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.