Handmade with Love – Craft & Gift Market is going to be an incredible Craft & Gift Market this Saturday, February 12 in Easthampton.  I hope you will come (if you live near enough). There are going to be many fabulous items for sale, including my vibrant, colorful paintings in several forms.

The Facebook page for Handmade with Love is right here! FIRST 50 CUSTOMERS GET A FREE GIFT! Candles, jewelry, cards, art, collage art, handbags, glass, photography and much more!! Please come join us! Please check out my giveaway of FREE business cards!! Thank you! ~ Diane Clancy

Handmade with Love – Craft & Gift Market

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Today is SWAN Day (Support Women Artists Now) – today, March 28, 2009 is the second year of this “new international holiday that celebrates women artists.  It is an annual event taking place on the last Saturday of Women’s History Month (March).” The executive director, Martha Richards says  “Together we will build a world where women artists get the respect they deserve!” There is a website SWAN Day (http://swanday.org) which lists 160 SWAN Day 2009 events in 11 countries!  WOW this is quite something to see all these people, women, working together together to make this world a better place for all us women artists!

Buying something from your favorite woman artists is a great place to start!  I am very active and involved in networking and supporting other artists online and at least 90% of the people in the artist teams and groups I am active with are women.  We are all working and searching for good ways to get our great work out there to YOU in a way that is affordable to you and gives us decent payment for what we have created.

SWAN Day (Support Women Artists Now)

At this website, there are some very cool resources.  Many of them are focused on raising money and publicity for SWAN Day … but they can be useful for us as women artists as we promote ourselves, our artwork and our art businesses.  We are starting to write press releases for the next AWE Project (Artists Window Exhibit) (Greenfield, Franklin County, MA, US) and I think we will be using these resources to improve what we send out to promote this event that features mostly women artists.

I am going to share some of the other resources that were shared with me.  I am quoting here from an email sent to me by Julie Forbes, Associate Director, SWAN Day.  Here is a very extended excerpt from her email.

Explore www.womenarts.org. Here’s some of what you’ll find:

**Grants/Resources Information**

Search our well-researched, annotated lists of arts funders, categorized by art form, at www.WomenArts.org/fund/fundlists.html. For answers to many of your funding questions, see our Funding FAQs page at www.womenarts.org/fund/FAQ.htm.

**Funding and Resource Newsletters for Film/Video and Theatre Artists**

These free, bi-monthly newsletters are chock full of current calls for entries from competitions and festivals and requests for proposals from funding organizations. Read recent issues or sign up for free subscriptions at www.WomenArts.org/fund/EmailNewsletterSign-Up.htm.

**The WomenArts Network**

A one-of-a-kind showcase of the diversity and creativity of women artists in all the artistic disciplines, the WomenArts Network is a webspace where woman artists or women-run arts organizations may post free profiles about themselves and their work. With over 1000 profiles of artists living in every state in the U.S. and 23 countries around the world, the WomenArts Network is helping women artists connect to each other and acting as a clearinghouse for those looking to hire a woman artist. Go to www.WomenArts.org and click on WomenArts Network to search the profiles or to get started creating one of your own.  End of the quote – and there was more … check out these resources and you will find them!

I hope you have enjoyed finding out about this, as I have.  And remember, today is SWAN Day (Support Women Artists Now), but EVERY day is a great day to Support Women Artists!!  I hope you read this today and also keep this for yourself and woman artists in your life! Thank you for stopping by!

~ Diane Clancy

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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

Below is the image of the ACEO (Art Cards) book that I bought a space to be in last year.  A very dedicated art teacher has been creating this book and making a blog to encourage her students to creatre and trade ACEOs/Art Cards.  You can see my painting as one that is featured on the color of last years book.  I am very glad I did it – I have a nice 2 page spread with a variety of work – and some text. If you are thinking of joining in (it costs $40), the deadline has been extended to September 11, 2008. I have copied the text from 2 posts on her blog (with permission, of course) so that you can read about it and see if perhaps you would like to join in.  All proceeds help with the students, books for the students and ACEO education.

The Fall 2008 Edition of “Create. Collect. Trade. A Collection of Artist Trading Cards Created by Artists and Students,” is in production and accepting ACEO artists at this time to fill 30 available spots.

WHAT WILL THE ARTIST RECEIVE?

For the $40, each artist will receive 2 FULL PAGES in the book. 4-8 Images from each artist will be placed on the two pages. The artist may write a short paragraph about their art, Etsy shop, experiences, or information they would like to share on their page. Artists may also post links to their shops, website, blogs, etc. for further promotion and information. Upon purchasing, the artist understands that information and images should be appropriate for elementary age students eyes.

-Each artist will be recognized on http://createcollecttrade.blogspot.com/ and gain local and national attention through distribution of the book.

-The book will also be presented in an 2-hour workshop at the AEAI Art Education Conference in November.

-7 Artists will also be selected to appear on the front cover along with 5 students.

