2011 – Page 9 – Deidre Adams

If it seems too good to be true…

Someone thinks my work is so awesome, it should be included in an exhibit in Beijing? Cool!

Wait – it’s gonna cost me $950 for the publicity? Hmm, then look at this: My work will not be returned; it becomes the property of NY Arts Beijing space in China?

Now, I will be the first to admit that it’s quite possible I just fell off the turnip truck and I’m so desperate for exposure that I might still agree to all of this. However, we now have this thing called the Internet, and we can now do our homework and find out that these people have been scamming artists for a very long time. What’s amazing to me is that not enough artists must do this, and so they just keep on going, under the same names, not even bothering to make an effort to cover their tracks. A 10-second Google search reveals:

Casey Shannon knows about this

Heidi Allen knows about this

Art Bistro forum members know about this

Helen Ansell knows about this

And, my personal favorite:

The Caramel Award

Artists, please be careful; it’s a jungle out there! In the interest of helping anyone out there who might get an email like this and wonder if it’s legit, here’s the entire pitch I received yesterday:

Dear Deidre Adams,

My name is Abraham Lubelski, the publisher of NY Arts Magazine, and owner of The Broadway Gallery NYC and Beijing Arts Space in China. Recently my staff came across your works while researching for upcoming projects, and with their recommendation I would like to invite you to exhibit your works in Beijing, in May – October 31, 2011*. We will hang your work as soon as we receive it.

I am interested in your work “Composition IX” and would like to know more about it. I believe it would be an important addition to our program. By paying close attention to the intuitive works of each artist, we are hoping to construct an exhibitions of works that truly speak to the viewer. The exhibitions also offers an international publicity program for a fee (see details below). This promotion/publicity is a media driven event and offers both emerging and established artists the broadest media coverage possible.

All the best,

Abraham Lubelski
Publisher
NY Arts Magazine
473 Broadway, 7th floor, NY NY 10013 | 212-274-8993

_______________________________________________________________

Exhibition & Publicity Agreement
EXHIBITION DATE AND SPONSORS

Exhibition: Beijing Collection 2011
Location: Beijing Artists Space
Dates: May 3 – October 31, 2011*
*Your work remains hanging in the gallery for a minimum of 3 months.
We will hang your work as soon as we receive it.
Sponsor: NY Arts Magazine & Art Fairs International
Promotion & Publicity:

***The fee for the publicity program is $950.00

– “Beijing Collection 2011” will be featured among the “Artists of the Month” banner on the homepage of www.nyartsmagazine.com, www.nyartsbeijingcollection.com and www.nyartsbeijing.com, as well as within postings on these sites.
– Images of the artist’s works will be displayed on www.artfairsinternational.com, www.nyartsmagazine.com, and www.nyartsbeijing.com for the duration of the month.
– Each artist participating in the project will be represented, with an image of his or her work (which may or may not be the work on view in China) on our website, with a hyperlink going directly to the artist’s personal web site.
– A special webpage will be created exclusively for “Beijing Collection 2011” at www.globalartprojects.com, www.nyartsmagazine.com, and www.nyartsbeijing.com. This page will be online for a minimum of one year, with each participating artist’s hyperlink and image.
– Artist to be featured in the print edition, NY Arts Annual Top Websites Directory (Spring 2011 issue) within our magazine:
a) Artist Name
b) Website address
c) One image of the artist’s work (hi res 300 dpi and 4 x 6 inches)
d) Up to 70 words of text that best describes the nature of the work, and their website
– This feature will also be posted online at the NY Arts Annual Top Websites Directory.
– This feature will also be posted on the NY Arts Magazine’s Artist Directory online for one year with a direct hyperlink to the artist’s website.

CATALOG, PUBLICATION & DISTRIBUTION: “BEIJING COLLECTION 2011”.

– Size: 8.5” X 11”
– Each artist will have one full page in the catalog. The page willinclude one image and a submitted text on their work.
– Thousands of copies printed for sale & distribution.
– The annual catalog will be a special section of NY Arts Magazine to be published in Fall 2011, and distributed in the United States, Europe, and China.
– The section/catalog, “BEIJING COLLECTION 2011” will feature its own cover inside NY Arts Magazine. As part of NY Arts Magazine, it will be distributed nationally and internationally through our distribution system(available at a variety of locations including galleries, museums and popular bookstores, such as Barnes and Noble), as well as to our subscribers.

*Deadline for submitting all data is one week after finalizing exhibition agreement.

Schedule & Payments:
***Total publicity cost is $950.00 includes the publicity program and printed catalogs

Shipping Work, & Sales:

– Each artist will show one selected work in the group exhibition, “Beijing Collection 2011.” Maximum allotted wall space will be 55” x 30” per artist.
All work must be shipped rolled and cannot be more than 5 pounds total shipping weight. We will stretch and frame work when necessary.
– Each participating artist is responsible for arranging the shipment of work to Beijing. Works are to arrive 7-10 days prior to the first day of the exhibition.
– No work will be returned. All work remains the property of NY Arts Beijing Space in China.

