Final entry for my Internship, but not the final post for my blog

Final entry for my Internship, but not the final post for my blog

I would like to apology that I have not updated any information for almost two weeks. I have been sick for more than a week. I was very sick, but it is getting a bit better now. I still have a running nose with me.

I have had a long trip in New Zealand in October. After I was back to Sydney, I catch up friends and volunteers in ARI. I will update some new of my Internship.

Firstly, the video (see the post of” speak out in front of Camera”) has been published on the website of pop up project. This is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=owp0wPsT3fE

Secondly, the opening day of the clay studio will launch on November 16^th. However, the utilisation right of the studio is only exclusively for the members of ARI until in the end of summer vacation. I was surprised with this decision, but I agree with the idea that people might not join the clay class in the holidays, especially around Christmas. In this period, the studio could provide for members a space to create their artworks and make some Christmas sale for our ARI.

Thirdly, we have a few new members joined in this month. This is quite exciting after we had one artist left unhappily. We have three more artists join in our ARI. They also brought their work to shop on that Saturday.

This is the artworks from our new members!!

Finally, I catch up with the ARI in Epping. I think I would like to do some contribution with their project. I have not seen them, but I have known that they were quite successful in their last exhibition by E-mail. With their current exhibition, they have already sold three paintings. That means this ARI got a lot of potential if we can work it out. The attraction to emerging artists might be the large space of the ARI. I will see what I can do for their marketing project. 

Across other pop up project in Epping.

This was happened in the end of August. I was talking to my interviewer from the government about what I have been done with this ARI. When I mentioned about the project of the feature artist might be delayed or cancelled is due to the issue of leadership and collaboration. For example, who is going to take it? Who will be responsible for running this project? I was happy to take the responsibility, but I was not a member of this ARI. In addition, I was an intern and I am not supposed to do my Internship without supervision. As a result, she talked to me if I would like to learn anything in my Internship, let her know. She said she has other project with her and she can arrange for me. I said it would like to learn more about running a marketing program exactly. As a result, she introduced me to the other ARI that she is responsible for in Epping.

I got the artist’s number and I contact with her. After that, I met her inside that ARI. Everything is different from my ARI that I have been work for more than 4 months. The size of this new ARI is even triple bigger than the previous ARI. They would like to focus their ARI on running exhibitions, mainly painting and print makings. I have had a conversation with the artist. She said the director would prefer the ARI to look like just a “gallery”. And then she said she would prefer the ARI run as our ARI (like an art retail shop). They got such nice space and I really want to help them.

I briefly looked at the environment and I think they just need to arrange the space and set out their mission and object. In terms of the utilisation of this ARI, I suggested that they can redesign the space and display the work more professionally. For example, they got a big window to display; they can showcase their feature artworks there. To think about the income for the gallery, I think it might be great if they can separate the gallery into three parts: The first part would be window showcasing space. This showcasing space could be extremely important to attract people to get into the ARI. The second space would be the place for the major exhibition. I recommend that they could be flexible to divide major space into two parts if some artist enquires to rent a space for their solo exhibition. They can still re-combine this space into one place if they need to handle a big exhibition in the future. The final space of ARI would be a retail part or a studio part. I was thinking it would be great if artists could run their painting class there as well. However, the safety issue needs to be concerned if they want to run a class for kids. It is a bit dangerous on the way to the cleaning area (kitchen). As a result, artists prefer to organise a few adult workshop casually.

Regarding to the object and mission, I have draw the SWOT analyst for the ARI. It is important to know the mission and object first and then my can set out the short term and long term target. In this situation, artists have to discuss about what is they really want the ARI to be. After they decided the mission and object of ARI, we can go on the target setting and organizing the marketing project for the exhibition.

In their last exhibition, I helped them to work on their decision making of their business plan and I also helped them with the survey of customer development. I have separated this survey with three parts as well. Part A is just basic personal information. Part B is for the visitor and collector to fill in. Part C is for the artist who is interested in participating in this project.

Unfortunately, I could not go on their exhibition, but I have heard the opening night for the last exhibition is quite successful.

The sustainability issue for Artists Run Initiative

Shock!!

One day, in the middle of September, one artist, who is also the member of our ceramic shops, pop in and took off all her works from our ARI. She was not only taking her ceramic works, but also her daughter’s painting and jewelry. Another artist, who did her voluntary work on that day, and I was shocked. That artist told us she has told the director that she will take off her works in this week. It was still surprised that we did not get any information from the director before she pop in.