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Each month Worldwide Women Artists Online (WWAO) have an exhibit (online of course) of members’ work based on a theme. This month is Beautiful Mother Earth. I encourage you to go on over and look at this great exhibit!

Beautiful Mother Earth, April WWAO Exhibit

I am sure regular readers have already identified my painting. Besides being in the online exhibit, this is also listed as a ACEO in my Etsy Shop. Here is my Etsy Shop.If you would prefer this in a different size, let me know and I will do one up for you!! Each of the paintings or items in the show can be purchased. Thank you for looking at my being showcased!!

WWAO on the site says “Worldwide Women Artists is an international collective of women artists showing and selling our work through the worldwide web. As women artists, we give birth to our ideas in a variety of styles and media. We embrace the diversity of each other’s work, celebrating the joy of creating our art and sharing it with the world. We welcome female visual artists from all over the world who create and sell their own original art.”

This ends the interruption in our regular programming … tomorrow will be a Fanciful Animal Image and hopefully by Thursday I will have figured out how to do Homage in bubbles!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: WWAO, Etsy

Thank you to everyone who stopped by and looked and commented – even though I didn’t write. I did not feel well enough to do anything but share an image and it means a lot to me that you came anyway!! Thank you!

Green Moon, Digital © Diane Clancy

I am pretty excited because I got news of the results of my grant application to the Local Cultural Council. Some of you will remember I applied back in October 2007. I got the notification letter and was awarded the full amount I asked for. I have never even applied for a grant before so I am very delighted! This grant is to coordinate the AWE (Artists Window Exhibits) Project in downtown Greenfield, Franklin County, western Massachusetts, US.

I don’t just get the money … I have to do the work and then submit invoices for the particularly parts of the work. One of the big things I will need to do is make a database of all the potential places to exhibit our work (mainly store windows), contact information and any specific details. To do this, I will have to learn a new program to make it easily accessible to others. With this database in other years someone else could more easily take over.

I am now off to the board meeting of the local group, currently Create Franklin County, which works to stimulate the local creative economy, the economy that includes artists, web designers, and lots of small home-based businesses. I think it also includes building the green economy – or at least they are in conjunction with each other.

Tonight is a big step for the town. We have joined ICLEI. ICLEI is an international membership association of local governments working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They provide programs, tools, software assistance and technical expertise towards this goal. To find out more about ICLEI and its programs go to www.iclei.org. The is for local towns and cities working to deal with climate change. Much of this paragraph is taken word for word from the promotional materials. This is sponsored by the Greening Greenfield group that I belong to and am active with.

These are 2 important meetings to go to today … and I am still only at half steam. (This is an expression that means I still do not feel very well). Thank you for coming and reading!! I will catch up your blogs soon.

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: grant application, Local Cultural Council, AWE, Create Franklin County, creative economy, ICLEI, climate change, Greening Greenfield

Last night was the sub-committee of the Public Education for Greening Greenfield – the last in too many environmental and Creative Economy meetings in a row. I am exhausted and the door lock downstairs broke and the furnace was off when I got home. As you might guess I need some rest. So this is short tonight. But I would LOVE to hear how you are!!

The Docks, Digital © Diane Clancy

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: environment, Creative Economy

Some of you have asked me to elaborate on the grant application I have been writing – so I am! We have been having AWE – Artists Window Exhibits – in our town lately. We have had shows in July, August and again in mid-Sept – mid-Oct (yes, now). I have put in a grant application requesting some money to coordinate this project in 2008. It is in the mail!!!

Joe Landry at Rooney’s, AWE, Photography © Susan Elkin

Some of us visual artists started meeting over a year ago to connect, build the local economy, and in general figure out how to further our careers as artists. We have a fantastic area full of artists … we are rural and there is a economy rich in agriculture and not money. That is, we are one of the lowest income areas of the whole state (Massachusetts, US). So we need to build the creative economy here.

When tourists come here, they can’t believe how inexpensive the art is. But many local people say the prices are way too high. So we are working to get this area to be a tourism destination to hook up art lovers and artists. By we, I mean much more than our small group of artists. It is a big initiative that is getting support from our whole county. I think we are the size of Rhode Island but with only 70,000 people. And 69,000 are artists – no, that part is a joke. But we do have thousands of artists here.

I have been coordinating this group, chairing, taking minutes, writing them up and sending them out (by email), being the point person and generally coordinating whatever we were doing. I have put tons of energy into having the AWE projects go smoothly.

The local business organization (Greenfield Business Association) has set up 2 Progressive Dinners where people have gone from restaurant to restaurant for each of 6 or 7 courses. Our artists group, Artists of Franklin County, has provided beauty and enjoyment through our work in shop windows. And I am sure you can imagine that there is a lot of work involved in coordinating all this! Which is why I would like to get some financial compensation for a little bit of the time and materials.

You asked what it would mean … that I would be able to more easily be able to take the time to up the quality and attend to the details of this project. What are you up to?

