We have worked non-stop all weekend and we’re almost finished! Our excitement is still high, can’t wait to move in and start working!
Saturday, we were still constructing, I was in charge of painting the doors and finishing up walls.
The back storage unit is finished and almost full!
Our new logo “Without Borders” posted over our new yellow door.
It’s way past my bedtime for a tax season night but I’ve been working hard with my studio mates and our spouses to get our studio ready to move into this weekend. It’s slightly overwhelming; thank goodness tax season is starting off slow!
Bob hung the door tonight, most of the construction is done, more painting to do and moving!!
February’s First Friday was cold and wet; normally a poor attendance month, this one was no exception. The first reaction is usually, “why did I bother to be here tonight?” And the answer is, “ the people that come out are interested in art and you actually get to spend more time talking with them.” I enjoyed meeting the people that came into my studio and made a few friends, exchanging ideas and explaining techniques.
The other big event for the weekend was the VAE Art Auction Gala. As an executive board member, I enjoyed the opportunity to get to know some of the people that are involved with VAE through other channels. I spent Friday morning helping schlep art work from the VAE to the Marriot for the event. Saturday night I was the event photographer. It was an awesome experience! The lighting was difficult so I’ve had fun working in Photoshop and Lightroom to get the flesh tones right. After 2 days, I’m only half through the project. I need to experiment with using the higher ISOs and giving up the flash; my camera is supposed to handle low light without noise – I just don’t trust it!
Sunday was our Carter Building tenant meeting; the enthusiasm is building! We have 2 events planned, Art Speak and Community Palette. Art Speak will be in April and will feature our own Lope Max as a guest speaker. His talk will be followed up with artist demos and portfolio critiques. In June we are going to paint a community mural. Everyone is very excited about the mural project; ArtSee magazine is planning on featuring the event! We’re hoping to have a few local celebrities stop by to paint on the mural, maybe a Hurricanes player or two, to entice more people to come out and experience art by painting part of the mural.
This week is dedicated to gathering marketing tools. There are so many places to post events that it is overwhelming! We’re working as a group to develop a list; I’ve got 2 that need to be done by the 10th and I can’t find where I filed the information away. I think I’m a bit too organized; everything is filed away and I can’t remember the categories!
It’s been a tough few weeks but I finally have every thing working the way I want it on the web site! The last challenge was to fix the logo/header on the map page. All the HTML appeared to be the same and on the first few glances, so did the CSS. This is one project that the CSS is very long so I had to print it out, compare, correct, and print it out again. After numerous adjustments that didn’t seem to do much, deleting floats and adjusting font sizes, I finally removed a line of text and everything fell into place! Time for the Bailey’s!
I’ve been hard at work on the Carter Building web site as well, updating pages for the new Carter Building Art Center. Students are starting to sign up for classes and the building as a whole is starting to get noticed. Our hard work is starting to pay off, now for sales!!
I am learning so much about the marketing of art and businesses in general. I’ve learned more about web design than any certificate program and had a lot of fun doing it. I’ve got a great mentor, Tunde Afolayan, and several wonderful critics; they keep me from making a fool of myself!
This is a tough one this year! Of course there’s loose weight and don’t spend so much but they are always present goals! I need to focus on marketing so I can sale my work! I’m already nervous! A group of us are starting The Carter Building Art Center, Studio 4, to have a space to teach classes. It promises to be a very exciting adventure. We got the space in December and have spent this week painting and getting it ready for classes beginning mid-January. Once we got the walls white, the space seemed to grow and glow. The utility sink looks much nicer and the shelves are neat and ready for supplies. The brown paint for the floor looked like chocolate! I bought a new door with glass panes to the floor and the guys are sanding and painting it today. We get to hang it this weekend and move furniture in. We got great deals on chairs and some amazing folding tables for $9.99 each. Not sure what we are going to do about easels but it’s looking good so far!
I spent my morning going through free magazines and newspapers looking for places to advertise and calendars that are free. I found some great opportunities for us and Glenwood South along with some online places. Next step is collecting prices and procedures for submission. I’ve got to pull together an email list which feels like torture, set up a sales site connection for my website, and start using Facebook. Facebook scares me, I don’t know what to put on there. I’m a rather private person and the thought of having my info being broadcast is intimidating, I guess that’s why marketing is so hard for me. So while I have a break in my web design work, I need to jump in and get started!
The GNSI conference website went live this week so check it out. http://www.gnsi.science-art.com/2011WA/index.html
I’m really please with how it’s looking.
I have been engrossed in web design for the last 2 months and I am discovering that you can do most anything if you learn CSS. I have 7 books that are solely CSS, I’ve devoured them, taking an absurd amount of notes and there is still so much to learn! My 2 favorites are {speaking in styles} Fundamentals of CSS for Web Design by Jason Cranford Teague and CSS the Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland. {speaking in styles} teaches CSS like a language (foreign not programming) with syntax, semantics and vocabulary. These are the 3 sections that I am constantly referring to since I can never remember how to write in-line CSS, I get it confused with the syntax of HTML. The rest of the book puts CSS in context with web design and once you’ve read it, you’re pretty much done with that part. Most CSS books provide you with the same information so why this one? I like the way they list a term or CSS objective on the left side and present examples on the right side. With each item having a 2 page spread, it’s easy to use, there is a lot of white space so I’m not overwhelmed and searching for what I want in a sea of text. It’s a great introductory book.
CSS the Missing Manual is a workhorse! The text is easy to read and follow. I’ve read most of the book twice, once cover to cover and now project by project. I struggle with the index in most of the technical books, I don’t call things by the same name. I do use this index some but I find it much easier to look in the table of contents. I have just spent 2 days setting up a simple interactive map, it was so easy to design in Photoshop! But Dreamweaver was wearing me out! I finally pulled out the missing manual and started with basic layouts using floats and positioning. As I found bits and pieces of my puzzle examined, I was referred back to the chapter on background images. Several hours later, I got the first block in my map laid out! The Photoshop map is basically 2 columns (below) while the Dreamweaver version is 3 columns with a nested column in the middle. The street lines are made up of 2 background images; it’s still going to be a challenge to figure out the best way to do the half street near the bottom!
The other site that I have been working on has been equally educational. I have created a collage that has images appear when you roll over the photographs. It’s a simple concept and you see it regularly but…
Once the site is up and running, I will post the address so you can play.