Obviously, the atmosphere there was weird and we could not do anything for that because she had decided what the best is for her. She did a lot of good ceramic works, but the prices of her works are a bit expensive to compare that with other artists. I think the reason to set out the high price of her artworks is that our ARI still took 20% commission for rent. She does not want to sell her works with a cheap price, but she cannot really sell them with the high prices in this area. Thus, she has to decide that she want to stay and decrease the price of her work a little bit or bring it to the commercial gallery with a even higher price. Apparently, she decided to go forward the latter and gave up all the contribution that she did for this organisation.

It was always hard for ARI to stay in sustainability. The situation of artists is variation: If they are emerging artists, they are not “popular” enough to survive from selling their works. Due to the fact that they can hardly sell their work, they might lose their initiative passion and then eventually leave ARI. If Artists are very “talent” at making a sale to support their living, it may eventually come to leave ARI as well. They would like to exhibit their works in big gallery to increase the price of their artworks.

Then the question mark comes out.

How could ARI be sustainable for their customers?

On that day just before the artist took off her works, I was still selling her works in the morning. I told my customer that she could buy one ginger-grinding plate to try first. After she tried and then she is happy for that, she can come back to get another one for her friend as a gift later on. If the customer never come back, it is fine. However, if customer come back to get another one, they might be disappointed about finding out the artist is no longer selling their works in our shop.

I understand the art world is always hard for all artists, so artist will definitely go with best option for their sale. In terms of moral issue, I am just wondering should those popular artists stay with the place which grew their career for appreciation. Or they could just walk away for their own benefit. In my opinion, you can go for your benefit, but never forgot to come back and help the organisation when you become a popular artist. If there is no environment for you to showcase your works, you will never become famous. If you can come back and help other emerging artist like you, the ARI would not be collapsed and it might actually grow more people to help ARI become more sustainable in the future.  

It is always not easy.

Dear angels : could you tell me tell me how can it be easy for artists and art administrators?

It is always not easy.

It has been quite for a while since June this year. We did get some “OK” sale on July and August, but it come back to quite again.

I have heard from my supervisor that two ARIs of this building will move out soon.

I attended their final warfare party the week before and we have a brief conversation about what their will do in the future. They actually have a lot of experience to work with art market, so they possibly will focus on art and crafts market rather than stuck themselves in one place. The other artist is original from Brisbane and after her partner pass way in this state, she might plan to move back to Brisbane. I have been told the two space of these ARIs might be rented as a commercial store. The government is happy with this result that pop up project does work on bring people back to this building. When the people are back and the business is back again. If shops are open, the building will not look terrible at night time and it might come with its security issue.      

 Sometimes I was wondering how could art really survival by itself? After one week off ARI, I am starting to think about my future. If we really want to do art administration, the best option must be looking for a job in museums or state galleries (not for profit gallery). Running a non for profit organisation is very hard because you hardly got a stable income for the organisation. Regarding to artists, selling their artworks might not actually make any profit for them and support their life. From my observation, If artist sold some work, they are happy to do some voluntary work. However, if it is not, they might unwilling to do some contribution with the shop. As an artists run initiatively, artists need to look after themselves and responsible for their sale. For example, if their works is hardly to sell, they need to think about the reason (maybe too expensive?)and then fix it. In this situation, artists also need to take a risk if non of their works have sold,but they still need to do the compulsory work once per month. Despite it is not easy for ARI, the museum and state gallery is hard to get in as well. For the youth, there is not a lot of opportunity for them to work in museum. they are mostly looking for the people who has Phd degree. 

Dreamers Market

Dreamers Market

Last weekend is also my first time to participate in an art market. It started with a lovely weather, but it change to a bit windy and cold in the Riverside Theater.

There is still a lot of local art lovers pop in this market. I find that Parramatta is still too far for the people, who lived in the city, to visit. I try to target the friends from University: they were very happy to go, but they were giving up eventually due to the fact that location of the Dreamer Market is far from where they lived.

I am starting to think about what kind of people would love to come to art market? Art students? Or ladies or a couple with their kids? What do people actually buy from market? I have attended the Finder keepers market as well in this year. They have food support, especially hot food, such as soup. It actually makes that market more “stay-able” than the dreamers market. People might feel hungry when they are shopping. If there is no food sell in the market, people might be starving and they will not happy to stay and check the other art stuffs.

Also, I find the layout of space is a bit awkward. The market is inside the Riverside theater, but it’s not exact an interior space. It is a half opened space. The weather might become another big issue to cope with. If the weather is bad, like a windy or a raining day, people might decrease their interest to go to market. Thus, Dreamer market may be quite or not busy due to its location and the variation of weather. If we compare that with Finder Keepers market, Finder Keepers got a full interior space, so the weather does not impact on the market too much.

