I want to thank Mary Minnick-Daniels for allowing me to share a recent email from her. There’s a back story but the quick take is that Mary was just sharing pieces of what she had seen in the field related to how artists are (and can) use broadband. I was going to use the notes for a post – but her email was so rich in content I asked her if I could share asis, and she kindly agreed.
I have been noticing some trends in my work as Regional Arts Council Director, despite the fact that I am not an artist and am no technology expert. Back in the day I saw artists really struggling to make a living and sell their work. Those that were incredibly successful were those on the “circuit” – they’d sell their artwork at fine art and craft fairs around the nation. The American Craft Council shows are an example. Then the recession hit. What I heard from regional artists is that their sales dropped dramatically. They were scrambling to find a new way to sell their work and make their living. A number of established artists started using Etsy. At the same time young artists began using etsy as well – they had never been part of the fine art and craft circuit community. However, they began building their own community online.
Lately I’ve been hearing all sorts of examples you may be interested in. In no particular order:
- An artist lives in a rural area and has no access to life drawing models – she now uses the internet to find her models for life drawing and for other projects. She shared that usually the models only ask for a print of the work in return.
- A recent ECRAC grant recipient, Hugh Bryant, took an art risk, documented what turned out to be a failed artwork, and he’s now sharing his experience – “You Can’t Win ‘Em All”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN3qcOk3cMc
- Many of our artists are (just recently in the last few grant rounds!) using time lapse photography to document their work.
- Keith Raivo of Mora, received a Fellowship recently. He’ll be making a large sculpture of a Viking ship that will pop-up (my term) at various locations in Mora. The ship will also be a bench and the bow will have a Gopro installed so that the interaction of people with the work of art can be documented.
- There are 2 other Fellowship artists this year that will be using the internet to share their artwork.
Paul Howe is an artist at Franconia Sculpture Park in our Region. He is making a public, large scale, outdoor sculpture this summer. While the project is underway he’ll have a tripod mounted camera to automatically take photographs of the site every 2 minutes which will be compiled into a stop-frame animation to be uploaded to his website.Smartphone users will be able to access this via a QR code that I will place on the signs around the artwork site.
Rebecca Tishman will be focusing on a new body of work, literally. Her previous work has highlighted the physical struggle to achieve bodily perfection but also the internal and silent consequences. She will now be using models and will make rubber molds of their body parts. She will then cast them in iron and forge elegant curvilinear steel sculpture that the models will wear and be restricted by. Tishman’s work is documented online.
- As part of a collaboration with Forecast Public Art, ECRAC artists and organizations worked on a variety of projects. You can find vids online, a sample is:
- You may find out more information on the topic at the Rural Arts and Culture Summit. I was on the committee this year and the proposals speak to the need by artists, arts organizations, and all entrepreneurs to have access to broadband in rural. In fact, you may want to visit with Michele Anderson the Summit coordinator for her input!
Finally, my thoughts go to grant applications themselves… ECRAC is moving toward an online grant application system. Because many of the artists we work with are older adults they are worried about the process. However, we think we can train them and that this system will allow for younger artists to participate even more readily than in the past.
Mary Minnick-Daniels
Executive Director