With 8 weeks to go until we (7 graduates and students from Hereford College of Arts) put up our exhibition in Union St, London, it’s hotting up!
The group are:
Daisy Rickards
Kate Morgan-Clare
Rosie Daffern
Alex Weaver
Jack Clough
Ethan Carey Seaton
and me!
I’m coordinating the exhibition.
Kate Morgan-Clare is seeking (and with success!) sponsorship for various things we need. So far she’s had results in finding a local luxury biscuit company and cider company who are willing to donate these goodies for our opening (Wed 15th Oct) in return for having their logo’s on our publicity. She is also liasing with college’s marketing department to help raise our profile.
Daisy is taking the lead with publicity – currently getting our poster design together. We each had the chance to submit ideas and material to be used in the publicity and Daisy’s designing for us to choose the best for purpose as a group. Daisy is keeping us on our toes about fundraising and any other things I miss as we go.
Alex is lead in fundraising – he’s made us an Indie gogo account and made a video outlining what we are doing, who’s involved and what goodies donors can receive as a thank you. It’s been online for a very brief time and we’ve had our 1st donation – feels great! We are also putting in an application for Grants for the Arts with the Arts Council England. We are about to submit it in a few days, meant to have it in much sooner, but end of year show, holidays and graduation got in the way. Sadly, Alex and Rosie (also exhibiting) have moved to Nuneaton, so our communication is mostly electronic. Really miss the face-to-face banter!
Rosie is applying for funding with support from all with the number of sections to be completed!
Ethan and Jack are stepping in with help as and when needed.
We are having meetings, about monthly now, but we’ll be increasing them now as we draw closer to the exhibition.
With Rosie and Alex at a distance, I am thinking that having them present when any of us meet via Skype would be really helpful. We’d feel more in tune with each other.
We have a time plan developing and we are allocating who will set-up, when each of us will steward and dismantle (and clean) after taking down the exhibition. Still subject to change at this time.
The whole exhibition preparation feels really huge now, with it approaching rapidly. I feel there is too much to do, but it is helpful for members of the group to take on lead roles, but not leave anything ALL to one person. Speaking to a painter the other day who said the way group exhibitions are hard to manage and complicated is why he just puts on solo exhibitions now. Having only put on a few exhibitions with others so far, I can relate to his sentiment – so complex and we all risk believing someone else is doing x, y or z but actually they’re not.
Communication is (obviously) essential. Inclusion. Not easy. All but one of us are on facebook – so we do most of our banter and planning on there with the combination of being able to post photos and text and files. Some via email, but again, not everyone responds to that. Others respond better with a text message and others still through a phonecall (hard to keep track of all details covered when talking quickly on phone I find). Any tips on communicating better in a group via technology would be most welcome.
