Seven weeks before Supermarket and the search for sponsors is in full throttle now. With several venues in the UK now secured for the work to ‘tour’ to afterwards, we have something more substantial to offer potential sponsors.
We will produce some sort of publication – the quality of which will depend on how much we can raise. All sponsors will be listed on this and our websites.
We are looking for ten sponsors to donate £50 each. Sponsors – are you reading this?
Seeing our name – SCIBASE on the Supermarket website has made it all seem real now. There seems to be a massive amount of exhibitors this year… but we are there, under the ‘small exhibition stands’ with two other UK groups : http://www.supermarketartfair.com/2012/exhibitors-2012-img
The exhibition stand isn’t that small – it just isn’t as large as the large ones!! Initially we were going to have one of the bigger ones, but then we thought about funding…. let’s be realistic eh? We’ll just go with what we can manage.
I spent two hours last night sorting out images and text to send for their catalogue. The deadline was today but I was holding out as long as I could for our artists to send me images. Why artists drag their feet over things like this is beyond me – talk about cutting it fine!
There’s still so much more to do, but I’m so pleased that we have got this far.
Transferring money internationally…… why is that so difficult? I’ve collected money from the artists exhibiting with us and now I need to transfer it Sweden so that our publicity in the catalogue etc can go ahead.
Tried doing it on line… then rang 24hour banking, who told me they couldn’t do it and informed that I would have to ring a different number. I didn’t realise that 24 hour banking didn’t mean that anyone would actually be there at a weekend, so tried ringing at 8am this morning before going to work, only to be told that only people with a business account can’t transfer money aboard. Ho hum
OK artists… how do you work internationally? Or do you just not bother as it’s too hard??
Standard response from ACE…. with the additional – ‘Our office will close on 23 December 2010 and re-open on 3 January 2011. You will not be able to contact us during these dates.’…
‘There is a high demand for our grants and we cannot fund all the eligible applications we receive. The average success rate for April 2011 – June 2011 was 45%.’ Only 45% ???
‘…. As a result, we advise you to think about what you will do if we cannot fund your activity.’ Oh we are – believe me!!
I didn’t really take a month’s break from writing the ACE funding application, but I don’t think it was far off it. What an absolutely horrendous application! Anyway it’s well and truly off now and no doubt starting its journey to the huge bin of rejects.
We’ve very much worked backwards on the budget with this one…working on what is the very minimum amount needed to make the trip feasible. How few artists actually attending can we get away with? How much work can be fitted into suitcases and carried rather than shipped?
Bruce, from Basement Arts projects, thinks he has already found a private sponsor that will pay for our air fare. Fingers crossed for that one. If we can get a few more to sponsor us, we can use any additional funding that we may actually get, to take more of the artists with us.
The majority of this last month has been spent sorting through work that we want to take to Stockholm. It’s been a really hard slog. Some of the work was amazing, but it didn’t fit the brief, was too similar to others, or would have been impossible to carry…etc etc….but we’ve finally narrowed it down to down to 20 artists.
I’ve started loading images on the website and hopefully by next week, all of the artists will be up there : http://sci.moonfruit.com/#/stockholm/4558390430
Artist, among other things