We actually did not make any big sale on that day, but it is still a good experience for me to participate in this market. The week after the market, we have some people pop in our shop because they got our postcard from the dreamer market. I am excited about this result; at least some of them do come back and check our ceramic shop. It is a big progress of our marketing.

Speaking out in front of camera.

 Last Wednesday, a film maker and his assistant visited our shop. They took some shot in store and then they  filmed some interviewing video to advertise our ceramic shop. I came a bit early on that day and I was so nervous about talking in front of camera. In my previous experience, talking to people is fine and that is allowed you make a little mistake sometimes. However, talking in front of camera is not that easy because you cannot make any mistake. If you did, you have to redo it again. Because you cannot make any mistake, it will make you even nervous than the normal situation.

We had three interviewees on that day. The others are the director of our ARI and the artist who is the best seller of our shop. The filming question for them is based on they are artist and project director. For example, what is the best thing being involved in this project? What is enabling you to do? What do you think the pop up project change this old building?

I was been given the almost the same questions. They added one more question for me because I have a different cultural background and I can speak mandarin. There was a story: on that day in the morning, there were two Chinese ladies came in and ask to join our membership before we started to film this interview. They visited our shop twice before, but they cannot really speak English. They asked me to do some translation. I was helping them to communicate between my director and them. Unfortunately, they were not what we are looking for, I guided then to other fashion shops and the market in the street. As a result, the special question for me is”what do you think your language skill can help the pop up project? I remembered I answer that Australia is such a multicultural country. You can not only target the white customers, but also target Asian, such as Chinese Australian. It is a bit easy for me to understand their culture and value and convey the idea of pop up across the culture boundary to non Western people. In fact, word of mouth is the biggest market strategy for our shop. Thus, it is good to have a spontaneously conversation with customers and they would be actually be involved the idea of pop art shop.

I found that if people would just take a look in our shop, we could also mention the pop up project for the public. They usually felt intriguing about the idea of pop up shop and the change of this community. They would be interested in spending some time to do the art and culture discovery. Most importantly, share this fantastic place to their friends and family. To mention about the whole pop up art community in this building, is not only to promote our ceramic shop but also for all the pop up shops in this area. If this pops up shop want to survive in this modern society, we have to make it different from other pop up project. We are not just the space for artists to display and develop their creation but it would definitely contribute to the art tourism in Western Sydney. When it brings more tourists, we will have more attention and then we can get more customers as well.

NOW!!DREAMERS MARKET IS COMING ON 1^st of September!! in church st

This is the link of their facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dreamersmarkets

***Don’t miss it ,you will regret If you really like 100% Australian handmade stuffs!! 

Opening Night for the Exhibition I participated in & A Big Event is Coming!!

It is so busy in these few weeks. I will explain what has been happened in my Internship.

First of all, I accidently got the exhibition in other pop up shop (Our neighbor) in July. This is the photo that I took on that day. This ARI is so different from our shop. After the opening night, we were playing “Piñata”, one of the party games and have so many fun at that night.

AND SURPRISINGLY! I sold my painting!! This painting was finished last year as one of my assignments for my oil paint course, which is the elective course that I selected last year. I never think that I would get this opportunity to sell my painting!! That’s so fantastic!! I also got some inspired idea from the people who like my painting.

This ARI finished their contract with the government and they closed. The one I put my work in was their final exhibition. It is sad for all the pop up shops here because we survive and support each other as an art community. This might be a main reason to attract tourists to visit the place. The locals could also be proud of their art and cultural community. In fact, we cannot survive without each other and that makes sense to me. Customers come in to this old building for coffee or for seeing other ARIs. When they pass by, they might get a chance to pop in our shop. Luckily, we lost one pop up shop, but we will have a new pop up shop come in this building.

I will have an interview from the government next week. That is a part of promotion program for the pop up project. They will film all conversation with artists, intern and volunteers through the interviewing as an attraction to involving people in this pop up projects. Basically, I just need to answer: what the three best things about being involved in this project as an intern? What is enabling you to do and the creative experience you get from this project? I am going to make a draft and then do some practices on that, just in case that I will be too nervous to forget what I would like to say.

We are preparing the coming event-“Dreamers’ Market” on the 1^st of September. I have designed a few postcards for our ARI(Thanks for my previous working experience in a graphic design company, I felt it easy when it come to the design part J) Because of the bad economic in Australia, we have to work out our marketing strategy. We used to have a lot of clients from the government and we had some big sale for Christmas. However, it has been quite in our shop for a while. I think we need to target wider customers. Not only people who work in the government (the high-class), but also the general public (the middle class) who got art taste and they do not want to buy stuffs from two dollar shop. This might be a challenge for our shop because we are lack of people to handle such a big event. We need people and we need more ceramic talent people involved in helping us to run our project.       

