...Final Thoughts of An Exceptional Year!!!...

...And so !!!...This is the end!!!...What have I learned from this year?...Well...I have been inspired by Graeme and his lessons every time! Each lesson in some ways made me  a little more confident in myself and my art. They have reminded me of what I CAN do, not what I used to be able to do. One of the main reasons I joined this course was not only to make my art better, but also to learn how to take my "business" of art further. How to structure the way I go about promoting myself and my artwork, how to sell it and myself. I feel that I have made a start on this and I now have a munch better knowledge and understanding of the art "business". The course itself was made clear by Graeme and I couldn't have asked for more encouragement or inspiration given in a professional manner. As for the 53 Degrees group? I am glad it's over. I have learned a lot and I am extremely glad that I did it and I have always believed that to get things right, things have to go wrong first. I feel that the start of the group, the building of the group, was right, to a point. There were some people that weren't pulling there weight way back then. This should have been addressed straight away to get everybody working equally as a team. I believe that there should have been a team leader. Someone to delegate and also to be a part of the work itself. Too many people were jumping into different rolls. For example, The assignment of creating a webpage was delegated to Monica and Dominique who spent a lot of time creating it  and then this was somehow absorbed into Dale being in charge of it. I had been in touch with Patrick with the Steel Rooms and got the exhibition booked, but then all of a sudden someone else was contacting him and sorting everything with him. Our rolls should have been more defined and a weekly update should have been had within the group. We did have these in the lessons but if someone hadn't heard from an email that they sent a week ago they should make a call to them there and then!
There should have been more social interaction! The Facebook page was hardly touched by anyone. There were about 3 or 4 people that posted on that page, myself included when it should have been all 9 of us! Everyone was an admin! 9 people covering a Facebook page should have been so easy! The lack of press attention was a real shame. I had to step in for the last exhibition because it seemed that no one else could do it. 2 5 minute phone calls and we had 2 newspapers coming to interview and take pictures! Imagine what that would have been like if we had the mayors that we had for each one as a part of the stories.
There should have been consistency throughout all three exhibitions. I shall use The Steel Rooms as a perfect example of our Exhibition because it had great organisation and communication between the team, it had a focus on what we were doing. It was well planned with the placards for each piece, the booklets, the drink and nibbles, even down to the glasses and plates and entertainment and publicized well by the Steel Rooms, not so well by us, (I put this down to naivety on our part) but we still got quite a few people, friends and family to come along to the opening.
The Lincoln exhibition was a shambles compared to this. Hardly any organisation or communication, no placards for the pieces, no prices. It wasn't publicized at all except for flyers. The opening was a handful of the group with the mayor of Lincoln, and that was pretty much it. It was too far away costing too much for each individual with no monetary gain at all.
The Grimsby exhibition was pulled together ( and I literally mean "Pulled" because it seemed such hard work to get any one enthusiastic about it). The space wasn't the best of all three but the atmosphere was there. It was far better organised than the Lincoln exhibition but  the communication was lacking in some ways. Although we had no placards a suggestion was made to cut out the brochures and place the page of each artist with their work. The group had pretty much dissolved by this time so the actual work on show was not to the caliber of either Lincoln or Brigg. The "undercurrent" theme had been completely lost by the lack of this. The promotion for this exhibition was better than Lincoln and pretty much on a par with The Steel Rooms as this time we had the newspaper on board along with the help of Howard who actually made and printed posters for us! Something that we didn't even do!! (even though this was delegated to someone but was only done for Lincoln).
If I sound frustrated, it's because I am!!! A lot of these things I knew already and was doing and am doing even now. I felt like I kept wanting to shout at them what needed to be done, but there are areas to this that are new to some people, even me, and I had to keep reminding myself that although I know what I would do in this circumstance, that doesn't necessarily mean that I am right and I can't tell someone else what to do, they have to learn it the same as I do, by getting it wrong!!! And although I am frustrated, the whole purpose of this exercise was not to get it perfectly right, but to make mistakes, get it wrong and learn from those mistakes and accept them to make it better next time because even then, there will still be things that won't be right, not the same mistakes, but others, and then those can be made right for the next time because even then there will still be other things that will not be right so.....................

...Professional Practice Powerpoint Presentation....

