34^th Annual Richmond Hill Group of Artists Juried Exhibition and Sale

The Richmond Hill Group of Artists presents their 34^th Annual Juried Exhibition and Sale at the Mill Pond Gallery in Richmond Hill.  Paintings included in this show will be selected by accomplished artist Ernestine Tahedl.   This exhibition will feature the best work of our talented local artists.  It will showcase original paintings featuring a variety of medium, subject matter and style of painting.  Opening Night Celebrations take place Friday, April 27 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm.  There is an Awards Ceremony and Richmond Hill Mayor David Barrow is guest speaker.  Refreshments are served and everyone is welcome to join the celebration.  Please find attached an image of “Creation”, 2011 Best in Show by Olga Savarzin.

The show runs for two weekends, Saturday April 28, Sunday April 29 and Saturday May 5, Sunday May 6.  Gallery hours are 11:00am to 5:00pm.  There is no admission fee, refreshments are served and there is plenty of free parking.  The Mill Pond Gallery is located at 314 Mill Street, in the heart of historic Richmond Hill across from the beautiful Mill Pond Park.

The Richmond Hill Group of Artists was formed in 1978.  The RHGA opened The Mill Pond Gallery in 1994 and operates with the generous support of the Town of Richmond Hill.   The gallery provides artists the opportunity to exhibit their work.

One of the foremost goals of the RHGA is to provide educational opportunities for the members, as well as the community at large.  Regular demonstrations, workshops and critiques by visiting artists are held for members (and non-members at a nominal fee).  Lessons in all media for adults and children are offered for both members and non-members.

Web-site:  www.rhga.ca

I spend a good part of my day talking art marketing with my staff and customers. It’s exciting to brainstorm strategy and create an action plan for more exposure. The doing part gets all the love – it’s flashy and social and has feedback built right in.

However, there’s a necessary step before the action that often gets overlooked – with painful results.

Before You Make a Plan…

Goals and planning – sure… but even more important is sitting quietly inhonest self-reflection to determine exactly what kind of a business life you wantto create. A marketing plan executed with fire is no good if it leaves you with a business that doesn’t truly represent your best work – and create more joy and excitement towards your business.

A Sustainable Business Requires:

…a resonant framework, comfortable parameters and acceptable lifestyle conditions.

What kind of lifestyle are you willing to accept, now and as your business grows? Be clear about your budget and developing income streams. As a working artist, what kinds of income streams are you willing to consider?

• Classes & workshops?
• Gallery shows, fairs, conventions?
• Commissions?
• Private lessons?
• Digital?
• Online instruction?
• Products?
• Books?
• Prints?
• Studio time vs. Public time – how much of each?
• Community work
• Schools, boards if education, private schools
• Public speaking?

There are a lot of options available with which to create lucrative income streams. As a working artist you’ll likely have to consider expanding your income base beyond just creating art alone. It’s better to have a close look at this before hand and develop a good idea about what streams are more likely to resonate with your skill set and bring more joy and more cash into your life and business.

Knowing What You Hate Doing is Just as Valuable as Knowing What You Love

Cut out all the options that are heavy and weigh upon you like a chore. Neverbuild your business plan upon jobs that feel like drudgery, even if you think it’ll make you money… gobs and gobs of money. It is doomed to fail, eventually.

Money won’t keep you going when things are sucky and stressful – only joy and passion and excitement can do that.

You are a Small Business Owner

Consider also the roles you will have to fill as an entrepreneur. You are a small business owner and responsible for creating the art, marketing, finances and book-keeping, staffing, managing, inventory control, networking, invoicing, website maintenance, filing taxes… Really, every part of your business falls upon your shoulders.

Decide before hand which of those jobs you’ll be happy to shoulder and which you’d prefer to hire out. You’re the creative genius behind your business – you don’t also have to be the accountant, webmaster and chief marketing officer.

Hire a virtual assistant to help with your website and book-keeping. Hire an art marketer or buy an art marketing info product to help you with your marketing plan.

Lay the Foundation First

Making these decisions before you make your plan and jump into the action will give you the best possible foundation to launch your business to a new level.  These decisions made before hand, structure the shape of your enterprise and help focus your decision making down the road to support your best work at every stage. This kind of business is based upon your best work, your greatest joy, your most passionate choices.

Never underestimate how important your joy and passion are to fueling your business success.

What do you do to keep your art business focused on your best work? What does your best work, your best day’s work involve?

Dig deeper into your Art Marketing plan with the (free)
Marketing Lab Foundations Mini-Course
[click here to get it] 

© 2012 Lezley Davidson. Reproduced by permission. All rights reserved.

