Thursday, March 24, 2011

The Paper Fish at Metro Gallery - FRIDAY 3/25


Katherine Fahey, who is a Pile of Craft & Holiday Heap veteran, a Shapenote Sister, and an all around important Baltimore artist to know, presents The Paper Fish tomorrow night at Metro Gallery.

Your favorite Baltimore band and mine, Wye Oak, commissioned Kathy, along with Michael O'Leary and Owen Lang, to create the music video for their song, Fish, from their album Civilian.

In true Fahey form, the work itself is a collaboration, but the evening's festivities will be as well. You will have the opportunity to view the video, the paper cuts and shadow puppets used to create it, photographs of the process, AND you will be invited to create a shadow puppet of your own.

If that's not crafty, I don't know what is.

The Paper Fish
Exhibition opens Friday, March 25 and runs through April 30

Metro Gallery

1700 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21201

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Free Symposium at AVAM 4/4/11

"Nest Egg" at AVAM. Photo by Richard Ames via flickr

Money Matters!
Profiting from & protecting your art, craft or other creative business
Monday, Apil 4 • 12:30pm-5pm
American Visionary Art Museum
800 Key Hwy, Baltimore
FREE

PNC Bank, Maryland Lawyers for the Arts and the American Visionary Art Museum present an afternoon symposium to help the city's creative class better navigate budgets, cash flow, copyright, insurance, and more! Presentations and group sessions with: PNC community development and business bankers; Cynthia Sanders, Esq of Ober|Kaler; and Bob Middleton, Director of the arts insurance program at Maury Donnelly & Parr. Tasty treats and tour of AVAM's "What Makes Us Smile?" exhibition included. All of Baltimore's talented artists, actors, musicians, dancers, writers, singers, inventors, crafters, bakers, home cottage industry CEO's, and creative businesspeople of all stripes are invited to attend! Free! But space is limited!

RSVP asap: whitney@avam.org
410.244.1900 x247

Monday, March 21, 2011

Hatch Showprints at MICA - Tuesday 3/22


Jim Sherraden of Hatch Show Print
Tuesday, March 22nd, at 6 PM
Falvey Hall, Brown Center
MICA, 1301 W. Mt. Royal Ave.
Baltimore, MD 21217
There is a really exciting talk tomorrow night at MICA with Jim Sherraden of Hatch Show Print - one of the oldest and most respected letterpress poster production houses in the country. If you don't know - MICA recently purchased the full print archives from Baltimore's own Globe Poster, which closed it's doors a few years ago. The men of Globe will also be on stage to talk about that acquisition. A great way to ring in a new season, don't you think? If you are interested in printing of any sort - you won't want to miss this.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

No Desk is Too Messy for Good Photos!



Are you putting off taking better photos of your work because your space is too messy? Here's some inspiration from CCCM friend Juliet Ames of The Broken Plate Pendant Co.

Juliet breaks plates- which, as you can imagine, is a little messy. But her photos are clear, bright, and showcase her work beautifully:



Here's how she takes her photos:


Don't let your messy studio deter you from taking great photos! Throw a sheet over it, set up a lightbox in an old cardboard box, and get a tripod! Even when the sun isn't bright enough you can get great pics by steadying your camera.


The Broken Plate Pendant Co. makes contemporary jewelry and housewares out of recycled china. Readymade jewelry can be found on at her Etsy shop www.thebrokenplate.etsy.com. Information on custom orders and show schedule can be found at www.ibreakplates.com.
Thanks, Juliet, for the photos!

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

a few pointers to make your application stand out

I can't stress enough how important your images are. I don't mean that it's necessary to pay a pro, but if you don't provide a jury with well-lit, non-blurry, properly sized photography it won't matter how well-prepared you are for their show because you won't have the opportunity to participate. Period. A few dos and don'ts:


When in doubt, use natural, diffuse light. A mid-afternoon, south-facing windowsill, for example.

Keep the background simple. Don't use patterned fabrics as it will only detract from your work. Patterned backgrounds can work as long as they're monochromatic (i.e. grass, leaves, stone) and bright colors can be used carefully to direct the eye to the subject, but be honest with yourself when choosing the final image. If you notice the background before the work you should start over.

Most images should be of one piece of work alone. Pick your favorites and photograph them solo. Group images can be overwhelming and don't allow your work to speak as well for itself, which is the whole point of images within an application.

Don't worry about establishing scale in your images (like with a coin). If it's important to the jury process there will be a place to provide that info.

There are often image size requirements on applications. Read those carefully and follow them, otherwise juries can be faced with huge files, giant blown-out images or totally blurry ones. If you are unsure how to re-size photos, ask a tech-y friend (don't we all have at least one at this point?) or poke around online to find instructions. You don't have to buy fancy image-processing software, either -- a simple google search pointed me to this among others: http://www.gimp.org/, instructions included.

As far as the rest of the applications goes, common sense prevails. Make sure that the link to your website and etsy shops are correct, double-check all of your personal/ business contact information, and carefully read and follow any instructions for paying your application fee.

As incomplete of a means as it may seem when you're boiling down your craft for the purpose of jurying, your application must speak well for you in very short period of time. That said, keep your images simple and clear, make sure that your personal information is complete and correct and make sure that we know where to find you when we want to tell you how wonderful you are and that yes, we want you to come to our show so that we can get to know you better (and so that you can sell, sell, sell!).

Best of luck!



Here's what a couple of other crafty folks have to say about such subjects:

http://www.hellocraft.com/2009/03/wowing-a-craft-show-jury/
http://www.etsy.com/storque/seller-handbook/shop-makeover-before-and-after-with-photoshop-11552/

Monday, March 7, 2011

Its that time again! APPLY NOW for Pile of Craft!



Vendor applications for our June 25th craft show Pile of Craft are now online!! CLICK HERE for all the details and to apply! Applications will be up now through April 17th at midnight!

Please keep an eye on this blog in the coming week for some A+ application pointers!