Events: highlights for the last month include –

 

1)      Yoga classes: two classes meeting weekly Tue 6:30pm and Sat 9:00am. Jon will be running another series beginning in May.

2)      OUtlET’s Surrender runs every Thu 8:00pm. They are experimenting with the format and last week invited a HS band, Viva la Fiasco, to play. So far they have only damaged one piece of art – one of Hjun Ju’s beans.

3)      Cabaret Waltaire, Sat April 1, with Crank Sturgeon, Id m Theft Able and the Royal Jelly Collective. A good show with a small but enthusiastic crowd. Unfortunately another event, attracting the same audience, was running the same night.

4)      The Dailey twins first birthday party, Sat April 15 1-4 pm , took over the gallery space. It was a ‘diverse’ crowd. The art survived although it took a couple of days to track down and mop up all the spilled soda and birthday cake.

5)      PK Dwyer played on Sat April 15 8pm. Tracey from WUML’s Almost Acoustic invited PK to play on her show and booked the gallery. PK plays acoustic ‘jump’ blues and he plays it well. I sent his promo package to the Sun and a picture and listing made it into the Steppin’ Out centerfold. It was listed in OUtlET and on our website. I dropped off a copy of his CD at Brew’d Awakenings for Andy to play. I distributed flyers to RRRecords, Brew’d Awakenings, Life/Alive, the Revolving Museum, Van Gogh’s Gear, Mambo Grill and UML. PK appeared on both Tracey and John’s shows that afternoon and announced the live show at 119. One person, Joe Brown, showed up for the show.

6)      Phoebe October and Andrew Duncan played on Sat April 23, yesterday. 119 Gallery’s third ‘Movement Jam’ combined a local DJ and a visiting artist. The idea sort of worked, several people came to see Andrew. Again the event was publicized. Flyers were out two weeks in advance; it was on area dance lists; attendance was minimal.

 

Although I’m running events on a regular basis – you can expect a show every Sat night – attendance is minimal. I’ve kept the expenses to a minimum – b&w flyers are designed and printed out on my computer and duped fro pennies each at Staples. I take them out a couple of times a week to local ‘hot spots.’ I update 119’s home page and calendar every Monday. I post to various calendars and email lists including the COOL Calendar, Bos-Improv, and others as appropriate. Mary Ann posts to the 119 Gallery list.

 

I’m not sure what to try next! I can’t see spending more money. I would like to continue to offer music, dance and performance art events on a regular basis. I would like to grow the audience.

 

UML Partnership meeting, Tue April 11 1pm, brought together Jim Coates from Fine Arts, Cathy Kendrick and her boss, whose name escapes me at the moment, from Continuing Ed, and Felicia from UML and 119 Gallery. I outlined what I thought 119 could do for UML – gallery space for seniors in Fine Arts, internships, and courses meeting in the evening or on weekends in the Gallery. I described our programming briefly and expressed an interest in developing courses and opportunities for students in the area of new media and performance.

 

Cathy seemed more interested in having me teach 3D Animation than exploring a partnership with the Gallery. She indicated that Continuing Ed was ‘in it for the money’ and to develop new programs. Jim seemed ‘somewhat’ interested in a couple of my ideas. He seemed more interested in placing interns in the gallery. I didn’t get the feeling that either Fine Arts or Continuing Ed were really enthusiastic about ‘community outreach’ and ‘partnering’ with the gallery. Nonetheless I followed up with phone calls later in the week and, when I didn’t hear back, the next week. So far neither Jim nor Cathy have returned my calls.

 

MCC Community Workshop with Eric D'Alessandro, Program Coordinator for Media, Multidiscipline, Service Organizations, Sponsoring and Presenting Organizations, and Visual Arts Organizations met Wed April 12 8am-4pm. It was coordinated by LZ of COOL and included representative from ‘the museums of Lowell.’ 119 Gallery is a least recognized by one small City of Lowell government office.

 

The workshop was generally informative. Eric teaches this material at BU as part of the Museum Studies Program. The focus was on growing and sustaining community arts organizations. The thrust of the morning presentation was how to package you organization as ‘entertainment’ and how to find the ‘common denominator.’ I found this a little disappointing as it didn’t address ‘education.’ Eric kept talking about ‘packaging your product.’

 

The best thing I came away with was his advice for small non-profit organizations, “tenacity will eventually lead to success.”

 

He was quite excited about Destination World, which received this year’s largest community grant form the MCC.

 

Destination World: Anna Isaak-Ross, before leaving COOL for UML, has offered 119 Gallery a regular gig as the after-hours party location for Destination World, which includes a budget of $100 per event … that $1200 for the series. Since DW is on the first Thursday of the month we would be partnering with OUtlET. Mark Henderson and I met and came up with a plan –

 

2006

May 4              Poland              Greg & Andrea can’t play, we needed another plan,

luckily it turns out John the other DJ is polish …

now we need to find pirogues.

June 1              Portugal           DJ Steve Mendonca will spin Portuguese tunes

July 6               Zimbabwe        Dress up in animal costumes – Lion King

Aug 3               NE Roots   Restage the Salem Witch Trials/Goth Night

Sept 7              Latin Am            Mexican videos and the Eternal Rollerz

Oct 5               Italy                  Dress up like mafiaso and ‘shake down’

                                    other Destination World participants

Nov 2              ?                      ?

Dec 7               Israel                Bulldoze our neighbors’ houses (we were going to

                                                bulldoze children & social workers but deemed that

                                                inappropriate)

 

2007

Jan 4                East Asia     UTEC hip/hop and monkey dancers

Feb 1               Brazil                Show ‘Brasil’ in Portuguese

Mar 1               Ireland/Greece Find an irish band with a bazouki, a step dancer and

a belly dancer

Apr 5               Cambodia        DJ ? and a fashion show.

 

Anna loved the outline.

 

Job Description is pending. I will work it after I have the first draft of my portfolio off to my Goddard advisors Bonnie and Pam. Here’s a rough outline of what I do –

 

1)      Events scheduling – handling bookings by email and phone. This requires lots of back and forth to work out the dates, get bios and publicity material. PK’s wife Carol wins the prize for being the most together; she sent a complete promo package including press releases, etc. Dr T is the worst; I’m lucky if he tells me who’s playing – other than Dr T. This takes up way too much time … at all hours of the day and night.

2)      Promotion – I design fliers, dup them and place them in strategic locations like RRR, Brew’d Awakenings, Mambo Grill, etc. I also post to calendars and email lists. This can take 4-8 hrs/week.

3)      Website maintenance and updates take from 4-8 hrs/week.

4)      Schmoozing – visiting local art’s venues, cafés, stores and so on. Checking in with COOL and the other museums. Keeping tabs on what’s happening at UML, Mogan Arts Center, Revolving Museum, etc. This is enjoyable and, again, takes up way too much time, 4-8 hrs/week, sometimes more.

5)      Sitting on Boards and Committees – way too much time.

6)      Attending ALL meetings and other community related arts events.

7)      Setting up/taking down shows with the curator.

8)      Securing artwork and setting up for events then restoring the gallery to working order after an event. This is a major task - another 4-8 hrs/week on average. It also requires planning and coordination with the curator.

9)      Keeping track of day-to-day operating expenses.

10)  Gallery sitting Tue-Sun 12noon-5pm, monitoring events 2-3 nights/week.

 

That’s it for today –

 

 

 

Walter Wright