The Importance of Artist Opening Receptions
I’m excited to bring you the final piece in our 7-part series: the Artist Opening. Writing this series has further enlightened me about what goes into putting together a solo show or any other art exhibition for another matter. Now, let’s get to it:
Have you heard the saying,
“People don’t buy the art, they buy the artist”
The truth is, many patrons of your artwork really want to get to know the person behind the creation. Although you’ll expect that your work will speak for itself, it doesn’t always work that way. You know as well as I do that the art we create is an expression of ourselves. There’s a little bit of us in there and collectors know that very well.
So it’s fair to say that buying art is not like buying a product, it is an experience. It’s not merely an exchange of money for a visual item. It involves sharing in the expressive work of another person.
Of course, some buyers do not care about the message or the person behind the work, the techniques and visual interest are enough for them.
But for those visitors to your solo show who want more than the work you’ve created, you’ve got to provide the means for them to get more.
Some ways for you to satisfy your fans’ need of getting to know you better include
Various Artist Events
- Artist opening receptions
- Meet and greet events and
- Artist closing receptions
- Artist talks
- Group presentations
So don’t ignore meeting fans of your work at your solo show or at any exhibition of your work, for that matter. Meeting admirers of your work helps you build relationships with them. Not necessarily personal relationships, but it helps fill a void in their knowledge about your work. Ultimately, it’s all about your work and helping them gain a better appreciation for your work.
It’s why we write artist statements and bios. But you must agree with me that artist bios pale in comparison to face-to-face meetings. Many buyers will become repeat buyers after learning more about the artists and the stories behind their work through face-to-face meetings. Because there’s something about these artist events that will reveal your personality in a way that written words and your artwork itself are not able to capture.
The famous French painter Cezanne is quoted as saying,
“ The most seductive thing about art is the personality of the artist”
I know that although many art buyers may nod their heads in agreement with Cezanne, many artists will cringe in trepidation at that statement. Because many of us creatives are private people (introverts) and the thought of making personal connections with art lovers is simply hard for us.
But let me say this, Calm down artists, calm down! I hear you and I totally understand. Just like you, I’m still learning this art of making connections. And it’s worth mentioning that it’s not a totally impossible feat to accomplish.
Let me just be clear, art lovers are really not interested in you baring your soul to them Remember that ultimately, all they want is to understand, identify with and appreciate your artwork better.
So how exactly do you start talking to people at an artist opening? Well, for starters when a viewer compliments you on a piece that they’re looking at, don’t just say “thank you.” Man, you’ve got to do more. You definitely don’t want to give them lectures, but you’ve got to say a few more sentences.
If you’re thinking to yourself, “But I don’t know what to talk to them about?” Then here are a few conversation starters to use at your artist opening or other events.
Conversation Starters at Artist Opening
- Inspiration for the art piece
- Story that you’re trying to tell with that piece
- Social issues you’re trying to address if any
- Materials & Techniques used
- The unique process involved in creating that piece
After my first event, I noticed that 80% of the questions people ask about your artwork are pretty much similar. You get these questions over and over again. If I’d known beforehand, I’d have prepared for them. But now that I know, you can be better prepared for your artist opening.
Questions to Expect at Your Artist Opening
- The significance or meaning of your art
- How do you make time to create?
- Do you do this full-time?
- How did you learn to do this?
- What are you currently working on/ Future plans?
- Are any of your parents of family artists?
You should keep in mind
How to Conduct Yourself at an Artist Opening
- Be comfortable
- Make eye contact
- Be genuinely interested in the people who ask you questions and to whom you speak
- When speaking use simple language not technical or artsy terms
- Don’t give long winding answers
- Speak to as many people as possible (Don’t spend too much time with friends, give others a chance to talk to you).
- Remain positive at all times even when others are rude.
In conclusion, relax! This is your opportunity to meet art lovers, artists, art critics and other people who can support you.
Enjoy your artist opening!!
That’s a wrap for our solo show series. Hope you’re better prepared for your next solo show.
Your Turn
What are some of the questions you’ve wanted to ask an artist? What questions are you frequently asked at an artist opening or other art events?
