Hello all! Thank you for following me thus far in my artistic mission! So much has happened since last we spoke! Where to start, where to start!? How about we start with Qwirk Co-working premier showing of my art!
Friday, June 4th, I held my first solo showing of my artwork! It was amazing and I am so greatful to everyone that made it happen and came to help me celebrate my artwork and contribute to my cause. It took being in the right place at the right time, seizing opportunities and running with them, and making personal connections.
How it all started is that there is a place here, in Columbus, Ohio called Qwirk Co-working. They opened last summer and I have been looking for a good reason to go there ever since then. It is a place that freelancers can go and utilize their facilities. There is a small fee of $10 if you only want to go for the day or a larger fee to rent out a desk monthly. The have been having free fridays there as of late. The facilities include use of their WI-FI, any open desks or a seat on the couch, their printer, scanner, kitchen, and good company. I found out about them and keep up with them through meetup.com. From time to time they hold free events at their place of operation. On Wednesday, May 5th, I attended an event called Design on a Dime.
To preface the situation slightly, I went in there knowing that there had already been a featured artist in there beforehand. That was a good starting talking point as I was chit chatting with the owner, Neal Roberts and the former right hand woman there, Christy Bernard.
"I'm an artist and graphic designer", I said with as much confidence as I could utter, without having a business card to flash or a website to navigate to. Neal then replied to me,
"We are looking for an artist's work to brighten up the walls around here," or something to that affect. There was my opportunity. I went on to talk about how I had 25 pieces and that they were ready to be shown somewhere. Neal and Christy both said that they would love to see my artwork and asked if I could send them some samples.
"One thing to cross off my to-do list," said Neal, " I was just going to contact some CCAD kids". Immediately, when I got home, I put together a document in InDesign of all of my pieces. I will go into further detail of how I did that in a future post. I had already had scans done of many of them. I immediately sent it off to Qwirk. They replied back within a day or so with,
"Jill, we think your artwork is absolutely beautiful and we would love to have it up here at Qwirk!" They were very flexible with everything. It was nice to be with them through this learning experience because they gave me a lot of leeway. They told me I could come and show to whomever whenever, and to just give them a heads up. They also said that I could have as many receptions as I wanted as long as I cleared the date with them. So, I took it and ran with it! Eventually, after much pondering and indecision, I decided on a date. It took me some time to actually measure the magnatude of the work that was to be done to make this a hit.
After I decided on a date, I made flyers for the event using InDesign and Photoshop. I matted all of my paintings with black matte and lined the back of the matte with strips of foam board. After a tip from Timothy Wolf Starr of the SBB, I also located a local brewer that donated some alcoholic refreshments for the show! Patrick Kelleher of Neil House Brewery was very generous in the spirit of giving when he brought along some freshly brewed stout, a mead, a double cranberry wine, a Pino Gri, and some of his famous cranberry cider. He was a delight as he talked all night about the brewing process and his background of how he became a brewer!
A very special thank you to Melissa Ferguson, Courtney "Tex" Clark, Scott Cheezem, Jeff Walton, Brian Frankart, and Patrick Kelleher for helping me bring together the finer details. Without you, this would have been way harder. Also a special thank you to all of my friends that came out to support me that night, especially CLOUDHAUS! And, of course, thank you for my special glitch-hop set at Hal & Al's from The Beat Oracle! It couldn't have gone off so smashingly without you all!
The show was really what I made of it. An opportunity presented itself and I ran with it. As many fliers as I made and put out at random store windows and coffee shops, 98% of the attendees were those that I had a prior personal connection with. The other 2% were brought in by those people. Just some promotional side studies for you. We also made money for several charities that night, too! I still have yet to tally that up! And I had a raffle for the two posters that I had gotten as a bonus from DKM Printing (thank you Jeff). All in all it was a great success and I have made many new friends and strengthened relationships with old because of it.
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