Studio open house and sale March 24-25,2012
Last month I noted that I just completed work on my new studio behind my house in Chatham County at 127 Lady Bug Lane and now it is time for a celebration. I will be holding an open studio, exhibition and sale of older works on Saturday March 24th from 10am-5pm and Sunday March 25th from 11am-4pm.
It is also time to celebrate my older work by finding new homes for it to dwell in, and in that spirit work will priced to sell most at $400 and less. Below is a list of some of the works for sale and prices, which are cash or check prices for pickup in person and only available for the days of the sale, reasonable offers will also be considered. There will also be some smaller figure sculptures available for sale and priced $100 range.
Light refreshments will be served and maybe I can entice some of my friends to come out and play some music so please come and join me take a look at the new space, view the work and talk art as we christen the new studio.
Back in the Saddle Again Price upon request
Chairform #1 $400
Chairform #2 $400
Chairform #3 $400
Torso #5 $350
Little Big Man Price upon request
Monitor Rising $400
Shield Mirror #1 and #2 Price upon request
Community Supported Art
Back in the fall I was reading through the October/November issue of American Craft Magazine when I stumbled on an article entitled Art Harvest. Now I must admit that I seldom actually read articles in American Craft, as awful as that sounds, I view the magazine as more of a visual reference and at best skim the articles but somehow this item, which had no pictures, caught my attention. The idea behind the article was a St. Paul, Minnesota arts group had taken the idea of community-supported agriculture or CSA and converted the A for agriculture to an A for art.
If you are not familiar with CSAs, the basic concept is a local farm sells shares, usually in the spring, of that year’s harvest, and the share buyers each week during the course season get a box full of the crops that are being harvested. This model enables the farmer to not only have startup capital to help plant that year’s crop but assures them some income for the season. The share buyer benefits by not only supporting a local farm but by getting fresh locally grown produce throughout the season, a win-win all around. How does this model work for the arts? A group of artists, in this case six, is selected to create one work for each member share which in this model is 30 and each share costs $400. The artists get $1200 for their participation and the opportunity to promote themselves through the program and the shareholders each get one unique work of art from each artist—again, a win-win all around.
So why did this excite me? Maybe because it was not so much about me, since my interest in the CSA was more as a facilitator and less as an artist, but also more my excitement in stumbling across a new model to promote the arts that I thought had real potential. It is rare I get excited by an idea that is not somehow directly connected to me or my work. Though I was certainly an altruist in my youth, it has been awhile since I have stuck my hand into the realm of public activism.
But when the mood strikes one must act, so I brought the idea to the attention of the county arts council and from there we determined the best way to move forward was through a new ad hoc group in Chatham County called the Creative Economy Task Force. Fortunately the group in Minnesota that originally created the art CSA (and whom the American Craft article was written about) has created a very detailed replication kit—or recipe, as I call it—basically laying out all the details needed to produce an art CSA. With this recipe in hand, we have begun the process of tweaking the model to produce a CSA on a smaller scale that we know we can accomplish, as well as putting together a team of people to make it happen.
Robert Donnan the co-facilitator of the Creative Economy Task Force and I, along with Molly Matlock, the executive director of the Chatham County Arts Council and host of the local radio program Inside the Artist’s Studio, discussed our ongoing efforts at length in a February 14 interview on her program.
One of the early revelations for me that has come out of this whole process has been the realization that, unlike most of my endeavors in the studio which are solo, the CSA project requires collaboration. There is no way I can carry this event entirely on my own shoulders and with my own funds, so if we are to move forward it is going to be a group effort.
So how is this done? Do you start a nonprofit? Do you partner with a nonprofit? Do people donate time and money just because they think it is a good idea? How do you go about creating an organization out of thin air? And to me the most important part of this process is, if you are to have an impact, how can you make the project sustainable? Which by my definition means it can pay for itself and can be repeated and grow. Though to my mind that begins to sound like shameless capitalism, I have begun to think of it as small case capitalism. A friend of mine long ago used to like to characterize thing as upper case and lower case based on their importance, so lower case capitalism means people get paid a wage or stipend to help, nobody works entirely for free, and nobody gets rich, either. We all chip in for the greater good, and our time still is acknowledged as having value.
So stay tuned! We hope to roll out the first Chatham County community-supported art project by the end of May this year, with a list of the participating artists and information on how and where you can buy shares.
Radio Interview
If you have a chance to listen I will be interviewed on the local Carrboro radio station WCOM Tuesday February 14 at 4pm. I will be joined by local innovator Robert Donnan as we discuss creativity, creative economies and creative communities on Inside the Artists Studio with host Molly Matlock.If you do not live in the area you can listen to the live stream at www.wcomfm.org the segment will be later archived at www.insidearts.wordpress.com if you miss the live broadcast. Please listen in and tell me what you think
Hand Made
Life has its weird symmetries and I experienced one of these the other day. I was on my way home from my first visit to a large store, that shall remain nameless, that deals exclusively in cheap tools from China. My quest had been to purchase a new motor for my air compressor, which they sold at half the price of any other local distributor. I mention that this was my first trip to this establishment not out some superior sense that I don’t buy cheap crap from China - I do and we all do. It was just that since they had opened up their doors a couple of years ago I had yet to step on that hallowed ground. (I also have never been in a Taco Bell, but that is another story.) With my new motor in hand I stepped into my truck and made for the long ride home. As is often the case, my truck radio was tuned to the local NPR station, and This American Life was just starting. This is where the weird symmetry begins.
The program that day was entitled “Mr. Daisy and the Apple Factory”,Mike Daisey was a self-described "worshipper in the cult of Mac." Then he saw some photos from a new iPhone, taken by workers at the factory where it was made. Mike wondered, “Who makes all my crap?” He traveled to China to find out. So you can see the setup. I was about to drive an hour home with my Cheap Chinese crap while listening to the horrors of how my cheap Chinese crap is made.
I think we are all aware of the basic story. Labor is paid pennies on the hour and working conditions are sub standard, and bleak. This story went into a little more depth, and the details are indeed depressing as you think of thirteen-year-old girls spending 12-16 hour days hand polishing iPhone screens with toxic chemicals. But I was able to maintain my distance until almost the end of the story (spoiler alert). Mr. Daisey walks out onto a factory floor with thousands of workers and hears nothing, just complete silence. The workers are not only not allowed to talk to each other, the work is also done largely by hand, thousands of hands working away mostly unaided by machines. Mr. Daisey then makes the comment that in China most of the goods produced are truly “Hand Made.”
Now it hit home. “Hand made” is what I do, and now somehow that simple phrase I use to describe my work was now being used to refer to cheap crap made in factories in China. Somehow I felt like I could no longer use the term “Hand Made.” It had become tainted. I can’t say I know the moral of this story. Did I return my motor? No. Does it make me think about the objects I use and where they come from? Yes. Draw your own conclusions and let me know what you think.
