This week I’m in Kansas City attending my first Surface Design Association (SDA) conference. This time I wanted to make a concerted effort to get a photo from an actual conference event, so here you see a shot of the Thursday night dinner. Not exactly a stunning example summing up the heart and soul of what this conference is about. Oh well, no Pulitzer for me this time!

The SDA’s mission is “to increase awareness, understanding, and appreciation of textiles in the art and design communities as well as in the general public” and to “inspire creativity and encourage innovation, and further the rich tradition of the textile arts through publications, exhibitions, conferences, and educational opportunities.” The schedule this year includes a wonderful variety of speakers and demonstrations of textile-art related topics. Yesterday’s highlights included a lecture called “Organic Cotton — Beyond Oatmeal and Granola Colors,” given by Harmony Susalla of Harmony Art Organic Design, an inspiring story of a young woman who left a successful textile-design career to start her own business of producing organic printed textiles because she truly wanted to make a difference in the world. She’s not just spouting the “sustainability” and “green” buzzwords like so many other companies these days, she’s actually doing something about it. Plus, while she’s a savvy businesswoman, she’s also delightful and unassuming in person.

I must say I’m quite enthralled by this city. There’s an ample supply of interesting old buildings mixed in amongst the new, the people are amazingly friendly, and the art-viewing opportunities seem to go on without end. I’m staying on the campus of the Kansas City Art Institute, and just across the street are both the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. Today’s SDA events included “Exhibition Extravaganza,” a tour of local art gallery events around town. The tour included a stop at the Belger Arts Center, a former warehouse space now converted into exhibition space on two floors with corporate offices in between. There were five individual exhibitions to see in this cavernous space. First was “Surface Matters,” the SDA member show, a series of 18 x 18-inch squares which included a wide range of techniques and themes.

In the upper level were several more shows, including work by Ray Materson, who makes miniature narrative embroideries which become all the more amazing when you hear his personal story. I also got to see the embroideries of Alice Kettle, another artist with an obsessive process involving lots and lots of stitching, whom I’ve admired for a long time since seeing her work in several magazine articles. It was a treat to see in person. Another room featured the work of Jennifer Angus, an installation of elaborate wall designs consisting of very large and strangely beautiful insects arranged in circular patterns, along with freestanding dollhouses populated by insect citizens going about their daily tasks. Finally, the gallery had on display several large pieces by El Anatsui, an artist making amazing large-scale “cloths” from recycled materials, including caps from liquor bottles and other items gathered in and around Nsukka, Nigeria.

I’ve seen these in magazines, too, but it doesn’t compare to actually seeing the work in person, where you can get a full appreciation for the sheer size and detail, as well as the amount of time that must go into the making of these amazing tapestries. Anatsui does not currently have a functioning web site, but I did find this YouTube video that features him explaining his own work:

Well, I knew there had been a big push during the last several years to privatize all the public resources, but this is going just a bit too far, don’t you think?

What’s that you say? Oh, you mean this isn’t the real Gateway Arch?

OK, you caught me. Alert readers will notice that the shape isn’t quite right, but it’s still fun. This particular arch can be observed just off the highway in Vandalia, Illinois, gracing the fine establishment so named.

The real thing is still standing here in St. Louis, as yet unscathed by promotional adornment.

Chairs, ©2009 Deidre Adams

I have been in Athens, Ohio, all this past week. For three days I taught a Photoshop class, and then for the next three I attended the SAQA conference, where I met some wonderful new friends and listened to some interesting discussions about making and promoting artwork. I also went to the opening of Quilt National 2009. All of this is evidence that as a documentary photographer, I pretty much suck, because I did not get a single photo of any of these things. So instead you see before you a photo of the west side (loading dock?) entrance of the Bromley Hall, a dormitory on the campus of Ohio University, where I’ve been staying this past week. (At least I’m sparing you images of the wildly creepy basement of this place!)

Some thoughts:

Promoting one’s work: Outside of the obvious, there are many ways you can form relationships with people in business to get your work seen. Finding a business that has a symbiotic relationship with your particular work and making connections is one way to start. (From Lisa Chipetine’s Marketing Outside the Box session.) Alyson B. Stanfield also gave a keynote presentation on marketing and promotion, all of which is fantastic advice for artists. These are things I know I should be doing, but at this point in my life I want to pull back and make some work without any distractions. (Er … what was that about not making excuses?) Bottom line here: I will still not be doing the Facebook or the Twitter any time soon.

Pricing and commissions: Pricing is a big hairy conundrum and artists are all very different in their approaches. Carol Taylor surveyed a large number of artists and presented a detailed compilation of information about the methods used for pricing (ranging from very methodical calculation to “gut feeling”) as well as the sales numbers for a few of the artists. Apparently only one person out of all the survey respondents is making what I would call really good money.

Self-Publishing: Carol Ann Waugh presented a session on creating your own book. I found this idea very intriguing. Besides the one-off photo books that are available in many flavors now (blurb.com, shutterfly.com, Apple, etc.), there are also some print-on-demand (POD) options that are considerably less expensive, and the quality of the samples she showed looked pretty good. But then, there’s always a catch: evidently you then have to work your tail off to market and promote the book. (Could not have seen that coming!) Still, the idea has some possibilities for me down the road.

Quilt National: The show was fantastic, quite possibly the best QN ever, in my humble opinion. I didn’t realize that on opening night you are allowed to take pictures, so I didn’t have my camera with me. Went back the next day to get some pictures, but the option had been removed by then. But it is a great show, and many congratulations to all the artists whose work is included. And special congratulations to my friends Sandy Woock, who won a Juror’s Award of Merit, and Pam RuBert, whose quilt is featured in a Wall Street Journal article about the show. (Rant: Seriously people, can you just not ever write an article about art quilts without mentioning Grandmother?)