Warmest Regards,
You may also be interested in these other parts of the series
1: Planning for Your Solo Show
2: Curating Your Solo Show
3: Laying out Your Artwork
4: How to Promote Yor Solo Show
5: How to Write a Press Release
6: Installing/ Hanging Your Art Show
Installing Your Exhibition
Installation day is finally here. My adrenalin is high and I’m all excited about this day – my solo show is finally going to go up. Thank God it was a cool September morning not a hot summer day. Because oh how so uncomfortable it’d have been on a hot summer day with these high levels of adrenaline. 🙂
But seriously, the weather could have been anything and I surely wouldn’t have noticed. I was pumped!!
Installing your exhibition is when all the preparatory work you’ve done for the show gets seen by the public. So it will surely be a big day for you just as it was for me.
Prepare Ahead
To get your art exhibition on the road, you first need to get your artwork to the venue, right? If it’s at all possible and safe, then load up your vehicle several hours before you need to leave for the gallery.
Because it may take longer than you estimated to load up your vehicle. You’ll need to arrange, rearrange and then arrange again all the pieces of artwork into your vehicle. (ask me how I know).
Remember that your artwork is not all you’ll need for installing your exhibition. You’ll also need some tools to get the job done. You should prepare your toolbox and the tools that go into it prior to installation day.
Get the Right Tools for Installing Your Exhibition
By now you must know how much I love lists. So it shouldn’t surprise you to know that I kept a list of all the tools that I felt would be necessary for installing my exhibition.
Those tools that I didn’t have use of in my daily studio practice, I put them away in the toolbox for installation day. Those that I was constantly using, I kept on my list. The night before installation, I made sure everything on my list was in my toolbox ready to be packed into my vehicle.
Now when you arrive at the venue, you may be given a limited time within which to hang or install your artwork. We had exactly two hours between the time we were allowed in, to the time the restaurant opened to finish hanging my work. So we needed to be very efficient with our time.
Create Visually Pleasing Groups of Work
To get things started, we put all the artwork on tables so we could easily see them. This helps with the next step. That is to create visually pleasing groupings for installing your exhibition on the walls. It also helps you save tons of time. You don’t want to hang your work, take them down and hang them again.
So. if possible, spread out all the pieces of your work on several tables. Then stand back to take a look at them from a distance.
Next start to put together groups of work that have a common theme. Look for themes of color, pattern, shapes, subject matter and variety in artwork sizes.
Now, you’ll want to place each table of groupings in front of the walls where you plan to hang them.
Better still if your work is framed and you can stand them on the floor, then stand them on the floors next to walls you plan to hang them. Again, step back and take a look at how they look.
You Have a Good Flow When Installing Your Exhibition
Your utmost intention when installing your exhibition is to have a good flow of your artwork. So do a panoramic scan of the walls, from one end to the other to see if you’ve got a good flow going.
Think about the flow and the relationship between the pieces. When one set of grouping ends, does it transition softly into another set of grouping?
Try to tell a story with the arrangement if you can. Move things around until you’re completely satisfied with how they look and flow into each other. Only then will you be ready for installing your exhibition.
Your excellent preparation of your toolbox finally comes in handy here. Because now you’re finally ready to begin installing your exhibition.
All Artwork on the Walls Should Be Level
In part 3 of this series, I talked about how much distance you should have between the pieces you hang on the walls. Also, this article gives you an easy way to calculate what the distance from the floor to the center of each piece should be.
You’ll need your nails, plumb line, picture hooks, or hanging rods to hang the work. You must make sure each piece you hang is level.
Finally, stand back and take a good look at the pieces on the walls. Again, ask yourself if you have a good flow going. Are you satisfied?
Here’s a piece of advice for you.
Err on the side of having less rather than more pieces on the walls when installing your exhibition.
It is tempting to want to show all your work that you prepared for the show. But the patrons of the show will appreciate each piece much better if there’s enough “breathing space” around them So don’t fall into the trap of overcrowding the walls when you’re installing your exhibition.
Now you can breathe a sigh of relief and go get ready for your opening reception. Congrats on installing your exhibition. You did it.
Your Turn
What do you find most pleasing when you see an exhibition that has been well installed? Can’t wait to hear your comments.
Warmest Regards,
You may also be interested in the other titles in this series:
1: Planning for Your Solo Show
2: Curating Your Solo Show
3: Laying out Your Artwork
4: How to Promote Yor Solo Show
5: How to Write a Press Release
6: Installing/ Hanging Your Art Show
7. Opening Reception
Welcome back to our ongoing series on planning and executing your solo show. In the last installment of the series, we talked about using your circle of influence to promote your solo show. In this post, we’ll be talking about how to create and use an art show press release to generate a buzz for your show.