Today I gave my Powerpoint presentation!!! It was made more interesting for me because for some reason the laptop hooked up to the overhead projector wouldn't accept my memory stick! So, I had to use a computer screen at one of the desks and sit on a chair by it. This made it far more cozy and comfortable for me and so much more informal, pretty much like my presentation. I think it went well, not too sure because I lost my place a little at times due to the fact that I had no idea what slide I was on as there was no preview of what slide was coming next as it would have been had I been able to use the overhead projector. Still.. it's done now and filmed by Graeme to assess it and mark it.
Here is my presentation script,....(The numbers are the slides and when to push the button for the next one)

1.      Good morning!!!

2.When I first started thinking of my presentation my first thoughts were of my role within our exhibition and how I fulfilled those rolls and how I tackled each one, including the video that I made for 53 degrees in which I did at one point 3.drown my video camera in the bath.

4.But each time I went over what I did I kept looking further and further back into the beginning of the year, how those rolls were chosen and it came to me that I should talk about what it was that I had learned.

5.As you know my profession is in the entertainment business. Although the concepts of obtaining gigs and work are very similar in one way, they are fundamentally different in other parts. I had already held an exhibition a few years ago and even at the time I knew that I had made a few mistakes, but this was because I was approaching the venture from a different point of view. I was working in a way that I know that works as an entertainer but not as an artist.

What are these main differences I hear you ask, well, it all comes down to one thing the main difference between finding an exhibition and finding a gig is the structure, 6.how to do things in a certain order, and this was the most fundamental thing that I had learned. The structure of arranging an exhibition is unlike any other structure I’ve had to deal with before

7.STEP 1: CONCEIVING THE CONCEPT

The 1^st part of the structure is to have a CONCEPT. When the concept is there, the beginning has begun. In our case the concept was a Group Exhibition. A group exhibition is a great concept. It has so many more benefits than a solo exhibition. Straight away the fact that,8. in this case there are 9 extremely talented and versatile artists, gives so much more to the public and venues for an exhibition.

So, once the CONCEPT has been made, what comes next? This is where, straight away, things are so different from how I would normally work.

** (I’m a trained Salesman and have been in sales since I was 16. In Sales the main thing to have is stock. You buy the stock, you sell the stock. That is the very basics of sales. I had always been applying this to my entertainment business. I can’t sell an hour and a half’s worth of singing if I only know 6 songs and have 6 backing tracks. )**

9.STEP 2: VENTURING FOR VENUES

We were given the task of finding the locations. What I didn’t realise is that Galleries are usually booked up from 6 months to a year, sometimes even longer. I learned that it is extremely wise that before you do anything else book a venue. In other words, it’s like planning a party!  you don’t buy everything for the party and book the entertainment, the cake, the disco the bouncy castle before you know when and where you are having it. In the case of contacting venues this is exactly the same as what I am used to. I had no problem in making calls10. and sending emails and eventually arranging a meeting with Patrick at the Steel Rooms. (I’m a big believer in meeting with people face to face, it gives people time to get to know you and for questions to be asked and answered by both parties). But here this meeting is different to what I’m used to, I’m selling a concept, not a final product. We had discussed whether the exhibition should be theme based or site specific. At this point we hadn’t chosen either. So, here I am talking to Patrick and selling him the concept of a 2^nd year degree group exhibition with 9 talented and individual artists. AND he went for it.

11.STEP 3: NAMING THE BABY

This could be quite a tricky part. With the booking of the venues in place it’s time to find a name. In some cases this would be at the top of the list, (If there wasn’t one already) and that’s understandable, but if the concept is sound, the galleries aren’t going to be sold just with a name, or even that bothered what the name actually is, (Unless it’s just ridiculous, but then this is art so a ridiculous one could easily be acceptable, in fact, “Ridiculous” actually sounds like a pretty cool name )

This again is a different view from my business, sometimes the name is everything! A band or solo artist can be sold on just the name itself; it’s the “brand”.e.g. when I was in a band and people found out, the first thing I was asked was, “What band?” although as a solo artist it is different, the question is “What do you sing?”.

In our case, the name12. 53 degrees came about due to the geographical locations of the 3 places we were to be exhibiting, thanks to Jason for noticing that one. It’s also notable that it’s possibly easier in a group to come up with a name as everyone can come up with a different idea. I still like “Ideam”. (It’s interesting to note that if we hadn’t contacted the galleries and booked with them, then the name would never have existed)

13.STEP 4: FOUNDING A FANBASE.