Volunteers issue in ARI, studio information and an observation from art customers.

It has been a while that I have not updated any the Internship report in my blog. At the moment, we are facing the challenge that we do not have enough people to work in our pop up shop. If there is no one could work in the shop, our shop will need to close eventually. This would impact on our business and the contract with the council. (We should open the shop at least 4 days per week). As a result, I am working on the volunteers form aiming at targeting art students or local art lovers to participate in our ARI.

The other issue is the process of building the studio is not completed yet. Initially, the process was supposed to finish in the end of June this year, but it had delayed to the end of August. Obviously, we hired a wrong builder and that is the main reason that we cannot finish the process on time. Thus, we fired this builder and hire another reliable one to keep going on completing the final installation.

Working at this pop up shop as an intern has been nearly three months; I found that selling the artworks is not as easy as I thought. In the past, I believed in art is hard to sell because it is not a functional product. However, looking at items and amount of the popular products in our shop, you will understand that art is not about to have functional value, but also has to be unique and not too expensive.

The main reason for customers pop in our shop is that they are looking for some unique ceramic artwork as a gift to their friends or families. At the beginning, they are just looking and checking if something attracts them. If they find some which might fit with their requirement, they might approach to the work and look it carefully even touch it. Before they decided to purchase artworks, there might be two considerations: The first question is: Is this artwork interesting? Very unique? If the answer is yes, and then the next question is: how much budget I could afford for this piece of artworks? If the price is too high for customers, they will still not buy the artworks from us.

The price of the artwork is still matter; even the work of art is extremely beautiful. Due to the bad economy in Australia, customers cut their budget on investing art. I have talked to one of my classmates about the sale in other commercial gallery that she worked as an intern with. She said that economy is very bad at the moment and it is hard to sell painting in Australia. She said only a few buyers who are friends with her boss.

I also talked to other pop art shop in the building about their sale in these few months. They both said are quite bad. We do a lot of sale before the Christmas last year, but we cannot even make at least $10 sale every day. I believe that we need to change the type of promotion and work hard on trying the variation of marketing strategy.

By the way, my friend-Vivian just visited our shop yesterday and she bought the sheep from our shop.

(Thank you, Vivian :) ), so the sheep in this photo is not available anymore.

Pop in our shop ASAP if you really like hand made ceramic stuffs. 

We are local handmade ceramic pop up shop  

Going on our Projects

At this stage, our ARI was still working on a new policy of membership, marketing project and customer database for the workshop.

In terms of new policy, the director had handed in the meeting on the middle of the June because we need to get at least two members to commit the approval of this new policy. With around 10 members in this ARI, we need to put a lot of energy on communication. Particularly, requesting people to do some voluntary work at the shop even it is a part of responsibility of the members. Form the artists’ point of view, they would be happy to stay in their studio to contribute to their works rather than stay at the pop shop to service customers. They don’t want to waste their time and doing nothing there (when the shop is quite, we might not have any sale on that day.). With this issue, director decided to change the policy of membership, kick off the wrong member and then carefully pick up the coming right members for the association. It is a bit annoying, but it is a necessary process to grow up into a long-term business.   

I have worked on our current marketing project –called “The feature artists of the month”. The project is about renovation of the window showcasing at the pop up shop to target the public attraction. In fact, the feature artist of month is quite similar to the normal exhibition of a commercial gallery. For example, Our ARI will arrange refreshments and drinks for the feature Artists on the opening day. This marketing project aims at encouraging local artists, especially our members, to create their new collections. The project is still under the preparing stage that we just got an approval of the policy for this project in the meeting. With this project, I was supposed to meet a new member, who will take this the marketing project as her voluntary work. However, I have not yet seen this new member from the meeting. She is also the first feature artists of this project. Thus, I can not work on this working project until I meet the artist.

Besides shop work and marketing project, I also attend a lot of lectures hold by the council and the pop up project. So far, I have attended a financial lecture, an introduction of how to run your business. I just got some idea about the accounting and the different business type. As an art administration student, it is good to learn a bit about how to run an art business in financial part. Making a business is not easy and making an art business is even harder than that. As a result, we figure out that we really need to get our studio down as soon as possible to offer some ceramic classes for the public rather than expecting people came in to but some artworks.

Start to POP UP!!

