SAS Meeting Minutes from June 14, 2005

June 14 was the the LAST meeting at West Sunset Rec Center
We will post the new meeting locations in future posts and look on the meeting page on the SAS main website at link to the right of these postings.
(updated by Steve D.)

********************************************************************************

Art in the Avenues, Hall of Flowers Show discussion points:

General
Ten of about 15 people attending said they would do it again and thought it was worth it for both sales and interaction with others (attendees and artists). We agreed that we should continue to have the shows. Attendance was counted at 2700, so we think maybe 3000 attended, about the same as last year. There was some disappointment in that because so much work was done on publicity. Attendance may be better next year with the De Young being open.

The Canvas Café exhibit of some of the artists looked good and it was good publicity.

If someone must drop out of the show at the last minute because of unforeseen circumstances (as happened) we should try to notify other artists to bring extra work to hang in the space so it is not empty.

Maximum number of booths for inside the hall is around 46 – 48. The show can be viable with around 40 participants.

We should not be paying a “wage” to students passing out flyers for us…perhaps an “honorarium” will not get us in trouble for minimum wage violation.

Auction
$1900 was raised for the De Young museum with 30 people bidding. We discussed having the auction tables more centrally located next year if we do it again.

Food Service
Ebisu quickly stepped in to fill the void when Amanda Janes could not do the food and coffee at the last minute. Gary cautioned that he did not know about it until the last minute and he was not sure if Ebisu was insured for the event. We must consider this in the future.

Committees:
Many thanks to those who put in so much effort on the committees: the plan for the layout, publicity, set-up and breakdown, the appearance of the booths/interior design, and entertainment gets better each year. As with many organizations, the 80/20 rule applies with committee work…about 20 percent of the people do most of the work. We did not have a solution for this except to agree that:
• next year people who want to participate must attend at least one meeting and sign-up for committees
• chair people should be identified early in the planning, know their responsibilities, and know who is on their committee
• if a chair person thinks they need more people on their committee they need to speak up so adjustments can be made
• committee chairs will be rewarded with a 1st , 2nd, and 3rd choice of what booth space they want

Leigh sent her comments on setup and breakdown via e-mail:

• Hire more kids to help
• get a 15 foot truck
• Every artist needs to be informed that they will help break down the panels
• Just some notes and observations: David saved my ass with the truck and the usual people did incredible, Doug, Michael-Patrick and Morgan's husband and son were champions!! As well as the new guy Ian he worked hard on set up... as usual David Grote was there... Said helped set up and break down, all in all set up went easier and so did breakdown. The extra kids - students/sons (Ailene and Morgan's) were a godsend and the artists helping breakdown their own panels was terrific!!!!! The new mosaic artist, Delaine, helped a lot with breakdown as well and some PPAA people who definitely pulled their weight on set up and breakdown.

De Young opportunity for SAS Month
David Steinhardt led the discussion of his notes, below.

Notes-6/10/05 meeting with Renee

The target date for Sunset and Richmond artists is July of 2006. We discussed four weekends of events of an interactive nature with the public.

The overall theme is culture in the Avenues, not limited to visual artists but including also poets, musicians, historians, perhaps actors, etc.

The month should include PPAA, either as an integrated group or as a separate group with their own weekend.

Some of Renee’s ideas:
• Have artists work in groups for salon events to be viewed by the public. Her specific idea came from an art teacher who did a figure modeling class with his regular students as a 1-day residency at the Palace.
• A Surfer Sunday to celebrate the beach culture
• An Asian-American weekend to reflect the Asian culture.

The physical resources available are:
• The Kimball Gallery, where the month-long residencies will be, and is approx. 1000 sq. ft.
• This gallery has three large video screens that we can use either for video art, or for pre-taped interviews with artists, or videos of artists working in their studios, or-?
• The sculpture court (outdoors)
• Children’s Gallery (Enchanted Pond) (outdoors)
• An outdoor court adjacent to the Kimball Gallery.
• Two classrooms in the tower for prescheduled workshop type events

The financial resources available are:
• Museum: publicity, e.g., postcards & announcements in their member’s events mailings.
• Our $1900 from the silent auction at HOF if we so designate it.
• Money we might raise from the Inner Sunset Merchants Assn. Or from grants

WHAT THIS OPPORTUNITY IS NOT
• This is not a show of art. It is not an exhibition.

WHAT THIS OPPORTUNITY IS
• This is a chance for artists to interact with the public in creative ways while promoting their particular artistic vision.
• A chance to submit a proposal for an art project to a friendly institution that is very prestigious in our local art world.
• A chance for the more professional and/or ambitious artists to make important contacts and pad their resumes.
• An opportunity to do art on a scale you cannot in your studio because of space limitations.

THIS IS A JURIED PROCESS (deadline in December)
Staff at the De Young will jury the proposals that artists submit. SAS has no real influence over what is selected and what is not.

SUGGESTIONS FOR SUCCESSFUL PROPOSALS
• Think big. It is easier to scale a proposal down rather than up. If you have harbored dreams of doing a room-sized installation or workshop or event, this is the time and place it might be made real. Propose the project you really want to do, and let for the De Young to tell you that it’s a great idea, but it needs to be scaled back a little to fit in their program.
• Propose a project that your portfolio will support. If you’ve always wanted to do a huge sand painting but your whole portfolio is made up of photo collages, you’re chances are slim, simply because they will doubt that you can actually follow through your proposal.
• We will try to get a workshop scheduled that will help you write a proposal. If you don’t already know how, cancel your other plans and attend it. Writing proposals is a specific skill with certain rules and standards that make your chances of acceptance much higher.
• Talk to your artist friends. Collaborative proposals can really work well in this setting. A proposal that includes several artists working in a coordinated way will be well considered.
• Think your proposal through. Some details are important. For example, if you want to hang a 1000 pound glass object from the ceiling, have an idea of how thick a cable you will need, how many bolts and of what size, etc. If you want five artists dressed in tuxedos and whiteface to sit in a circle on the floor and play dominos in slow motion, think about whether they will need pillows, if there should be rules about their conversation, whether they should keep score or not, what to do about bathroom breaks, what postures are acceptable, etc. If you want to do a mural with kids, think about how many kids, what their ages are, how many tables you will need, where they will come from, how big the mural will be, etc.

You don’t need to know every detail. But you want to give the impression that you are experienced at and/or capable of planning your project out in detail if it is accepted and executing it effectively. Your proposal should include:
name (s)
address, etc.
artist statement
proposal
materials used
nature of community involvement
space requirements
multi media requirements

(end of David’s notes)

If anyone has corrections or additions, please let me know. I will be out of town 6/26 thru 7/10.

Kelcie Tinker, SAS Secretary