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January 4, 2006
and now for a word from our sponsors...
by gl. at 11:53 pm
i've procrastinated promotional work for the february artist's way creative clusters long enough: i meant to begin in december, but it vanished in the holiday haze and *poof!* and here it is january already.
though i had small creative clusters in fall, because my conversion rate for them was pretty high, vickie recommended i try simply extendeding my reach this time. so my goal is to distribute flyers or business cards to 150 different individuals & sites, doubling the 70 i had in fall. this requires a much more structured distribution strategy, which is both tiring and tedious. however, it does give me the opportunity to explore more of portland; it's amazing how one can become accustomed to what one already knows.
sven has been pounding the se pavement while i've been working on nw & ne. we've discovered hollywood is very unfriendly towards flyers (a woman at sweet indulgence even lied to me!), whereas alberta & fremont are welcoming of them. sven said burnside was a tough street, too. sven can consistently distribute 27 flyers in a 4-hour time period, but it takes me 5.5 hours to do 21. at that rate, the cost per flyer is relatively high, even at minimum wage (now $7.25/hour in oregon, so that makes each flyer worth about $1.50 each in labour alone).
before working the lists we began with 30-40 sites and as of today, we are up to 128 sites. i'm pretty confident we'll reach 150 pretty quickly now: i still have some nw to finish and sw to begin, but i also have a slew of networking events lined up this month. my weakest point is north (like the mississippi area) and gresham/clackamas sites.
oh! but i got my first registration today! and it's not at all related to any of the promotion i've just written about! oh, the irony!
completely unrelated:
reason 3,015 why i love portland: the museum of modern materialism, which i discovered across the street from cinema 21 yesterday while trying to juggle flyers, an umbrella and an ipod nano. the museum is a big red vending machine which dispenses a colorful plastic ball w/ trinkets inside for 50 cents (very much like my beloved poetry gumballs). my art piece included a small handful of tiny napoleon-style army men (too bad they're too tiny for mph's mensies; maybe i'll give them to grace weston); a 6-sided die; a simple sticker w/ the words "stay awake!" printed below an alien head; a piece of translucent holographic plastic w/ an embedded honeycomb pattern; and scraps from a language workbook, perhaps, that say things like "say these words in alphabetical order: flute, trumpet, oboe, clarinet."
posted by gl. | January 4, 2006 11:53 PM | comments (2) | categories: artist's way, exhibits & events
Comments
Can you tell me how to become an Artist's Way facilitator? Is there any centralized training/certification? Is there a web site that would have this info? Thanks. Sharron
Posted by: zoe at January 8, 2006 2:08 PM
Hi, Sharonn! It's simple: you become an Artist's way facilitator by finding a group who wants to begin the Artist's Way. :) That's not meant to sound facetious; it's just meant to indicate that it's not supposed to be a very involved process. Anyone can become an Artist's way facilitator! It just takes committment & the ability to be both supportive and nonjudgmental: as Julia says, "we do not know which among us will teach us best."
Julia writes about how to form (or find) a group at the end of the Artist's Way. You can probably find more information at the official Artist's Way site (check the forums) or the Artist's Way at Work site, which is geared toward a different audience and looks like it has a certification option.
Good luck!
Posted by: gl. at January 8, 2006 5:39 PM