Lezley Davidson is one of those special people who is there to support art and artists because she know’s what it takes to lay the foundation and build up on an art career. Visit Lezley’s website at http://lezleydavidson.com/

“Diana Bick’s students at Hillcrest Progressive School are unusually conversant with the work of artists such as Paul Klee, Marc Chagall and Vincent Van Gogh, given that they are only four and five years old.”

Read the full article: http://www.cjnews.com/education/jewish-learning/teacher-brings-art-appreciation-preschoolers

A lesson from the teacher: “Children are never too young to start learning about art and its history… I believe that children are naturally creative.”

Covering the event for prosperity was Official Event Photographer, Linda Walesch [click to see some of her photos], SNAP Markham, and the Markham Economist & Sun [click to see article].

Many Thanks go to Event Sponsor, Dyan Broderick of Sutton Group – Heritage Realty Inc., Brokerage, Food & Beverage Sponsor, York Region Arts Council, Markham Theatre, Kim Michele – Harpist, Robyn Craig, Vera Walton and Ana Jurpik, RogersTV’s York Region Living, and the many Social Media supporters who helped promote the event.

To have the opportunity to showcase in a venue such as the Markham Theatre and be seen by many hundreds of patrons is a goal seldom met by the average local artist. This event was made possible by people who believe in the arts and understand the cultural and community importance of supporting local artists. The Markham Art Collective is very grateful and appreciative of your support. Thank You.

Thanks to Ana Jurpik who managed the ‘hanging’ of all the art pieces. Everything looks great! It was good to see and meet the artists and photographers, some for the very first time, as they dropped off their creations.

Covering the event was Stephanie Skenderis and her cameraman from RogersTV’s “York Region Living” show. Both were absolutely professional in their delivery of a great promotional feature and the Markham Art Collective is very appreciative of the support by RogersTV. [click here to see the segment]

A reminder to all that our Artist Reception is happening this Saturday, the 14th from 2 pm to 5 pm at the Markham Theatre. Light refreshments will be available. Come and meet the artists, mingle and make new friends.

A word of “Thanks” to our Reception sponsor, Dyan Broderick, Sales representative of Sutton Group – Heritage Realty, to York Region Arts Council, harpist Kim Michele, Linda Walesch our official Event Photographer; and to the crew behind-the-scenes: Robyn Craig, Ana Jurpik and Vera Walton. Thanks also to Janet Copps who invited us to exhibit and to the Markham Theatre. To the many Twitter and Facebook followers who have helped to promote the Markham Art Collective, we greatly appreciate your support.

As this year begins we look forward to many more accomplishments for local visual artists.

Best regards,

Franklin Beecham
Founder

As you pick up the bits and bobs, the odd tile missing from that 1000 piece puzzle you started and couldn’t finish, the Christmas cracker hat slung over a dining room chair. Put away that box who’s contents now play your favourite movie in high-def. Flatten out the tissue paper to re-use another time. Sit back and look at your fridge and wonder, what’s on the calendar?

Well, for starters, Markham Art Collective’s ‘Debut’ art and photography exhibit starts on December 28 at the Markham Theatre. Don’t worry, if you can’t move because you’re stuffed full of turkey, shortbread and Yuletide logs, the show continues through to January 30. However, a real treat would be to come and meet the artists and photographers at the Artist Reception on Saturday, January 14. By then the champagne headache and seltzer will be long forgotten. Come anywhere from 2pm to 5pm. We’ll be there…

It is also a time for celebrations, not least of which are the various seasonal ethnic festivities. The big one of course has taken every retailer by storm, fueling the customers’ ears with the annual carol music.

For the Markham Art Collective, it will be a busy time as the elves start getting ready to put their artworks up for the “Debut” exhibit at the Markham Theatre starting on December 28. We’re promoting the exhibit and the Artist Reception right across the GTA with great fervour. We know there’s a lot more on the minds of the general public at this time, but when you receive one of our exhibit cards, we hope you’ll stick it on your fridge and remember the date of our Reception: January 14 from 2pm to 5pm. Come out and mingle with the artists. We won’t bite!

As you deck the halls and spread the boughs of holly, think about those less fortunate and offer a coin or two to the Salvation Army volunteers dotted around town and anyone else who helps to offer dignity, health and peace to those that need it.

There’s always news and updates on Twitter and Facebook, and as you’re starting to receive greeting cards from friends and relatives, we would like to extend our best wishes to you and yours, from all of us at Markham Art Collective.

It always amazes me when artists tell me that their website is at the top of Google. Asked what search phrase they use to check it, they say they used their name.

