Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Mentor Meeting 3/22

Today I loaded my pieces into the bisque kiln, which is somewhat akin to taking your children to their first day of school, in that you no longer control what happens to them, and you (or I at least) tend to freak out. What is something being fired next to them explodes? What if the shelf falls and they get crushed? What if whoever unloads them drops them? And so on and so forth. But the point is, while I was loading I was also meeting with Jocelyn.

Today we mainly talked about what's going to happen after all my pieces are complete. You see, I like making my pieces, and I want to keep making them, but currently I have twelve and I hope to have thirty and I don't need thirty vessels in my house, which is tiny. So I want to sell them, because it takes them off my hands, but mainly because I would like to donate the money to relief efforts in Japan, as I said earlier. But the question is, how? Apparently a few years ago Jocelyn mentored a guy named Tyler, who did photography for his project, and decided he wanted to have his presentation in a barn, and drove around the countryside until he found an appropriate barn, walked up and banged on the door of the corresponding farmhouse and presented his case to the old couple living there, and they agreed, and he had a sort of art show in their barn and sold his work in that way. Now this is not really my style - neither the barn part nor the banging on doors part. So I need another plan. I don't know where WISE presentations are normally given, but I have a feeling it's the cafeteria or the library, and those appeal to me less than the barn. Some ideas I have are:

-the black box theater in Kulp
-the public library (has sponsored school art shows before)
-outside somewhere?

So, not very many ideas. I have to keep working on that. There are several questions here - where to have the show, where to have the presentation, and whether or not to combine the two. I could also see if Handwork on the commons, which is an artist's cooperative, would take some of my work and sell it after the presentation. Or I could do it online, but then I have to store the pieces. Or I could ask people I know to buy it, but I like the idea of selling to strangers and establishing myself.

Jocelyn also suggested that I combine shows with somebody else, specifically Chelsea Schwartz, who is making some very wonderful jewelry, and who I believe also wants to donate her proceeds to charity. But I don't love this idea, mostly because I am a very selfish person indeed and am worried that sales would be uneven, that more people would be interested in the more conventional, and accessible, art form of jewelry. However, it could also work the other way around, and people could buy my things who would never have known about them if they hadn't come to see Chelsea's things. (I haven't actually talked to her yet, so this is all just in the idea phase.)

No comments:

Post a Comment