Well, it really depends on how widely you wish to call. Certainly,
there are magazines for every art and craft that carry listings of
upcoming shows and who to write, call or email about the criteria.
If you're going to restrict yourself to your local community write up
a nice press release, about 6 paragraphs longer than the minimum that
you'd like published and send it to all the local and regional
papers, contact all the guilds, and other arts groups in town, make a
poster or two and get it to the local school and to all the other
galleries in town.
Themes are fun and fine, I think. If people have enough warning they
may find themselves inspired to work to the theme as well, which
could give your show a real nice focus. Juries, or a single juror,
usually expect some recompense for their labors, so a fee of some
sort for each work submitted covers that and the utilities of the
gallery. Figure out the desirable number of pieces that the space
can hold, add up the costs and juror's fee, divide by twice as many
submissions as you plan to hang and call that the fee, as long as
it's not outrageous. If the juror wants more than $100 go find an
angel in your arts community and ask them for a donation of the
juror's fee in exchange for putting their advertising in the
announcements, press releases and on the list of exhibiters. Sales
usually have a percentage retained to cover general costs as well,
but it's always best to cover your ass and let the sales percentage
go into the general fund for lean times.
My local artists' guild has an annual photo show and gives cash
prizes, no ribbons. They put a colored border around the little
paper legend for each image with the color of the prize or make a
small banner and put it on the wall along with the title legend.
They also require the juror to leave comments on the paperwork
submitted with the piece and attach that to the back of the piece so
that the artist can see it when they retrieve it. Recently they have
also made up little paper legends with the juror's comments -
especially about why s/he admitted the piece.
Some ideas for you.
--
Emily L. Ferguson
mailto:elf@xxxxxxxx
508-563-6822
New England landscapes, wooden boats and races, press photography
http://www.vsu.cape.com/~elf/