Although our circle of influence is a great starting point for promoting our solo shows, there’s a wider audience available to us beyond that starting point and we need a strategy to reach this audience. This is where an art show press release comes in.
With a well-crafted art show press release, you can reach people far beyond your circle of influence. Some of the audiences beyond your immediate circle of friends you want to reach include:
Professional Affiliations/Organizations
- Professional Organizations to Which You Belong (Their Blogs & Newsletters)
- Local Galleries Which Show Your Type of Artwork (Do your research)
- Galleries Where you’ve Exhibited in the Past (invite gallery directors)
- Local/Regional Newspapers (send press releases)
- Art and/or Interior Decorating Magazines
- Specific Niche Publications (Example: if your artwork is about wildlife send your announcement to wildlife magazines)
- Professionals Who Juried Your Work in The Past (send invites with personal notes)
- Bulletin Boards / Newsletters of Local Art Centers (use posters)
For most professional settings in which you want to promote your art show, you’ll want to use an art show press release for that purpose. So, let me say a few things about press releases here.
How to Use An Art Show Press Release to Promote Your Show
Press releases are official statements you send to newspapers about your events. It can be daunting if you haven’t written one before. But once you get the basic structure of a press release you’ll be able to write one. See below for a copy of the art show press release I crafted for my solo show. Let me say this,
the important thing about writing a press release is that you need to have a catchy headline.
Editors get a lot of requests for press releases but they have very limited space to publish all the requests they receive. So,
for your press release to stand a chance of being published it needs to stand out of the crowd.
Textile art is still relatively new on the art scene so you need to pique readers interest with a headline that will not only make them read further but also want to come see your solo show. Also, you have to be as succinct as possible because publishers have limited space to work with.
Sample Art Show Press Release
My art show at Atticus was my first opportunity to write a press release. However, because I employed a very catchy headline, I was able to promote my solo show in a major newspaper in my region at my first try.
Note that your original press release might be edited by the editors before it get’s published. You’re only giving them enough info to be able to write their article. Here’s a look at the original press release I submitted; and above is what was published.
When I was planning my solo show, I really wanted to see sample press releases specifically for textile art shows to help me write mine, but I could hardly find any. So I hope this one helps you.
The second thing I want to say about sending out press releases is that you need to send them out early – usually, a couple of weeks before the event – and you need to follow up. If possible, get the email addresses of the art editor of the publication you want your announcement in.
It’s easy to do an online search for that info. Create a media contact spreadsheet and save all of this info in there. So you have easy access to information about who to send your press releases to, when to send them, and how to contact them to follow up.
Then, you want to send the editors personal emails every now and then (no spam), to check on your press release and see when they’re planning to publish it. Keeping in touch is key to ensuring your press release gets published.
Get Help to Promote Your Art
Finally, if you’re finding all of this overwhelming, calm down!!! 🙂 You don’t absolutely need to do everything I’ve talked about here, nor do you need to do it all by yourself. But doing these things will certainly help you run a successful solo show.
Also, there’s a lot of help available. So you don’t need to go it alone. Remember what I said in part 1 of this series:
” Forget about the word “solo” in solo-show. It requires a team effort”.
Yes, it’s an entire production for which you’ll need to plan very well. But it’s not a solo event. You need a team effort. So, certainly get help when you need it.
There are organizations which will both design and print the materials for you to promote your art show. You can also check out independent and inexpensive designers on Fiverr to help you out. If you want to design the promotional materials yourself, check out Canva.com. It’s a very easy-to-use design application.
There are also press release templates available, to help simplify the process. All you do is to fill in your info and the wizard will generate your art show press release for you. If you don’t sign up for this particular service, then you’ll need to click on the preview button to copy and paste your generated art show press release into a word document for later use.
Also, there are services (both free and paid) which can distribute your art show press release to selected geographic areas of your choice. So you don’t have to take care of distribution by yourself.
As you can see, lots of resources and help abound.
Whichever route you choose to take,
the most important thing is not to ignore to promote your art show.
Conclusion
In conclusion, you chose to have a solo show because you want your work to be seen. And people will not see your work unless you promote your art show. So, get out there and promote your art show like you mean it.
Craft a compelling art show press release and use it to reach a wider audience.
There’s an audience out there wanting to be introduced to your work. Go get them!!!
