Diane Clancy's Art Blog

Hi everyone – some great news!! We made the front page of the Local Section of the paper today … You can read the whole article online at http://www.recorder.com/story.cfm?id_no=5538453.

Here is an excerpt: “Diane Clancy and Susan Elkin, local artists whose art also hangs at Simon’s Stamps and organizers of the exhibit and art stroll, said it is the third year the Artists of Franklin County have participated in downtown events.

”This is one of our biggest projects and this year we decided to include the younger artists of our town,” said Clancy. ”We wanted to show support to our local high school and there are some pretty good artists there.”

Elkin said another reason for doing the exhibit is to beautify the downtown while supporting local businesses, artists and the town.

”We want to be part of the local economic engine and foster a creative economy in Greenfield,” said Clancy.”

Conundrum I, Digital © Diane Clancy

It is wonderful to have this article so prominent!! Just great for the publicity it gives.  I am not feeling at all well today so I am going to keep this short and also use one of the images that is in the show.  Tomorrow is the fair.  Thanks for coming by!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: Illustration Friday, AWE

The Artists of Franklin County (AFC) have been doing this AWE Project for a couple of years now. I have been coordinating this project since the beginning and it takes a LOT of time!  In Massachusetts we have Local Cultural Councils (LCC) that give grants to artists to help support work we are doing. This year I have received a grant of $1,000 to help defray the time I have put into this.

I have also applied for a grant for the next year – but it is unclear if there is going to be any money at all for LCCs given the budget cuts that this state – like most states – are going through.  But I feel committed to working to keep this project going.  If you would like to read more about the presentation that I made about this year’s grant, the second half of this post will give you some highlights of what we have been doing and the progress we are making.

From here, a lot of my work changes.  I have done the coordinating – a lot with Susan’s help.  Several others have stepped up and are taking more responsibility. This is the direction things need to keep going to make this project successful in the long term.  It needs to continue to be claimed as the project of the whole group – and that is happening more and more. I am pretty excited to be going in this direction.

This is one of my biggest organizing tasks this next year – supporting others to take leadership rather than take the leadership myself.  In other words, work myself mostly out of a job.  It takes time to transition like this, but in the long term, I will have more time for my own work.  I have put my own work on a lower level as I have focused nurturing on growing this organization … but I am very excited to see it coming into its own more and more.

Doing this in several areas of my life (artist life) is a main focus at the moment – and that is a lot of what I mean by organizing.  Thanks for coming by!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: AWE, fair, Susan Elkin, PSA, publicity, grant, Butterfly, organizing, Artists of Franklin County, Local Cultural Councils

Yesterday in talking about the board meeting of Fostering the Arts, I forgot to tell you about a publicity example other people mentioned that was very inspiring to me. This was an elementary school art teacher who decided to hold a display of her students work at the local food co-op.

People said she behaved as if she were showing the premier artwork in the whole world – the way she worked with the press.  (This was said with great admiration!) She created BUZZ around town about this show with the way she promoted the event. This was incredibly inspiring to me!!

This got me very excited!! The day after the meeting, I got out the publicity lists and materials and decided to make another go of it around the current and coming events.  A couple of people had written some materials and I had already pulled them together and sent them out to several news places.

Looking at them, I saw a few more corrections and decided they didn’t read as well as they could.  So I called up an artist (part of the Artists of Franklin County) and she reworked the press releases to make them tighter and clearer. Great!.

So with that in hand, I decided to tackle them all again … and to create some BUZZ!  If she could do it, so could I! Thus, I decided to tackle the local newspaper first (the Recorder) – the most important one … and I was incredibly anxious before I called – I don’t like to bother people. But I got a reasonable response – they will do what they can, but mainly a small announcement.

I had already been planning on talking with a regular reporter to see if they would write a story – besides seeing if the the Arts & Entertainment section could do a small feature on us.  They suggested which reporter woud be the most useful to speak with – and he transferred me to her.

Several things have happened since I started writing this post. Tomorrow at 1 in the afternoon, we are going to meet with the reporter and she is definitely going to do an article on us!! Yippeee!! We are in the process of creating buzz! She is going to write about the AWE (windows), the fair and also the students we are showcasign along with our own work. This is very exciting and I will share it with you when it is written – she says it is a definite!

Then I tackled the regional weekly (Valley Advocate) … they had recently had and article about art in the windows of the larger town in the lower valley. It took many tries but at last I made some contacts there and emailed the person who would be the most likely person. In the process I gave them the info again for a regular announcement. This will all be a lot less scary the next time.

