Gallery Strategies

So you’ve found a great, natural wood-floor, well-lit gallery space, and you rented it. Now what are you going to fill it up with?

My first answer would normally be “Nothing”.

Me, I’d leave the gallery totally empty except for a few very large, very impressive celebrity art in the form of paintings or other types of hanging pieces, and maybe a few full-length sculptures, a meeting area on a luxury Persian carpet, and that’s it.

My preference is to make a few good sales a year, rather than keep the register going “ka-ching”, but that’s not how we’re going to run this gallery, because there’s a lot more at stake here than celebrity art and celebrity artists.

We have a work community. Continue reading

Gorby’s Little Craft Kits

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Can you pick me out  in photo? Craft Session at Camp Woodland, August 25, 1955. You can order the book “Downtown Community School” from Gateways Books & Tapes.

Kids had such a transformative experience working with adults in the Craft Classes at Camp Woodland and Downtown Community School under the direction of Norman Studer during the 1950s, and when families worked together on simple craft projects and craft shows, it was like a bunch of gluons had suddenly bonded the family members into a blended and harmonious unity, and that’s exactly what’s needed in this world of pain.

I’m designing an entire LINE of metal-embossing kits, and I’ll tell you why — the new EK cutter is a piece of crap, although it does admittedly do the job, but it does it with four massive crimps in the sides, which eventually will roll out with pressure and persistence, but the additional effort makes the thing too time-expensive for the marketplace.

So I decided to set up a craft supply “factory” where I either make or encourage and teach others to make little circular foil bits for sale to embossers everywhere.

We’re making embossings that can actually be used in jewelry mountings, because our sizes correspond to the mountings without modification. We’re among the very few who make embossings on round foil disks. Continue reading

Teaching Art in Second Life

Gypsy Easel

It’s true — you can teach art classes in Second Life, and here’s how it’s done. First, get hold of this instant artist easel shown here. I’ll put in a link where you can get it:

click here for your very own gypsy easel

But now that you have your Gypsy Easel in hand or at least in Inventory, what do you do with it? How do you use it to teach an art class? It’s very simple if you can follow directions well.

Continue reading