IdeaJones

Tag: Art

  • Arts Life — Dispatch From The Trenches #2

    As we gather information from those who know about promoting artists and arts groups, we're sharing them. May your art thrive!
    As we gather information from those who know about promoting artists and arts groups, we’re sharing them. May your art thrive!

    Let’s call this one Why Should Anyone Give A Rat’s?

    A conversation I had with someone at a gallery today brought back conversations I’ve had in the past with “gatekeepers,” the people who decide whether or not to cover something. These are editors, producers, reporters, critics — people who look at your press release, press kit, what-have-you and decide if there’s a story there. If they don’t see what will interest a reader, listener or viewer, your event won’t be mentioned.

    I’ve been given some pointers on how to make a project, or event, more appealing to a gatekeeper. I’m sharing what I’ve been told in hopes some of it will prove useful (and so I remember it myself). The idea of this lesson breaks into a few parts, so we’ll start with:

    How are you saying it?

    An idea can be more or less interesting depending on how you put it. I don’t mean “spin,” that manipulation that seeks to gild cowflops and call them gold nuggets. I mean looking at your event for what is new, unusual, or interesting about it. For example: I recently spoke with a man who organizes concerts and musical performances for a nonprofit. He was frustrated by their low success rate at getting noticed in the larger arts scene in the region.

    So we talked about a recent event he’d worked on, a concert by an elderly guitarist. Sounds ripping, right? Well, I asked a few more questions and using the techniques I’d been taught, the concert with the elderly guitarist became a “rare performance by an influential musician, an expert in classical and flamenco guitar…” All of which was true. The man rarely performs any more, and was a teacher who influenced other up-and-coming musicians, including one who opened for him.

    Not spin — what you say must be true and defensible. You should be able to make a strong case for what you’re saying if you need to. Look at your subject. What’s unusual about it?

  • Arts Life – Dispatch From The Trenches

    Arts Life – Dispatch From The Trenches

    Mistakes You Could Be Making 1 IdeaJones
    Mark and I once attended a panel discussion for writers on gaining attention for projects from the media. Editors, news producers, and people who were good at promoting their projects talked about how to approach the media when you want to get your project in front of the public.

    Then I agreed to help a few artists with their online promotion. I knew a bit about it, but sought guidance from people who were professionals on how to go about it.

    I’ve been gathering information on promoting yourself, or your arts group, on a limited budget. Today, I was speaking with representatives from a few local arts groups about what I’ve learned. Disclaimer — I’ve been good about doing these things for other people and not as regular about doing them for myself. I’m working on that. It’s a learning process, and I’m always learning. I’ve seen these things work. In this and future posts, I’ll share the lessons my teachers give me. Some of the information may be familiar, but there’s probably at least one tip that will help you better navigate the choppy waters of promotion. To start, a few basics:

    1) Take advantage of your opportunities.

    As I like to tell performers and artists, “People can’t want something until they know it exists.” They may have a vague idea they want something, but they can’t want to come to, say, your concert if they don’t know you, or the concert, exists.

    Increasingly people go online when looking for something to do. There are online events calendars like Eventful, and here in Sacramento, Sacramento365. Many local radio and tv stations, newspapers and magazines have their own online event calendars where their listeners, viewers and readers go to find entertainment choices. These are usually free to use. If you don’t have a budget large enough for advertising, or even if you do, you should take advantage of these services.

    Your local television station may have a morning show. Watch the show. See what they include that isn’t news, weather or traffic. Note how long the show is — longer shows often have guests in after the first half hour or hour is done. A two-hour show has time to fill every day, five days a week. More about this in another post.

    2) Understand what you want.

    For example, at our local public radio station, nonprofit groups can:

    1) Apply for PSAs (Public Service Announcements, very short on-air mentions of upcoming events),
    2) Post events to the Event Calendar (this one’s also available to for-profit groups/performers),
    3) Pitch events to a locally-produced show to be the focus of a segment on the air (more about this in another post).

    Applying for each of these is a separate process and submitted individually. If you only want to post to the calendar, you can do just that. If you want to be on the air, either with a PSA or on a show, you submit for each of these separately and it goes to a different person.

    “Why can’t they just look at the Event Calendar and give us a PSA or put us on the air?” (Another version: “Why can’t they just read our PSA and put our event on the calendar and…”).

    Because they don’t have time. Because it’s not that person’s job (that isn’t the only thing that person does all day — it’s one of many). That station or that paper makes this available to the community as a resource. Taking advantage of it is up to you.

    3) Don’t do it at the last minute.