I’m rooting for you. I know you can do this!!!!
Question: What are some other audiences not listed here that you’d like to see your work? See you in the comments.
Warmest Regards,
You may also be interested in the other titles in this series:
1: Planning for Your Solo Show
2: Curating Your Solo Show
3: Laying out Your Artwork
4: How to Promote Yor Solo Show
5: How to Write a Press Release
6: Installing/ Hanging Your Art Show
7. Opening Reception
Self-Promotion Doesn’t Come Naturally for Most
I know that it’s important to promote your art and share it with a wider audience. And although I do that, I must be honest with you. Self-promotion doesn’t come naturally to me and often it’s quite uncomfortable for me to do. I know a lot of us artists feel this way so we ignore that part of our business. But we all know that ignoring something doesn’t make it go away.
To see or hear others appreciate our artwork is important because it truly adds an invaluable dimension to what we do.
So, you owe it to yourself to not only create art but to also promote your art so others can appreciate it. It’s just the smart thing to do. And let me say this,
It doesn’t matter how great your artwork is, if you don’t promote your art show, all the planning and hard work in the world will not get eyeballs on your art.
Thankfully, there are several “non-evasive” ways you can promote your art and solo show without feeling like you’re being “salesy”.
Let me tell you, if I can do it, you can too. I’m going to show you some easy ways I promoted my solo art show and you can do the same too.
So here is what you do. Remember the artist statement and bio you created in “Curating Artwork” phase of planning this project, this is where they come handy. They will form the basis for your promotional materials.
8 Materials You Need to Promote Your Art Show
You will need to create the following materials to promote your art and get the word out there:
- Promotional Postcards
- Art Posters
- Press Releases
- Blog Posts/ Website Announcements
- Social Media Announcements
- Exhibition Invitations
- Exhibition Catalogs/Programs
- Business Cards
Depending on where you’re having your solo show, the gallery or venue might create and/or pay for some of these materials for you. Check with them first.
Whether you create promotional materials yourself or have someone do them for you, you’ll be responsible for providing the information that will be used to create the materials to promote your art show.
Pertinent information you need in all your materials
- Title of the Show
- Artist Statement/ Show Concept
- Dates and Time
- Venue
- Contact Information
- A Great Photo of your Artwork
- Short Artist Bio
Here are some places online to print your promotional materials if you need to take care of that yourself.
You can also check your local copy and print center for quality and price. Make sure to have high-quality electronic copies of your promotional materials so you can also send them by email. You will also need these for your social media promotion. (More about social media promotion later).
Now that you have all these materials to promote your art show, “what do you do with them?”, is what you’re asking yourself. Right?
Well, your circle of influence should be your first order of business. Don’t underestimate how far you can get the word out if you use them. The promotional materials you created gives them an easy way to help you promote your art show.
And for the most part, they really do want to support you in any way they can. So, give them a chance to support you. Provide all those in your circle of influence with your invitations or postcards. You want to even give them full-size posters to post in their places of work if possible.
So, when I say your circle of influence, who exactly do I mean?
Your Circle of Influence
- Family
- Coworkers
- Friends
- Doctor’s Office
- Kids’ Teachers/ Sports Coaches
- Kids’ Doctors
- Your Spouse’s Circle of Influence
- Friends from Church/ or Place of Worship
- Your Art/Critique/Quilting Group
- Facebook & Other Social Media Groups to Which you Belong
I started with this group of people because they are the easiest and “non-threatening” group to deal with since you already have relationships with them.
However, having relationships with them doesn’t mean you should spam them. Don’t just send them the invitation/postcards without explanations. Get on the phone or meet and talk to them about what you’re doing and then give them your promotional material.
If you have to send it to them in the mail, make sure you add a handwritten note. Don’t send out mass mailings without personal notes. Keep in mind that you want to promote your art show not turn people off. And these are people you already know, so it should be pretty easy to write notes to them.
Promote Your Art Show on Social Media
Now, let’s move on to the internet. Don’t ignore social media. It’s a powerful way to draw attention and to promote your art show. Your following on social media form part of your circle of influence. The thing about social media is, you’re able to have a large following thus increasing your circle of influence.
So here is where you’ll be using the electronic version of your promo materials.
For all your social media accounts, post before the show, when the show opens, during the show and after the event (about the success of the show). Remember to use relevant hashtags when posting.