Once a name has been established it is now time to build a fan base. Build a following that is interested in seeing the exhibition. With the 53 Degrees group we started to build an interest by setting up a 14.  Facebook page. Again, this is an area that I had dealt with before and it’s so easy to start up, I did it in about 20minutes. Once the Facebook page is live all it needs at the moment is the basic information. What it is about and that there WILL be exhibitions. A couple of pictures to start with and to invite people to “Like” it. According to The Guardian.com (Tuesday 4^th Feb 2014) the average amount of friends a Facebook user has is 338. In the case of this being a group exhibition with 9 people involved if each person invited every “friend”, that could possibly be 3042 people invited to “like“ the page. Of course, not everyone would “Like” the page. It’s interesting to note that in sales we always said that if you spoke to 100 people, 5% would definitely buy, no matter how incompetent a salesperson you were. (In other words without trying you can sell to 5 people out of 100). 5% of 3042 is 152.1. As of yesterday 53 Degrees’ Facebook page has 171. That’s without even really trying. Imagine how many that would be if we had put all of our effort in as a collective group.

15.STEP 5: THE INTERNET BUSINESS CARD

To be considered as a professional group what was needed last of all was a webpage. It’s possibly the most important weapon in the arsenal of selling in this day in age. I must admit I have absolutely no idea on how to set up a webpage. Although I do have one for my business, I knew what I wanted but I got someone to do it for me. In my case a webpage is invaluable, it’s the silent salesperson, it’s where people find you to get information to book you, it needs to make people get in touch to ask questions. Here in lies a major difference that I have learned. The artist’s webpage is all about the art, the person and the artist. It needn’t be flashy but what it does need is constant attention and updating.  It doesn’t require people to get in touch with you, it’s for information, where to see your work, how to get in touch. And if lucky, for people to commission you , but that won’t happen if there is no work on there, but only give a peek of what you have in store for the exhibition, otherwise, what would be the point in going, it’s just a taster of what could be seen at the exhibition even if it shows 2 pieces by each artist. On a performer’s website, there needs to be proof that you can sing, that you can perform and what you look like, very superficial I know but it is important.

16.STEP 6: SETTING THE THEME.

Now is the time to look at the theme! Our theme was 17.“Undercurrent” this was due to the fact that the exhibitions were close to water. So that fit in quite nicely. Interestingly, we wouldn’t have come up with the theme if we didn’t already have the venues. This again is something way out of the way that I would normally do something. This would have been, again, one of the top priorities for me.

So, we’ve come up with a concept, booked the galleries, given ourselves a name, started to build a Facebook following, got ourselves a professional webpage, but so far, no work has been done! There is nothing!!

The Final Step of obtaining an exhibition……….

18.STEP 7:  DO SOME WORK TO SHOW!!!

19.What this has taught me is that in art I don’t need everything in place before even contacting the galleries, which is something completely different to how I would have gone about setting up an exhibition. The most invaluable lesson that I have learned through this process is how to get started by putting the project in order.20.

Here is the way that I would have done things:

STEP 1: CONCEPT

STEP 6: THEME

STEP 7: DO SOME WORK

STEP 3: NAME

STEP 5: THE INTERNET BUSINESS CARD

STEP 4: FAN BASE

STEP 2: VENTURING FOR VENUES

21.

...The End Of "Undercurrent"....

We have had our last ever exhibition of "Undercurrent" as it was officially closed by the Mayor of Grimsby tonight!!! It was really nice to have my family and a few friends there to be a part of what has been a truly interesting experience for me. It was also great that Graeme made it to this one and was taking pictures and I think he's proud of what we have achieved. Third year students also came to show their support and it was nice to show them, my family and friends around our exhibition before kicking back and enjoying a few drinks together with my fellow 53 degrees artists. I had brought along my p.a. to put on some background music and also to sing a little and Monica had provided the buffet! It was unfortunate that, again, some of the members of 53 degrees didn't come. And it was also unfortunate that there were not that many people came along. What can I put this down to? Well, The members of the group that were there didn't bring any guests and to be honest, if ALL 9 members had attended and brought just 2 people along with them that would be 27 people at least! This is how the Facebook site pretty much went. It just seemed that some people just couldn't be bothered after the Steel Rooms. The effort was gone after that. The organisation of everything was left to a skeleton crew and at times I had no idea what was going on at all. If I were part of a group again I would ensure that EVERY person had a roll and did that roll to their fullest. To pull something like this off every person has to be 100% committed! I know that we all have other work to do as well as our own personal lives, but there were 9 of us! The work that was needed by each individual was not that much. Each person could have played to their own strengths and have been given the appropriate roll. I'm not saying that I am perfect, but I am saying that the effort put in by some was minimal and by others waned halfway through to the point of not really being in the group at all with nothing to show nor anything to contribute to the team to not even supporting the team by not even showing up to the final shows opening or closing. I know that some of the members worked particularly hard in their rolls and achieved them superbly, but could it have been a momentous exhibition if every single person put in as much effort? YES!!! Would i be a part of a group again?....it would depend on who I was working with. The artists would have to be of  a professional manner and I would be extremely careful to make sure that everyone was committed to making it the best show ever, by inspiring each other along the way.
Anyway, a true learning experience from 6 months of work...
I just wanted to say that I felt humbled by the staff of Central Hall especially Howard for all of his professionalism towards us and I feel that in some way we let him down with our blind stumbling over what could have been a great exhibition....

