I know that this might be strange blog procedure, but this morning I got a great comment from Shannon Garson in response to an earlier post about sustainable practice and I thought it was just too good to simply publish in the comments section as I wanted to make sure that others read the great insightful ideas. So hopefully Shannon, this is okay with you! Make sure to take the time to check out her website and blog, full of yummy pots and thoughts!
Here’s her comment:
Hi Carol!
I am very interested in alternative models for a sustainable practice in the crafts and over the past few years I’ve been putting my theories on this into practice.
One of the models some friends and I came up with was The Umbrella Collective which is a collective of craft artists- two ceramicists a toy maker, two jewellers. We joined together to pool our joint resources, physical and intellectual so, the collective attacks the wider world from quite a few angles. We have a good web presence through our blog
http://www.umbrellacollective.blogspot.com/
which links to each artist’s personal blog, websites, flickr sites and etsy. Through the web we have established an international profile and this has translated into galleries from overseas contacting us and individually ordering from the artist.
We also believe it is really important to grow support within our communities and have held an annual fair which is very well attended in Brisbane. This coming year we will do an “Outreach”(!) event in my tiny little rural town and invite one or two local artists to be guests of the Collective, giving them the benefit of our expertise, advertising and Love! The other things we are involved with include hosting artists network evenings where we each bring 5 or so guest from a professional field connected to the arts and meet at a cocktail bar where the invitation is open to all who want to attend to come and make professional connections with people from education, the media and other artists. We in the Umbrella Collective believe that we are powerful by sharing our knowledge and experience and hope that other artists will start their own collectives with an emphasis on sustainable careers in the arts.
The other thing that I am trying this year is an alternative model for exhibition. Making art ceramics is a pretty specialized field and I observed that I don’t need to sell 1000’s of items (I can’t as I can only make so many) By holding an exclusive launch of new work through a business that wants to have a special event for their favoured clients I will be building a small but enthusiastic band of collectors. I found this business through the founder buying some of my work and put forward a proposal to him that we hold a series of launches of the “Art Series” of Shannon Garson Porcelain. He would invite a very select clientele (20 or so) and I would show the first works from each series before it is opened at a public exhibition. This way my patron’s clients get to attend an very exclusive event and his company becomes (for a relatively small, tax-deductible outlay) associated with the arts, creativity, exclusivity and all that applies. It is a great way for business people with and interest in the arts to support artists and support their business at the same time.
Thanks Carol! This is a really long comment so I completely understand if you don’t want to post the whole thing! Thanks for the thought provoking blogging.
Shannon