* NY Arts Beijing Space has the right to lend works from its permanent
collection to any museums, galleries or non-profit arts organization for
exhibition purposes only.
– On the back of each work there must be: Artist’s Name, Title of the Work, Date created, Medium, and Artist’s website address.
-*Your work remains hanging in the gallery for a minimum of 3 months. We will hang your work as soon as we receive it.

May 17th, 2011|Art|1 Comment

Renew, refresh

Energy Study, 16 x 16 inches, acrylic on panel, ©2010 Deidre Adams

Just noticed that it’s been almost a month since the last post, so I thought I should do a quick update. Here’s a painting in spring/summer colors to introduce a tangentially-related topic.

I have a big birthday coming up this year, and I decided what I wanted was a new house. Since that was completely out of the question, the next best thing would be to finish up some long-dormant home improvement projects and also to paint. Several years ago, I painted the family room and the dining room with some rather bright colors inspired by Mexico and a particular restaurant color scheme. This was a triumph of wills for me, as my husband would much rather see colors that have “resale value.” Once it’s done, though, he no longer notices.

We also have a “living” room – that seldom-used room that designers of modern suburban houses always seem to think we need, although I’d much rather have a bigger family room and do away with that complete waste of space. The room spans the two stories of the house, so I wanted to make it look less cavernous by dividing it vertically with different colors of paint. I did several very large patches with test colors but didn’t like any of them, and there they stayed as utter paralysis set in, probably for about 5 or 6 years, I don’t even know for sure. I stopped noticing, but I’m sure all my friends thought I was about the laziest person on the planet.

So I don’t know if it was the advent of spring, the start of a new phase of life, or just the fact that I was maybe a little tired of explaining to people just what the heck was going on with that crazy wall, but I finally got a fire lit under me to change it. And I couldn’t do just that room, I had to keep going and attack every white wall in the house. (I just do not like white walls, even though they do make it easy to coordinate artwork.) So for pretty much every day for the last three weeks, I’ve been house painting. Not as much fun as art, but satisfying in its own way.

May 5th, 2011|Miscellaneous|3 Comments

Some matters of logistics

Before I say anything else, in case people don’t care to read all the way through this, I would just like to point out that I’ve added a lot of new work to my website. Please take a look and let me know what you think. Now, on to the story.

While working on a 12×12 series (see here and here), I got the idea that it would be fun to work even smaller, so I bought a dozen 8×8 panels. So far, this hasn’t turned out as expected; it’s been a struggle trying to get these tiny paintings to a satisfying state. I don’t know why this is, but it’s the same with textile works. (At least a painting on a wood panel doesn’t have the placemat problem.) But I can’t force it, and so those have been placed aside for the moment.

So when small doesn’t work, what’s the answer? Go big, of course!

Now, I must work within certain limitations, the most obvious of which is that since my studio is a room in my house, working large is a challenge. The largest possible painting I can do is 48 inches (the width of my work table). Since it was the dead of winter and we were having a series of frigid days at 10° F and below, that was the determining factor.

I had 3 panels made at this size – the most I could afford at the time. And since my studio room isn’t big enough to accommodate working on these flat all at once, the obvious solution is to take over the entire house. My mostly unused living room became the site of panel prep. Here’s the first stage, after a complete dust removal with a vacuum cleaner and a damp rag, a filling of teeny-tiny nail holes, and two coats of Golden GAC100. Right now it looks so beautiful, I would almost rather make a nice table out of it than use it to paint on.

I’ve found a great local source of panels: Space Gallery in Denver. These are beautifully made, furniture quality. Much better than anything I could do myself, and reasonably priced. They also seem to have a source for the raw materials that’s far superior to what I was able to get from Home Depot. So, if it’s within the budget, why not pay for a professional-quality product and use the time and energy saved for what you really want to do, which is make art? And yes, if I never have to see that scary table saw in action again, it won’t bother me too much.

Bonus: I get a chance to check out the latest show at Space Gallery, one of my favorites, and experience the unexpectedly wry humor of the director, artist Michael Burnett. Michael also gave me a great tip the last time I was there, which is to give the back of your panels a coating of your prep medium. This helps to equalize the stress between front and back and hopefully eliminate the chance of warping.

Well, since I needed painting substrates more urgently than I needed furniture, I eventually went on to the next phase of prep, gesso.

I like to put it on in thin coats with a roller, and I do three coats, letting each dry completely before going on to the next. This gives me a very nice even surface. I’m not completely sure why that’s important, since I will henceforth do a lot of things that will make it very UNeven, but that is now my ritual, for what it’s worth. To do three at a time, I also need to use the front entryway.

Now that warmer weather is on the way, I’m excited at the prospect of being able to work outside. I have a fantastic deck on the back of my house, and I just need to get set up out there. I plan to do some larger works out there when I figure out all the logistics.

April 8th, 2011|Painting|4 Comments

If it seems too good to be true…

Renew, refresh

Energy Study, 16 x 16 inches, acrylic on panel, ©2010 Deidre Adams

Some matters of logistics

Informal Analogy, 48 x 48 inches, acrylic on panel, ©2011 Deidre Adams