48 Art Weekend

So, the word is that Hotbox are clear to go. This is great news for us, and I look forward to developing our site with them.

The latest big news for us is that we have a logo now!

I conceived the art weekend as a multi event weekend with a wide range of appeal, and the term ‘art market’ didn’t really cut the mustard.

By throwing a design tender out to our local art college at Winchester, we provided the graphic students with a real world brief, the chance to earn some prize dosh, and reinforced our working partnerships with the college.

We had some good entries but the one that caught our eye provided not only a logo, but a full weekend identity and title.

Peter Whiddon gave us ’48’ (as in hours in the weekend) and we like it. Hotbox have our holding page up and ready:

http://www.48artweekend.org/

and the first of our advertising flyers will be hitting the printers soon. Things are picking up…

Now it’s time to write some funding applications. Not so much fun there, and I always struggle with these bits. If you have a cure-all tip for taking the pain away in filling forms I will gladly part with the little cash I have.

A very exciting day was recently had. Hotbox Studios near Hook had caught my eye a while ago, and several fruitful conversations had brought my Project Manager, Liz Hodgson and myself to their studios for a more in depth planning meeting.

I’ve found it quite difficult trying to select a suitable designer for the art market website. I guess we’re all aware there are plenty of designers out there: it’s the information age, and it often seems that every second person is some kind of web expert. That’s all well and good, but when it comes to trying to select just one from the many (and doing that from a cold start with no references) the array of choice becomes quite a hindrance.

For the art market weekend, the site is the glue that will hold it all together: our differing events, the services we are offering, the marketing of it all, and point of contact for applications and visitors. If the website ain’t right, then neither is the weekend.

Things aren’t carved in stone yet, but so far I have found the guys at Hotbox to be first class when it comes to customer service. It’s quite refreshing to speak to a business and find them as relaxed as they are passionate and informative. When I’m looking for a designer I need someone who can do more than just receive a brief and do a job. What I need is someone who can use their skills and get involved. With the site being such a foundational element of the weekend, it’s design and content inevitably impacts upon the design and content of the weekend programme. What Liz and I found was that Hotbox Studios were a rich bed of ideas and discussion that went well beyond what we were hoping for.

As we drove back from the consultation, the plans for the art market weekend had taken some enormous leaps forward. For me, at least, being able to collaborate at such a mutual level with a contractor is rapidly becoming a deal breaker, and I’m left crossing my fingers this weekend as I hope that our ambitious plans haven’t outstripped a workable budget.

Their new quote arrives soon…

During the 10 years or so I spent, either studying or working, at art college, I noticed that every year work was being wasted. After the degree show, the left-overs from the previous three years generally ended up (as a rule of thumb) in skips or grandparents lofts. It always struck me as a lost opportunity.

Walking around any art school reveals it to be a place of diverse interest, with (again, as a rule of thumb) something for everyone, should they have the chance to to view it: sketches, maquettes, multiples, paintings, prints, sculptures, odd things made from forks and so on. You know the stuff. So why not create an opportunity for the graduates to claw some money back, chipping away at the debt pile waiting for them?

I was thinking of something like a car-boot sale, but for new graduates. Cars full of eccentricities and crafted goodies. Figured, if I would get excited about going to something like that, then surely I can’t be the only one. There have to be other people would welcome a chance to browse through three years of creativity.

Speaking to the staff and students whilst still working at Winchester School of Art told me I was right: there were, in fact, lots of people who would like to take part in an arty boot-sale. This was encouraging, and when I started my role as Lead Artist at Chapel Arts Studios two years ago, the boot sale idea was one of the first to be floated amongst colleagues.

It’s taken some time, but now, the boot sale has developed somewhat. I’m now directing a two day art festival event, comprising of the boot sale itself, an exhibition, an a-n AIRTIME event and an open art market for 50 of the top art, craft and design artists in the South of England.

The Test Valley Arts Foundation (who run the Chapel Arts project) have taken a fantastic leap in supporting and underwriting this. They have provided a Project Manager, Elizabeth Hodgson to work with me, and along with two recently deputised graduates and studio colleagues, Alessandra Cattaneo and Tom Mortimer, we will be making this thing go. We have until the 7^th of July, and this blog will keep a track of the progress we make and the lessons we learn along the way.