Since I started this post, I have actually talked with the woman who would potentially be writing the article.  She was very nice, on deadline, but agreed to perhaps write an article. It would only be about the AWE Project since their publicity schedule is further ahead. But great!! It is a real possibility.

Talking with these people another time will be much easier.  Another good reminder – choose which things to turn over to others and which things to do yourself. I had thought the publicity was done a month ago, and then it got handed back to me, Tomorrow I will speak more about the grant, which will put things in perspective.

After dealing with the 2 main newspapers, I went on to send out the releases to another 10 or so. Then decided – hey, why not, and I called the local weekly (the Town Crier) and ended up eventually talking with the editor – she said she would try to do something small (that is all they do.)  And feeling successful, I even tackled the Boston Globe (centered about 100 miles away, that is the biggest paper in the state).  I manageed to get the email of the appropriate person and pitched the idea to him. I will folow up with another email when I am done with this post.

I have been doing the publicity for these events for the last couple of years, but this time I have definitely learned how to take things to another level. We also are doing some local access TV psa’s – (public service announcements) and some little TC spots. I now feel more ready to tackle the publicity another time.

Thanks for stopping by!!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: AWE, fair, Butterfly, organizing, board meeting, Fostering the Arts, art teacher, Artists of Franklin County, buzz, publicity

Earlier in the week, I went to the board meeting of Fostering the Arts. This organization focuses on building the Creative Economy in Franklin County.  We are a fairly rural area with a very high (and unorganized) concentration of artists – of all kinds – and other creative people. We have lots of artists, writers, photographers, musicians, actors, craftspeople and lots of the technology support industries.  With online access, many local people work with businesses in New York and Hollywood.  I have even worked with a client from Paris, France.

There is a lot of mythology about artists not contributing very much to the economy .. but there has been a lot of research of what are the real facts – and they differ wildly from the established wisdom.   We had a Creative Summit here a couple of years ago (as part of this initiative).  There was a presentation from an expert (from outside the area) that showed lots of facts and figures.  It turns out investment in the creative arts has a much greater financial return than investment in most other industries. That was shocking to me!

But very reassuring and gave me that much more reason to focus on building art – both in my own career and in the county. So when I was asked to be on the Board of Directors, as an artist representative, I decided to go ahead and take the plunge.  I know I have good organizational skills so I decided this was important enough to go ahead and get involved.

We now have gotten a grant to develop a marketing plan – to bring up the whole creative economy in the region. A grand idea – but a necessary one to build the economy in this area.

At the board meeting this past week, the AWE Project (Artists Window Exhibit) was brought up as an example of a very successful artist initiative.  We are seen as a model of what artists can be doing to promote ourselves and the community.  I was amazed and gratified!!  They were even using us as THE visible example of the continuity of the whole initiative.

Sometimes I think about trying to get one of the jobs by doing some of these things … but I keep remembering that would divert my energy from my own work – and say, thanks, but no thanks – not that any of these jobs have come my way.  Having the grant for the AWE Project is a good addition to my art – mostly anyway – but anything approaching a more involved organizing job would not work for me. Tomorrow I will be working on my entry for the 2 Things Challenge, but Monday we will, at last, get to the grant. And thus to the press releases that I have been working on so hard. I am thrilled you are interested in hearing about my art life! Thanks for coming by!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: Butterfly, organizing, board meeting, Fostering the Arts, Creative Economy, mythology, Creative Summit, organizational skills, marketing plan, AWE

There are so many things to say but I think I have to go to bed instead. To me this blue and yellow image looks like the foreground and background interact, play and exchange roles with each other (like the post a few nights ago). Thank you for understanding!! Thanks for coming by!!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: press release, AWE, Remicade, health

I went to the Greenfield Public Library auction for the Bird Houses last night.  I was thrilled when I got there to see someone had bid on mine. Most bird houses had papers next to them with places for the bids (In at least $5 increments.)  Not all of them had any bids when I got there, so I was thrilled to see mine had started at $25.  (Not all had started that high either.) By the time we left, there were 2 more bids … so fairly respectable.  A few of the incredible ones – you should have seen them!! – were auctioned off live. Glad I took part in the project! This bird nest image is in honor of the bird house project.

Indigo Nest, Digital © Diane Clancy

Today I spent the day working on the People’s Voice newsletter and have almost finished the rough layout.  Many things cannot get finalized until I get a little more info, but I have made great progress over the last few days!  So excited!!  I will still have to resize images more and such … but it is in good shape.  I have been using something that Lisa Call said – paraphrased here – “How do I get so much done?  I make decisions instead of agonizing.”  I found this useful for plowing through and making decisions.  Lisa’s great blog is here.

