited bar tender doing the booze. That's not as hard as it sounds, ask around your friends. I've got a number of friends who work in bars or licensed cafes who have done the Responsible Serving of Alcohol certificate. You can give the drinks away for free (to over 18s) but it becomes more grey when you're selling it. I've never sold drinks at an opening, so I'd advise looking into it. The venue should also have a alcohol serving license if you're going to do alcohol. Remember to have non-alcoholic drinks on hand too, for people who don't drink, and for under 18s.

It's good to have someone to officially open the show. It can be another artist who can speak on the media or subject matter, it could be your local politician, it could be an old teacher/lecturer or even a performer. I've had a science comedian open an exhibition about monsters with a short lecture on cryptozoology (the study of monsters), I've had burlesque performers at the opening of a burlesque exhibition and I've had a poet, singer and comedy lecture at the opening of an exhibition that included a zine and CD.

Try to think laterally about what you could have at the opening. It's going to be when the most people come and see your work, and you want to make it fun and interesting for them. Exhibition openings are about inviting everyone you can to come and see the awesome art you guys have made. It'd be great to get a couple of sales too, but really, at this stage of your artistic career, it's mainly about introducing yourself and your art to the public. So an opening is actually a really important part of the show.

People won't really come for the guest talking, they'll come for the art and whatever else you can offer them. For the aforementioned carnival exhibition we organised a ice cream and fairy floss van to be outside, so people could have ice creams, fairy floss, hot dogs and the like, which just added to the carnival atmosphere of the show. I can't take credit for that, it was one of the other artists ideas, and it was an awesome one! Make sure whatever interesting thing you're doing for the opening is on the press release and even on the flier, to ensure people will know it's going on!

On opening night, you might want to say something too, about the ideas behind the show (although hopefully that's apparent to everyone who comes!) or the show itself or the artists, often people want to hear from the curator, and the gallery owner might want to speak as well. Make sure you ask them and find out if they want to!

Once the speeches are done, have a drink and congratulate yourself on curating an exhibition. It's a big job, but there's nothing better than the feeling you'll get on opening night.

Step six and a half: The duration of the show and closing
During the show drop in occasionally to check on how the exhibition is going. There might be works sold that you need to deal with. This will depend on what the venue is. You might have also had to organise a rotating roster of artists to mind the show, so you'll need to keep an eye on that, ensuring the artists turn up and do their shifts.

On closing the show, you'll need to ensure that all the art is back out of the venue. You might also need to ensure all the walls are back to the original condition - nails/screws out, holes puttied over and repainted. Again, that'll depend on the agreement you have with the venue.

You can try to organise the artists to turn up and take the unsold work home, but I've found that it's dreadfully hard to get more than about 4 people to turn up at one time. Usually there'll be timetable clashes and most people wont be able to make it. So be prepared to end up taking some of the work home. If you decide that you'll only hold onto works for a specific amount of time (a week, a month) ensure that ALL the artists know this WELL IN ADVANCE. Put it on the form they filled in at the start of the process and get them to sign it. Otherwise if you toss out someone's beloved artwork without any warning you could be up for anything from angry artists to lawsuits. Try to ensure you give them every oppitunity to get their work back, even if that means emailing and calling them every day til they do. However, a friend of mine worked for a woman who has organised year 12 art shows for years, she still has uncollected work from over 10 years ago she's holding onto in case the artists want them back. He warned me that I should draw the line somewhere. I thought that good advice!

After it's all done and over, find somewhere to sit down. Have a nice cup of tea and maybe a slice of cake. It's a big job, but it's really rewarding and you'll have contrubuted a valuable event to your local artistic community.

Sydney exhibition

I am in an exhibition in Sydney that opens Thursday 6th of Nov. It's part of the Bike Festival and it's on at the At The Vanishing Point gallery, in Newtown.



It's being curated by Mitra Jovanovic, who is being mentored by the gallery, and it's been a really interesting process, beig curated by someone else while curating Totem.

So Sydney guys, go check it out! And let me know what it looks like :) Details below...