Facebook:
Create Facebook events, announcements and ads about your upcoming show. Keep your followers updated with open reception photos, photos of you at your solo show and more.
Twitter:
Send out frequent tweets about your upcoming event to promote your art show. You can also live blog on Twitter about say, your meet and greet or artist reception.
Instagram:
Use Instagram for invites and posting photos of the gallery layout and your artwork on the walls.
That’s it for using your circle of influence to promote your art show. In the next part of this series, we’ll work on reaching an audience beyond your circle of influence. See you then.
In the meantime, executing a successful show starts with a great plan. So download the free planning list now.
Your Turn
What are some of the ways you promote your art shows? Share your favorites below.
Warmest Regards,
You may also be interested in the other titles in this series:
1: Planning for Your Solo Show
2: Curating Your Solo Show
3: Laying out Your Artwork
4: How to Promote Yor Solo Show
5: How to Write a Press Release
6: Installing/ Hanging Your Art Show
7. Opening Reception
Welcome back to our series: Behind the Scenes of A Solo Art Show. In this third part of the series, we’ll be talking about “Artwork Layout”. When I say “Artwork Layout“, I mean how the artwork will be hanging on the wall spaces that we have available to us. At this point, we have planned out the main elements of the show, we have curated the artwork we want to be in the show based on our chosen theme. Now, we want to move on to how to arrange the artwork on the walls.
Measure The Wall Space
In order to do this, we need to measure the wall space first. Measuring the wall space is important for you to know how many pieces of work you need to fill that space. If you’re creating new work for the show, this is a critical part of what you need to do. It not only determines how many pieces you need for the show but also how fast you need to work to be able to create enough work in time for the show. Even if you’re showing existing work, artwork layout still remains an important step in getting your show ready. Because you need to know how many of the pieces will make it in the show.
When you measure the total wall space available in the location, remember that not all that space will be usable for your artwork layout. There are a couple of things to keep in mind when calculating your usable wall space.
- Artwork must be laid out at eye level. So any space above or beneath eye level is not usable. And you must subtract it from the total wall space.
- Each piece of artwork must be given its own space so that it can be easily appreciated by the viewer. You don’t want patrons to be encroaching on the space of other patrons who are viewing nearby work. Nor do you want your artwork to be so close to each other that when they’re being viewed, the adjacent artwork is also right there in your face.
Draw Artwork Layout on Paper
So keeping these things in mind, calculate how much actual usable space you have. Then, draw the wall spaces on a piece of paper to figure out how you’re going to lay out your artwork. If you’ve got 3 walls to use, show the three walls on the paper. In many cases, you’ll not be able to go do a trial run of hanging the work before the actual show nor will you even want to go through the entire process even if you have access to the place. What you’re guaranteed of being able to have access to, is the paper drawing of your desired artwork layout. So make the most use of it.
Now arrange the pieces of work you selected in the curating phase on your paper drawing of your artwork layout. Remember to leave breathing room between the art pieces. A rule of thumb is to leave several inches of spaces between each piece of work. Alternatively, you can use your body frame to estimate. Measure the width from one of your shoulders to the other and this will be the space between pieces. This should leave enough room for free movement by patrons viewing your artwork.
More Than One Show May Emerge
If you’re using existing work, you might find that you have enough work to create two or more shows based on your theme and wall space restrictions. In that case, you’ll be faced with a decision to make. When that happens, choose the best of the two or three sets of curated work you’ve got available to show. If on the other hand, you don’t have enough work, your paper layout will make this very obvious. And then, you can get to work creating more work. Whatever be the case, I cannot overstate the benefits of planning.
In conclusion, I want to say that you’ll be working back and forth between the various planning phases. You’ll not get completely done with one phase and then move on to the other. You’ll keep tweaking as you go and that’s all part of the process.
Finally, I’ve got to say nothing beats actual installation. Drawing the artwork layout and working back and forth from your drawing is all necessary for planning. But the actual gallery space or event location has a character of its own. So when you get to installation day, be open to making a few more location-specific tweaks to ensure your solo show is a success.
Your Turn
What do you think will be most daunting for you about laying out your artwork for your solo show?