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: grant application, AWE, Artists Window Exhibit, Susan Elkin, creative economy, Greenfield Business Association, Progressive Dinner, tourism

How many of you have applied for grants? Some of you may remember that I am applying for a local grant to coordinate the AWE project – Artists Windows Exhibit. It was quite a long process putting together a resume (that I should have done years ago). I was surprised that it didn’t sound half-bad. And then writing my very first grant application.

Bryant Stewart at Opus, Photography © Susan Elkin

I have put together quite a but of supporting materials including my own Artist Statement and Artist Biography. But also other artists were generous enough to let me include their bios – thank you!. I am going to be getting a letter of support from someone who works at building the creative economy. That is the last piece I need to put together.

Luckily, I have the press release from the current AWE project. And the maps that they have given out to show stores that were involved in the downtown celebration. And, last but not least, BEAUTIFUL photographs by Susan of 8 of the stores windows!! Susan is wanting to blog again and may respond to a nudge or two.

I thought you would enjoy seeing another window from our local exhibits. I would love to hear about your experiences – whether exhibits or the rest of life!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: grant, AWE, resume, Bryant Stewart, Artist Statement, Artist Biography, creative economy, Susan

You asked for it – you got it!! Here is the window of my work in the last AWE (Artists Window Exhibit). Susan will probably take pictures of the 2 places I am currently up at. Those are my images in the windows with lots of street reflections.

Diane AWE Window 7/07 © Susan Elkin

Luckily I had most of this written already a few days ago before the great Thoughtful Blogger Award came. Right now it is thundering and lightening and my connection is not working. But the downstairs connection is so I am doing this quick post.

Hate to post and run but .. don’t want to impose on my neighbors! Please let me know how you are!!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: AWE, Thoughtful Blogger Award

You guys have pushed me over the edge to do different things and this is coming out … who IS this person? Although I am concerned that I may need to change my slogan and whole business plan and orientation, actually I am pretty excited about these last several digital paintings I have done. I am having mucho fun playing!  Are these uplifting at all?

Bad Day at the Office, Digital © Diane Clancy

Who knows – these may be the images that some licensing company want to produce. That would be an irony – no? Sigh … “they” say that you are supposed to choose a style and stick with it to succeed. But I like to do different things – even if it means I am not as financially successful. Maybe posthumously my daughter will get rich from my work – that’s good enough. Or maybe they will all go in the trash heap!

Needed to work today on paperwork – you know the offline kind – physical paper and pen – remember the old days? Also, trying to get things finalized for the AWE (Artist Window Exhibit) that is happening this week and formalized for the next and hopefully periodic AWE’s that will be coming up. It has all been fun – and a lot of work!

Tomorrow I am hoping to make a decision about whether to set up a pro shop at CafePress. I so prefer to keep things low-budget .. but sometimes I think one just has to spring for things. I think this might be one of those times. I will let you know.

Thank you for stopping by and/or reading … hope your summer (winter in the southern hemisphere) is going extremely well!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: digital paintings, licensing, AWE, CafePress

I am going through my email box today to try to deal with stuff or file it away. It is boiling hot and sticky. But I am making progress. I just signed up with My Space to be able to download a file on how to effectively use My Space. I can’t figure out much yet, but here is the adress …. I know it will shock you … http://myspace.com/dianeclancy. One step at a time for learning these new things!

The Scream, Digital © Diane Clancy

I have been working the last couple of days on making the pdf file for the Studio Artist Demo. I naively thought I could just copy and paste it from the post to a pdf file. Many hours later, I know think it is not so simple.

I asked for help on the technical details from the local Hidden-Tech group and the number of responses and suggestions has been amazing! It is a local email (probably offline group too) of people working in small businesses for ourselves. I think almost (if not all) everyone is in the Creative Economy. It is so great the way people help each other. I know when a question whizzes by my eye that I think I can answer, I jump right in there to be part of the solutions. Very cool what we are all doing to help each other in this new interconnected world.

Of course, after I get this ready, then I need to figure out how to use the newsletter function at my host. All the marketing advice talks about giving away something in exchange for someone’s email address. I think I am going to have a nice product to give away.

Any thoughts would be welcome!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: My Space, Hidden-Tech, Creative Economy, marketing advice

Looking down on London Square with all the traffic whizzing by … You can see the theaters off to one side, and all the traffic swirling around. What do you think and feel about this digital painting ~ or any of the other topics we have been discussing … or raise a new topic.

The Square from Above, Digital © Diane Clancy

I have been very busy with the local Artists Group of Franklin County as we prepare for our next AWE – Artists Window Exhibit. My window has been taken down since that business wanted only a short exhibit. Hopefully, Susan will find some more windows so I can get my work up too.

The talk around town is that even this couple of weeks with the work of some artists in a handful of store windows has picked up the mood of the town. There is a lot of evidence that building the creative economy helps build the whole economy.

Susan has posted tonight on her blog! I wonder where Soul Fish has disappeared to? I think a lot of regular commenters must be on summer vacation. I hope it is that and not that I have gotten way too boring.

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: creative economy