Note: if you use your own name, you’ll always be at the top, as long as nobody else has the same moniker. However, the average web surfer doesn’t know who you are unless you have attained notoriety in the industry or are famous.

Search engines like Google rely on several factors for ranking websites. These include relevant text with search-specific keywords, clever manipulation of the website’s source code and link popularity (meaning other sites linking to you). One of the reasons that Markham Art Collective offers a free listing in our directory is to help your website make gains in search rankings. If you link back to us, your site will progress even further.

Think about what you are rather than who you are – get found by what you do. Are you a plein air artist, or a landscape artist, or an abstract artist?

If you search for plein air artist, you’ll see in the Google results that there are over 10 million webpages with that search phrase. Narrow it down by adding location like Ontario. A significant drop down to 1.5 million webpages.

Once you’ve narrowed it down further, you’ll see that certain webpages are always present. These are the ones who either know seo or have paid some serious dollars to get there. To maintain their standings, these individuals also use the same keyword phrases in their social media profiles.

There’s obviously a lot more to it than meets the eye, but you get the general gist. Most artists don’t know these tricks and don’t care to know, but the fact is web surfers act on their own and do their own style of shopping online. They don’t always have access to your business card, art card, brochure or ad, so they’ll search online to get to your website.

Some stats to think about
During a recent survey on user attitudes, 56 percent use search engines on a daily basis. 35 percent of those do at least one search per day, 21 percent search four or more times a day. Only one percent say they never use search engines. Note: everyone surveyed was an Internet user.

91 percent of those surveyed, said they’d search differently if the initial search failed to find a suitable match within the first three pages. 26 percent said they’d give up a search if they didn’t find a match on the first two pages. Searchers are becoming increasingly discriminate due to the seemingly endless pages of matches.

Don’t be afraid of the Internet. It’s just a tool. Use it to communicate with the global market. If you’re still not sure, take a workshop and learn how to increase your presence.

When you have a moment, go to Google and do a search for:
abstract artist canada
abstract artist ontario
abstract artist unionville

[written by Franklin Beecham]

On a recent visit the studio of local artist Ana Jurpik, I was introduced to Richard Machacek of Easel Rentals. Not only do they rent easels, they also design and construct fanciful and uniquely decorative display easels, perfect for tradeshows, executive meetings, and special events.

Showcased on Toronto’s Breakfast Television for the Artists’ Project, Easel Rentals come in all shapes and sizes. Starting at $15 Cdn a day with package discounts, arguably the easiest of the options to transport are the “Black Modern” that come completely broken down into the smallest possible shape, fitting into a ski bag. Simple to rebuild, these easels provide a sturdy yet classy way to exhibit artworks.

Paintings by Ana Jurpik on the "Flying Doves" easel

Decorative designs such as the “Flying Doves”, “Traditional” or “Sea Mermaids” can often enhance the essence of the painting by expanding on its composition.

Delivery is free in the GTA and self-serve pick up is also available.

Call Easel Rentals today at 416.896.5640 for their easy, no-hassle service or email richard@easelrentals.com for more detailed information.

You can also visit the Easel Rentals website at www.easelrentals.com.

Not all artists are big on self-promotion, but online guerilla marketing is the way of the future. Time to use your computer to its full potential! First you need a website. Websites can cost a few duckets, but worth the price if you get some leads. Get your profile posted and add some images of your work. Don’t get cutesy with the design, you do after all want to look like your art is hanging in a gallery, not a butterfly cage. You also need a blog, but not necessarily separate from the site. A lot of artists build their website using free blog programs like WordPress, which basically cover both mediums and also very user-friendly. The blog is an important tool for creating two-way communication with your online visitors. Try and keep it current. Use it for promoting your exhibit activities, etc.

Three more equally useful tools for your self-promoting are LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn is a professional-based networking tool. Don’t add your mother unless she’s an artist or related to the industry. Depending on the tools you use, LinkedIn will also show viewers your latest blogs and Tweets. Facebook is used by almost everyone on the planet, but done right, can be a great tool for keeping in touch with your personal network of family and friends. Make sure you create a Page, not a Facebook. They are two different areas. Twitter is a 140 word communication tool, useful for leading ‘followers’ to your website, blog or Facebook page.

The key to recognizing the potential of online marketing is that, for the most part, it is free, but also, your market automatically expands globally. It just takes a bit of time setting up, and committing to a routine of updating on a regular basis. Just remember to be relevant and interesting.

Use these simple tools and you could attract collectors and art enthusiasts from the other side of the world. It worked for me.

[written by Franklin Beecham]