This and that

There’s been a lot going on recently, and I’ve just not really had the time or energy to get back here.

This past weekend saw the Clothesline Art Festival come and go at the Memorial Art Gallery grounds in Rochester.  The weather was iffy on Saturday, but people still came and bought.  Sunday’s weather was glorious and the grounds were packed.  This was especially encouraging for a couple of reasons–first, and most obvious, it meant more sales for everyone showing there…secondly, it meant that the public had given a vote of support for all of the changes that have been made to the show in the past year, with the aim of revitalizing it and bringing it back to where it once was, in terms of attendance and stature.  As one of the members of the committee planning and running the event (the committee is a new idea, as is the presence of an actual working artist there), I had a vested interest in seeing things happen there.  I’d been pushing for changes, and being that the committee chair, Karen Stolt, is a wonderfully open person about it all, and that the committee members are really working for a better production, a lot of good things were in the works.  In order to justify them to the powers-that-be, it was necessary for us to show that the public approved, in terms of attendance and sales.  After all, the event is the museum’s principal fund-raising event for the year, and their bottom line is amount of $$ coming in and positive buzz for the museum.  I hope that all was accomplished on both fronts…we’ll see next Tuesday when we have our first meeting to debrief and run numbers.  Among the changes…a lessening in the admission fees for the public from $7 to $5, with a dollar further off for pre-sale tickets or museum members.  We added another entertainment stage and boosted the number of performances there, with the Mambo Kings presenting the grand finale from the main stage on Sunday afternoon, which really had the place rocking.  We pretty much totally reconfigured the shape of the show, moving many artists around from their accustomed places, in order to facilitate patron traffic and get rid of some of the cul-de-sacs and small confusing areas that had existed previously.  We boosted our advertising and publicity efforts, juried the exhibitors more stringently and expanded the area from which artists could apply.  As you can imagine, all of these changes served to make a lot of people uncomfortable, on all fronts.  Essentially, people seem to shy away from change, and we really had to work hard to sell it all.  So, we’ll see on Tuesday whether we’ll be allowed to continue to proceed in our direction, or whether things will go back to the old status quo.  Stay tuned…

I’ve also ordered a new, computer controlled electric kiln for my studio mates use.  If all works out today, I’ll go and pick it up, and try to get it installed soon.  That should increase the number of options available to them in terms of firing their work.  It means more expensive firings for them, but hopefully the results will justify it. My aim with my “associates” (as I call my studio mates…I’m the leaseholder on the space and they pay me rent) is to give them an environment and the tools to make the best pots they can make.

Lastly, I guess, would be the unhappy news that I’ve been diagnosed with arthritis in my left thumb.  I know, sounds trivial, right?  But try working on pots the way I do with that kind of pain…it’s just not a pleasant experience.  It’s been bothering me the past couple of weeks, and I’ve been worrying about it, so I went and got it examined and x-rayed yesterday.  I’ll see a specialist soon, I hope, and find out what the long term prognosis is, and what measures are likely to prove effective in treating it.  My own computer research doesn’t seem too hopeful, but we’ll see.  I make a lot of larger pieces, and as a left-hander, rely on my left thumb to provide a lot of muscle and support.  It will be interesting to see if I am able to adjust my techniques to eliminate that need when things flare up.  Meanwhile, it’s take the Advil and full speed ahead!

OK, have to get to the studio and get things going.

This entry was posted on 12. September 2008 at 09:04 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

| Print