Warmest Regards,
You may also be interested in the other titles in this series:
1: Planning for Your Solo Show
2: Curating Your Solo Show
3: Laying out Your Artwork
4: How to Promote Yor Solo Show
5: How to Write a Press Release
6: Installing/ Hanging Your Art Show
7. Opening Reception
What great feedback I’ve had on the first part of this blog series about how to pull off your solo art show. The comments and emails have been very lively. And I’m excited to bring you the second article in this series. In the second part of Behind The Scenes of A Solo Show series, I’m going to continue with curating art work needed for the show.
Curating Art is Like Writing A Story
First off, let’s define what I mean when I say curating. Since I write a lot, a writing analogy will be appropriate. Curating art is like writing a story. You choose the right words, put them together in a way that makes sense and then edit out what’s not needed till you finally have a written piece that’s easily readable.
So by that token, my main aim for curating art for this show was to have a selection that is cohesive or easily readable to the viewer. In order to do that, I decided to come up with a theme. (Just like you’ll come up with a topic to write about). My theme as I talked about in this post was “Reflections”. However, that’s too broad. I needed to drill down a little more to narrow my focus. (Again, the analogy here will be – you need a subtopic when you write an article)
A Story About Black and White Stitched Drawings
My subtopic then for curating art in this instance became, “Black and White Stitched Drawings”. Each piece was going to be a stitched drawing. Each piece would have a twin, which is a reflection of the original piece. I decided that for each pair, one would be on a white background and the second, on a black background. That was about it. Everything else was free to evolve as I went along. And evolve they did.
Originally, I thought I’d have a black and white show. I thought I’d stitch an exact copy of the reverse side of each piece. But as I went along selecting and putting the artwork together (curating art work), I started thinking differently. I asked myself: “what’s stopping me from creating something that’s not quite an exact reflection of the front side?” That’s when I started creating multicolored reflections.
Multicolored Reflections Side by Side Might Look Better
Then as I moved on to creating multicolored reflections, I toyed with the idea of arranging each reflected piece next to the original. But as I arranged them on my design wall, I thought there was too much contrast in jumping from a white background immediately to a black background. This meant refining my curating yet again.
Also at this point, you’ll notice that I’ve started introducing some color into the purely black and white drawings. I was wary of creating a monotonous show. I felt adding a little color to some, not all of the pieces, will keep the viewer’s interest. You can see for yourself that there were so many angles I wanted to explore but because I’d set a theme to start with, that constrained me.
One of the things that make us creative is the multiplicity of our thoughts. We like the freedom to go where we want to and to create what we want. To put together a successful solo show, though, you need to find a way to rein in this tendency to wonder around endlessly exploring exciting and creatively interesting ideas. A show theme thus helps you in curating art cohesively and avoiding this pitfall. A show theme also helps in writing your artist statement and promotional materials for the show.
A Place for Everything, and Everything in Its Place
Finally, I decided to have one wall exclusively for the black backgrounds and another wall for white backgrounds. I felt this arrangement would be easier on the eye and more pleasing to the viewer. Yet believe it or not, when installation day came, this is not exactly how the pieces ended up being installed. (Check out installation photos here). It was a mix of all the ideas and arrangements I’d previously toyed with.
The lesson for me in curating art is that you can’t tell which pieces will work together till you see them together (which has had a major shift on my view of the jurying process and how work gets rejected). Personally, I was able to continually refine my selection and arrangement of the pieces for the show because I always had them up on my design wall. And I could see how well (or not) they worked together.
This also goes to confirm an important adage in art: “Visual decisions need to be made visually”. Although it’s a good idea to draw on paper a plan and artwork layout for all the pieces that are going to be in your show because it gives you a reference point to work with, nothing beats seeing the artwork together in reality (on a wall).
Your Turn
What do you think of the jurying process now that you’ve read my experience with curating art work for my solo show? Join the discussion below and look for subsequent parts of this Behind The Scenes Series. If you didn’t get to read part 1 in the series, you’ll find it here.
Warmest Regards,
You may also be interested in the other titles in this series:
1: Planning for Your Solo Show
2: Curating Your Solo Show
3: Laying out Your Artwork
4: How to Promote Yor Solo Show
5: How to Write a Press Release
6: Installing/ Hanging Your Art Show
7. Opening Reception
I’m thrilled to share with you the experience of holding my first solo art show and the lessons I learned from it. The exhibit recently closed after being on view for 6 weeks. For your solo art show to be successful, you absolutely need to plan for it.
So let me just say this, a solo art show will stretch your abilities beyond what you think you’re capable of. And my abilities were definitely stretched. I discovered that a solo art show has so many moving parts. And the scariest thing of it all is, YOU are responsible for keeping all those moving parts in sync.