Now back to the AWE Project and finishing the press release and putting the word out about the changes this time. Thanks for coming by!!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: Greenfield Public Library, bird house, People’s Voice, Lisa Call, AWE Project

I have been pulling together promo materials for the next AWE Project (Artist Window Exhibit).  Luckily someone else is going to take the first run at writing it up.  But it took me several hours to pour through old emails and documents to get statistics.  We have had a total of 41 artists and 32 stores take part in this project over the last year and a half.  (No wonder I am tired coordinating it – grin!!)  And we have several more stores who want to join in this Spring AWE – new ones.  We have been hearing that stores have been hurt they haven’t been invited – pretty cool if you ask me!!  Due to the holidays, participation is lower – 14 artists in 12 stores – but it will still look beautiful!! And this time we are including students from the local high school – so that is very exciting!

Earth and Flower Devas, Digital © Diane Clancy

To me this looks like a flower deva on the left and an earth mother on the right.   But calling the earth mother a deva seemed to make more sense.  I think this one is cool.

In this AWE Project is a very powerful exhibit called the 100 Faces of War Experience. You can see the website here.  This is “Portraits and Words of Americans who Served in Iraq and Afghanistan.”  It is an ongoing project.  You can see that these works have a lot of power.

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: promo materials, AWE Project, deva, 100 Faces of War Experience

The presentation for the AWE Project (Artists Window Exhibit) went fantastic last night!! The [tag]Local Cultural Council[/tag} that gave me the grant in the first place was extremely pleased with both the progress on the project and my presentation.  The AWE project has local artists showing in store windows to promote the economy, stores and artists.

This is a Fanciful Animal Image that you have not seen at all yet.  Hope you enjoy.

Matisse in Butterflies II, Digital © Diane Clancy

This image is for the Pet Monologues which is the blog which I directed you to showing that incredible video about the lion hugging the woman who rescued him. Here is that other lion video I told you about the other day. This video is absolutely amazing!! If you loved that lion video I showed you before – and who didn’t? Then you will LOVE LOVE LOVE this video … it is utterly amazing … some of us have cried from the beauty. I know I could put the video here … but it slows things down more – so I wanted to link you to it. It will open in a new window.

Right now there is a post about Preniptutuals and dog weddings – check it out! This is those great photos with the bears. There is a funny story about a bear today. Also they highlight art, poems and more that showcase animals every week. You can see their blog here. And this is the post for this particular challenge. I hope you enjoy the images there!! Here is a wonderful post about Polar Bears being designated endangered – check it out! Anyone can join in this fun here too!! They put up a few of the images and then have links to the rest of the sites … perhaps you will feel moved to participate!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: AWE, Fanciful Animal Image, Pet Monologues

You have often heard me speak of the AWE Project (Artists Window Exhibit).  Many of you wished me well as I applied for the grant and cheered me on when I got it … Well, tonight I make my presentation to the Local Cultural Council that gave me the grant in the first place.  Not a super-big deal … but still.  The AWE project has local artists showing in store windows to promote the economy, stores and artists. Here is the overview from which I will be making my presentation.  I certainly hope that this is interesting to you!!  Thanks for coming by!!

Blue Bracket, Digital © Diane Clancy

The Artists of Franklin County & AWE (Artists Window Project)

The Artists of Franklin County/AWE

• supports building the creative economy
• expands opportunities for individual artists
• supports local downtown promotions

AWE Projects

• April 15 – May 15 – Green
• September 15 – October 15
• November 15 – December 31 – Holiday and Children

Increase in AWE

• Fall 07               14 Artists     9 Stores
• Spring 08          13 Artists    16 Stores
• Fall 08               25 Artists    26 Stores
• Holiday 08         Adding Children

Geography

• North to Northfield/Bernardston
• East to Wendell/Athol
• South to Shutesbury/Amherst
• West to Shelburne/Buckland

Press Releases & Presentation

• Progressively more professional
• New bio template
• Increasing professional look in windows
• More people involved in tasks
• Artists learning new skills and involved in community

Evaluations

• 6 Business evaluations
• Benefits their image, drew in customers, got comments
• Benefits downtown – beautification, culture, awareness, positive, tourism
• Only suggestions were more advertising
• Working with artists was great
• Positive feedback from patrons (one exception)
• “Excellent program – especially for vacant storefronts”

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: AWE, grant, Local Cultural Council