...Powerpoint Presentation...

I have spoken to Graeme today by email about my Powerpoint presentation I'm doing next week. I have this idea that I would film myself asking the questions to myself and answering them, so I would be effectively two people doing the presentation! I got quite excited about this! It would be far more interesting and I would be able to make the timing absolutely perfect at 10 minutes exactly and keep within the boundaries of what the brief of the presentation is, eg it can have film in it, but it doesn't say that the film can't be the full 10 minutes long! However after talking to Graeme it seems that this is too ambitious and it's not really required. So.....I now have to seriously think about what to put into the presentation.. It has basically got to be a brief outline of this....this blog I have been doing really....hmmmmm the mind is ticking....

End Of Show Party Invitation...

Its Almost the end!!!.........After talking to the guys, we decided that we would make the last day of the 53 Degrees Exhibition "Undercurrent" a bit of a party for ourselves and to invite our friends and family also to join us in celebrating our first ever group exhibition. I have set up a Facebook event for the end of show party and invited the friends that I think would be interested in coming. We will also be having a raffle to donate to Central Hall and I will be providing the entertainment! I'm already looking forward to it!! oh, and Howard has said that we could use the bar upstairs too!!!

Chronicle Meeting...

I popped along to Central Hall to give an interview to the Cleethorpes Chronicle about the exhibition. Nice lady, took a couple of pictures by my own work, holding a booklet! I really don't understand why we never had any local media at the other exhibitions. I don't know who was in charge of that, I should do, but I just assumed that someone was getting the press involved, I know that we spoke about press statements in class and that someone was taking care of it, but it never seemed to pay off. Anyway, I just rang the Telegraph and the Chronicle myself and they had no problem in coming down to interview and take pictures. The whole amount of time put into this was at the most 10 minutes. 10 minutes and we had publicity to a few thousand people for free!

Central Hall Starts...

After a pretty enjoyable day yesterday setting up the exhibition, we officially opened the final 53 degrees exhibition this evening!! It was great to see students and tutors from uni who came along to support what we are doing. It was, however, a shame that only 5 of the 9 artist of 53 degrees came along to the opening, especially as we all, (with the exception of 1) are based around Grimsby. I had contacted the Grimsby Telegraph about a week before and arranged for a reporter and photographer to come down to the official opening by Mr Bradley, one of the (chairmen?) of the Central Hall at 6:30. After the opening speech we were interviewed and then we chatted with those that came to the show over wine and "nibbles". It was a really nice atmosphere and Mr Bradley was genuinely happy to see us there and our work and invited us to keep the exhibition on for longer or even come back and show more! This is exciting! We seem to have made a bit of an impact on this, our home town. It really does feel nice to have my work appreciated and that of those "core" members of the group.
p.s. after the exhibition I was invited along to take part in a gospel church that was being held in Central Hall. I decided to stay and see what it was about and ended up having a wonderful, spiritual communal time!!! Afterwards the members of the congregation had to go past our exhibition and I spent a further three quarters of an hour talking to people about our exhibition!!!
What I must say is that , I think we all know that we are never going to sell anything at this exhibition, it is more of a showing of our work. That I am happy with, especially with the fact that we are going to be publicized in the local papers with photographs of ourselves with our work. This exhibition is more of an advertisement for the group to say, "We're here" and that's all it needs to be. It would have been interesting if we had done the exhibitions the other way around...Grimsby...Lincoln...Brigg, because the Steel Rooms was the perfect place to sell our work, ( in my case, I lacked the confidence to put a proper price on my work to sell it.)
hmmm this is a good thought...an advertising show followed by a "proper"exhibition at a place where art is hung to be sold!
So tired now, got to slee..................