Some of the main moving parts involved in a solo art show are: planning for your solo art show, curating the artwork, “production” (creating the artwork), presentation/installation and publicity. As promised, I’m going to write about how I handled many of these moving parts in my r.ecently ended show.
In this first part of what’s going to be a multi-part article, let’s start by talking about planning for your solo art show. Without a question, the most effective way of handling the moving parts in a solo art show is to plan ahead.
A Solo Art Show is A Production Not A Solo Event
Holding a solo art show is an entire production in the truest sense of the word. Although when you see a movie or a Broadway show you can’t easily tell how much work went into creating it, the credits at the end of the show, are your clues to what it took to pull the show together.
Similarly, holding a solo art show is like a showbiz production and you’ll need to plan ahead for your solo show to be successful.
3 Steps to Getting Organized for Your Solo Art Show
Let’s just start by saying I’m a planner – for better or for worse. I am. So to get organized, I started off first, with research and lots of it. Just by reading this article, you’ve already put yourself ahead of the game. In my case, I read several articles but I couldn’t find a detailed account by a fiber/textile artist. So I’m writing this article to hopefully make things a little easier for you.
Secondly, I met with some of my artist friends to discuss the show and get more ideas. Nancy Whitcher, president of CWA, my friend and mentor was of invaluable help to me with this. Just talking and bouncing off ideas provided me with a wealth of information and a launching pad to jump off of.
Thirdly, gathering the information from both my research and from talking to others, I came up with a list. It’s a list of things to do during the planning stages for your solo art show. My list included what I needed to do to be able to pull this show off.
Before we go any further, let me say this. When planning for your solo art show, there’s one thing you absolutely need to do. Forget the word solo in “solo show” and focus on the word show. It’s a show. It’s a production and you can’t go solo on your solo show. You need help from people.
So now with that said, this is what you’ll need to get yourself organized for your solo show. Preparing these things ahead of time will ensure that you’re not overly stressed.
5 Items You Need on Your Solo Art Show Planning List
- Curating: Come up with theme/concept and artist statement to guide your art show
- Artwork Layout: Measure wall space and determine sizes and number of pieces to display (this is needed whether you’re creating new work or showing existing work)
- Promotion: Create promotional materials and the list of people and organizations to contact for publicity. Also, consider whether you’re going to create a catalog with price list, artist statement and or images of your work
- Installation: In addition, plan for and secure help for installation day. Figure out how you’re going to transport artwork to and from the venue and be sure what types of installations are allowed, nails in walls or not
- Opening Reception: Also, you need to decide on opening reception or alternative event. In my case, it was not possible to have an opening for my show. So I decided to hold two meet and greet events. You’ve got to be creative. Think through the obstacles and come up with alternative ways of achieving your goals
4 More Items to Put on Your Solo Art Show Planning List
- Photography: Plan on how you’ll have your work photographed before the show – full shots, side view shots, detail shots. Also, plan on having someone record the event. i.e.photograph the installed artwork, video record, photograph opening reception etc.
- Sales: Prepare for sales. Create certificate of authenticity & get receipts to issue when you make a sale
- Shipping: Figure out shipping and how to treat the associated costs. Who will be responsible for receipts of sales (you or the venue), any commissions? Discuss ahead of time and get it in writing
- Communication: In addition, plan to meet often and stay in touch with the gallery/store management up until the show and during the exhibition period.
Final Thoughts
So given the above list, you should now have a pretty good reference point to plan your solo art show. Remember that planning will reduce the stress involved. Of course, stress cannot be completely eliminated, but you can minimize it to the barest minimum with a planning list.
I can’t tell you how much the list helped me and how many times I referred to it. In addition, seeing the check marks on my list actually gave me confidence that I was making great progress.
So, now that you have a plan, in a later post, we’ll talk about some of the items on your planning list and how best you can get them accomplished.
Question: Finally let me ask, what do you do when you have a major project? Do you plan ahead or do you wing it? Why or why not? Let’s discuss below.
Warmest Regards,
You may also be interested in the other titles in this series:
1: Planning for Your Solo Show
2: Curating Your Solo Show
3: Laying out Your Artwork
4: How to Promote Yor Solo Show
5: How to Write a Press Release
6: Installing/ Hanging Your Art Show
7. Opening Reception