ArtSpirit7 - Part 48

Revelations at the Affordable Art Fair

October 21, 2012 by Mary Gow

“Carrera III,” by Koh Sang Woo

It looks like plenty of people are buying art these days!

Koh Sang Woo created my favorite piece in the fall show of the Affordable Art Fair (“AAF”) in New York. It’s a Lambda C-Type print, titled “Carrera III,” priced at $6500. It sold.

Woo is a Korean-born artist who lives and works in New York. He has a beautiful website!

A Lambda C-Type print is photographic printing technology at its best. Three lasers merge into a single beam and can create images up to 50 inches wide in a single pass.

The new location for New York’s AAF is at The Tunnel, which is on 11th Avenue between 27th and 28th Street in Chelsea. The beauty of this year’s fair was the ease of walking. The straight long corridor and felt spacious (aside from bumping into people).

The Affordable Art Fair began in 1999 in Battersea Park in London, United Kingdom. Every piece of art in the show was required to be clearly priced, with no piece over $10,000. 10,000 people showed up for that first art fair and over a million dollars in art was sold!

The first AAF in New York City was in 2002.

Founder Will Ramsay has since expanded the AAF and the 15th city he’s adding to the mix is Hong Kong in spring 2013!

The worldwide exhibition schedule looks like this:

2012 
Stockholm: October 4 – 7
New York, Fall: October 4 – 7
Mexico City: October 19 – 21
Amsterdam: October 25 – 28
London, Battersea: October 25 – 28
Rome: October 26 – 28 October
London, Hampstead: November 1 – 4
Seattle: November 8 – 11
Singapore: November 15 – 18
Hamburg: November 15 – 18

2013 
Brussels: 21 – 24 February
Milan: March 7 – 10
London, Battersea: March 7 – 10
Hong Kong: March 5 – 17
New York: April 4 – 7
Bristol: April 26 – 28
London, Hampstead: June 13-16

The New York AAF attracts over 12,000 people!

Like an infant being encouraged to walk, visiting the NY AAF encouraged me to keep on with my art, and not give up. It helped me put my own art career in perspective. Even though I’ve been making art since I was a kid, I haven’t gotten my work out there as much as I could and encouraged myself to go beyond the the stumbling stages.

Stumbling as an artist (or at any endeavor, for that matter) can be over a period of years or decades or lifetimes. I’ve been in the baby stages of getting recognition, awards, and having my work collected. Or maybe I’m at the teenage about to become adult stage. But I found a deeper truth.

Has this happened to you? While you’re at an event of something you love you realize you’re as good as the competition but you’re not competing?

While at the AAF I had just such an awakening.

So thank you AAF for inspiring me!

Four Moments in New York

October 14, 2012 by Mary Gow

Me with my friend, Hyeran, soaking in the Affordable Art Fair in New York

Waving to Liberty, photo by Mary Gow

Need to clear out creative cobwebs?

I did. A trip to New York is what the shaman ordered.

I dropped by the fall edition of the Affordable Art Fair at their new venue at The Tunnel in Chelsea. This year it was easier to navigate than the maze I recall from years prior.

What does AAF define as “affordable”? $100 to $10,000.

Stay tuned, in a future post I’ll share my favorite artwork from the AAF show, a C-Type Lambda print that sold for $6,500.

On another day I rode the Staten Island Ferry. It’s an easy way to pass by the Statue of Liberty!

Couldn’t miss one of the grand spaces in New York at the atrium of Grand Central Station.

Grand Central Station in New York, photo by Mary Gow

You can experience walking Manhattan without cars on the High Line, which is a mile long and runs from 20th Street to 34th Street on the west side, between 10th and 11th Avenues.

Walking the High Line on the West Side of Manhattan

The World Trade Center Memorial is officially called the “National September 11 Memorial.” Currently due to construction it’s not a spontaneous thing you can drop by and see. You need to reserve a time on-line.

After you enter the park you’ll see two humongous squares which were where the towers once stood. Wrapped around each square are the names of the victims of Nine Eleven. There’s water falling on each side of the walls which then falls into a smaller square, which falls into a yet smaller square.

What a trip. New York City is grand, vast, and innovative. I left feeling like a creative thirst had been quenched. Like longing for sweets and finally eating chocolate.

World Trade Center Memorial Park, photo by Mary Gow

And the Way Forward is…

September 21, 2012 by Mary Gow

Ron Fricke did it again.

For a long time his visual poem, “Baraka,” filmed in in 26 countries, was my favorite flick.

Now, he has released “Samsara.” And it feels similar but slightly different. For more info see http://www.spiritofbaraka.com/samsara

Lately I’ve been taking in a LOT of information.

That’s probably true for you, isn’t it?

Do you feel like something takes too much of your time and attention or you’re stuck? Mary Jaksch of the A-List Blogging Bootcamp shared a tip for moving on, whether it be if you’re stuck on someone, something, or somewhere.

Practice saying “And the way forward is . . .”

And surely enough, as you keep saying it, the way shows up.

4 Tips for Effective Conference Note-Taking

September 13, 2012 by Mary Gow

Improv Writing, Digital Image by Mary Gow

Do you go to a lot of conferences and take a lot of notes?

Don Crowther is an internet marketing expert and creator of the Social Profit Formula. I haven’t enrolled in his workshops yet but in a one of his many generously informative webinars he shared tips on effective conference note-taking. Here’s some points I thought were worth remembering:

1) Write down as much as you can. Later type up your notes. Something registers when you use you write rather than type.

2) Write all your notes in one place. He takes all his notes in the 5.2” wide Moleskine ruled.

3) Teach the content you just learned within 24 hours of receiving it.

4) Develop your own code for key take away points, like putting dashes one quarter inch closer to the left margin as an action item.

As an aside, there was a whole segment about business cards.

Put your photo on your business card. People at conferences will remember you better.

Don’t get business cards that are glossy on both sides. It makes writing notes on the back too difficult.

Do you like to type your notes instead of write them? How do you register names with faces of people you meet at conferences?