I’m participating in an Artist 2 Work incubator program designed by Professor Ellen Wetmore of UMASS Lowell. So far we’ve had lectures from professors on value proposition, basic marketing concepts tailored specifically for artists and the art market, branding, and targeting the luxury market. I’ve learned many new things and relearned things I’ve forgotten that I knew.
Our first homework assignment was to write a value proposition. She asked for 2 sentences and I wrote a paragraph. Typical. Separately from the class I read advice on applying for grants that seemed sound- have 3 people review your grant proposal before you submit it, and include at least one person who does not speak the lingo. The rationale is that not everyone on the board of folks reviewing your grant will be fluent in art speak, and you need to reach them too. So I had my husband read my value proposition, and at first I though he just didn’t get it, but by the next morning I realized that I just wasn’t being very clear.
Good advice, that.
Deborah Santoro: The Asana Series
My prints and multi-media pieces inhabit the space between yearning and falling, between striving to realize a potential, and the habits/patterns/programs that enmesh us in ways of being that do not serve our higher selves. The LIQUORS sign becomes a stand-in for addictions of all kinds, and the hopelessness that trails them. The asana, or yoga poses, represent an embodied, intuitive knowing that links human potential with universal themes; dendrites and star charts, our mitochondria like tiny suns inside our bodies. In the time bound dance between despair and enlightenment, time, pattern and color all have their part to play.
Deborah Santoro 