In fact, I have worked on this ARI (Artists Run Initiatives) around a month.

Basically, I just start to know the people involved in this project and get more familiar with our neighbors, such as other pop up artists. What I have done so far in the first two weeks just try to get some idea to help ARI run their pop up project.

In terms of these arty people, they are lovely and intriguing. The artists of our shop are all incrediblely knowledgeable about the huge ranged skill of ceramic art. They are very nice and patient to acknowledge me about their idea and their research. For example, a few artists show me about their research. 

That was fantastic!! I suddenly get an idea to promote their ceramic artworks cuz I got the story to tell the public. People will be attracted by the story!!!

 As a marketing project coordinator, I have to communicate with the artists about my idea of marketing project. At the beginning, I think my idea is a bit too fancy for them because most of the artists are in my parents’ age and some of them do not have facebook. There actually is an aged gap between artists and me, but we both are willing to understand each other and then be open-minded to these difference. On the one hand, some artist would like to try to use social network, such as facebook to engage our online promotion. On the other hand, I respect artists’ opinion that they don’t want to provide any concept for their creations (This just because some believe in that the artwork should tell the story by itself.) In this case, I will write for artists, but I will need more time to observe the story behind their works.

Although the majority of our customers are the elder generation who are rich and appreciate this delicate skill, I still think our pop up shop need to attract other generation by a web and social network promotion. I believe that not only the elder generation can appreciate these beautiful artworks, but also the young generation can do. For example, I really like some artworks so much and I decide to get my perfect cup. As a result, I think we just need to find the best way to promote our shop and these artworks. To tell people: you can find a perfect gift here.

The Interview

Finally, I will start my Internship in an ARI this Friday after a big interview on last Wednesday.

In fact, I thought it might be a quick interview and it would be finished within 15 minutes because it is an initial interview. However, it took longer than I expected. It took about 50 minutes to understand whether we fit each other or not. (Obviously, we fit each other; otherwise I don’t think I can get it.)

Last Wednesday (04052012)

I arrived the meeting place earlier than I expected. I had calculated timing in advance to make sure I could arrive on time. Due to the fact that I seldom visited the western Sydney, I arrived on the shop of ARI earlier rather than I expected. I was there one hour earlier than the meeting time. I think maybe be I can take a look about the environment.

Although the shop was closed, I still could see a lot of fabulous ceramic artworks displayed in the shop through the window. It’s a lovely shop!! To compare this shop with other shops in Pop Art projects in the connection Arcade, this one is most interesting one in this building. I believed in I made a right decision to apply for my Internship here. I think it is good to start my Internship here.

Rest in a Park and then back to the shop after 50 minutes, the shop was opened. I came in and then I found out that I have three interviewers today. First Question of the interview was obviously why you choose to apply your Internship in this organisation. I have prepared this question; in fact, I only prepared this question for the interview because I cannot predict what kinds of other questions I will be ask in this interview. Beside the preparation of this question, I have done abundant research about normal job interviews and clearly it did help me a lot in this Interview.

They ask me some taught question and I use some example from my retail experience. For example “Customer of the month” to show, I did have some experience to do marketing and promotion. I also connected this experience to social network promotion. For example, the project ‘Customer of the Month’ in the end of every month, we would pick up one customer to win two free movie tickets. When the winner of customers gets their ticket from shop, we will take a photo and then upload the photo to Facebook. This might not be a fascinating example to show my knowledge, but I think at least they might believe that I am the person who might have ability or ideas to help organisation to run their pop up project.

Next, the president of this organisation explained about their current situation and projects. I was asked about the idea for their project. We both agree that we might need to attract people to come in to the building. I also mentioned about the winter light festival, I believe that could be an important opportunity for organisation to promote this shop and their band for public.

Finally, they asked me about if I had any question for the art organisation. I did remember they have a studio around the Olympic Park, but they haven’t mentioned that studio until that time. I was a bite curious about how they work on that studio. As the result, I ask them about that studio.

Everything was going nearly perfect at the time; they asked me the available time to start to help them in the shop. I am late to start my Internship, so I told them I could start now if they wanted me to do.

Finally, I think all the interviewers are happy and satisfied about this result. The president of the ARI announced that:

Congratulation!! You get the job. YOU ARE IN!!

I was so excited I will start my Internship in this place. After a long time struggling and waiting for a good new from art organisation, I successfully find my Internship in this place. 

Hi, I am Sandy . After, a lot of problems with my old bolg I decide to create a new one. All the articles on this website would be related to my Internship journals.

I hope I can share some interesting thing about my Intern's life with you as soon as possible .