    Stations may schedule PSAs a month in advance. Some shows line up guests 4 weeks or more ahead — and if they have a sudden cancellation they need to fill, they look at information about upcoming events they wished they could include but didn’t have time for.

    4) Follow the directions.

    Each event site has its own format. They don’t have meetings where they all decide one way to do it. Wherever you go, there will be directions. Follow them. To the letter. It shows respect for the opportunity, for one thing.

    It really isn’t hard. Have the following information handy before you start:

    * Name of the event
    * Date/time of the event
    * Location
    * Ticket price if any
    * Where you go to get tickets (website, physical box office, etc.)
    * Organization hosting the event
    * Name/email/phone of a contact person to call for the public to call for more information (if you just want them to go to a website, fine, what’s the link?).
    * Name/email/phone of a contact person for the station, paper, etc. to contact for more info (maybe not the same as for the general public).
    * A brief description of the event that tells why it’s interesting (and by brief I mean 2-3 sentences. Some sites have a limit on characters). More on that in an upcoming post.
    * Anything people might need to know (is the venue ADA accessible? Is there free parking — and if so, where? ).

    Go to the website (for tv and radio stations, you can search “television station” and your city to find some to get you started). Click on “Events” and look for a button for “Submit your event.” Follow directions. You can post your event to several sites in an hour if you have all of that ready to cut n’ paste on your computer, or on a sheet of paper you can look at to type it in.

    5) Limit yourself.

    Unless you have someone who is organized, enthusiastic, reliable and has buckets of free time, it’s not necessary to blanket the world — in fact, starting out this can be a mistake. You want to find out which online sites produce the best results for you, and this can vary. For example, if you play classical guitar, the local acid rock station might get you a few interested people as many people like more than one type of music, but if you have a public radio station, that’s probably going to be more productive.

    The strategy suggested to me is to start out with the basics (here that’s Eventful, Sacramento365, CapRadio.org, and the local papers). Make sure you enter your events on their calendars reliably. See how things look in three months. Add another and see if it makes a difference. If not, you can probably drop that one and try another.

    Don’t feel bad about not doing more — pay attention to what you’re doing so you know what’s working for you and what isn’t.

    I’ve been given more useful information, and will share it in future posts. But in the meantime, don’t be afraid to get your feet wet. Promotion is your friend. Like any good friend, if you treat it with respect, you’ll reap the benefits.

  • The Value of a Smile

    Getting started in the arts is hard. There’s the work involved, which, if you really feel a passion for it, takes time, energy, research, planning and a certain amount of faith. Will anyone get what you do? Will anyone like it?

    You sit by yourself for hours at a time.  An artist works in solitary confinement in the hopes that he will, some day, communicate with someone else.  He may never even see that other person, or hear from him. He may never know that the communication happened.

    It makes you realize how undervalued simple human things can be. The person who takes an extra minute on the phone to not just “process your call,” but help you. The person who reaches out to tell you your work touched him, or her. Meant something.

    In the end, we are social animals, even introverted artists who work like hermits in their cells. We want to make contact, be seen, be valued, be heard. Or even just smiled at, over the phone. The little things count, and they always will. The world becomes more technical, but we are still human.

  • Now Appearing

    There’s a neat fine arts center tucked away in a decommissioned school in Carmichael, CA. The Sacramento Fine Arts Center has lessons in various crafts that can be used as take-off points for artistic endeavor, and also has exhibits, shows and sales. Currently, there’s a juried show called Inner Visions, with works in several and mixed media done by local artists.

    Joey’s sculpture is included in this exhibit. Previously shown at Capital Public Radio’s multi-artist show, but in a slightly different form, Where It All Starts interprets empathy with a visualization of personal communication that includes mirror neurons, the mechanism behind empathy, and the breathing in of shed cells from other people, with the result that each of us is actually made up of  ideas and matter from others.

    Shown this time with a different title and different working of the connection between the two figures, Where It All Starts: The Beginning of Empathy is shown as part of Inner Visions through July 12th.

     

     

     

  • More Art!

    Coming soon to a Building Resources outlet near you (assuming you’re in San Francisco), these little molded paper figures will be mounted on a polymer backing with a loop for attachment to a chain or pin.

    (This one colored by friend Amy as part of a test to find the best quick-drying medium for color application.)

    imageOn July 19th, this will be one of the demonstration arts during the Family Day event at Building Resources. At this free event, you can meet the artists in the scrap art: creative reuse in the Bayview art exhibit, learn techniques, and even make a bit of art of your own to take home.