kayleighadams-blog

[kayleighadams-blog]

SO...

So considering this was my first art fundraising event, I feel like it was successful in more ways than one way. Yes we raised more money for Mind than expected, but it was what I have learnt about myself that is the most valuable to me. I learnt that my time keeping skills need some improvement, but my ability to work closely with others was far better than I thought. I learnt that my voice wasn’t always the right one, I learnt to stop and listen to other peoples ideas and take on board their opinions, as yes sometimes they are better than my own. I gained confidence in speaking to people I am unfamiliar with in a formal context, something that I have always shied away from, but I learnt if you act confident, you become confident. It’s so simple.

 Overall the event from start to finish has been a massive learning curve. I’ve realized that I can’t always plan ahead, as uncertainty is always looming in the background. I need to be ready to respond to change and learn to accept it.

 However, in hindsight there are things I would do differently, which could of helped raise even more money for Mind. This includes being more proactive in looking for a venue at the start, this way we could of got the event rolling a lot sooner, so we could of looked into outside advertising, such as the local papers and radio stations, as this would of reached a lot further than our own advertising.

 Also, if we could have organized the venue sooner, we could of experimented more with the curation of the artworks in the actual space itself, so that we weren’t in such a panic on the day of the event.  And lastly, on June 14 there was a large cycling event in Cardiff, which caused a few road closures in the area, which affected the usual footfall into the center. However, because we were desperate for a venue we decided to go ahead with that date, incase we couldn’t get in anywhere else.

 This experience has made me face up to the fact that I wont be in education for much longer, and that I need to understand how the art world works outside of the University.

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PERSONAL SPACE:BODY OR PLACE

Overall the art fundraising event was a fantastic success! we had a lot of visitors into the space, although not everyone purchased an artwork, we have people donations and generally getting creative as well. 

However, we knew in advance that the centre wasn't going to be as busy as usual, as there was a large cycle event on in Cardiff, so we were faced with a lot of road closures, meaning that a lot of people were avoiding town on that day! So we were lucky that we still had a lot of interest!

We set ourselves a goal to raise £50 for mind through this event, and we absolutely smashed that by making £87.60! which is fanatic for a few hours.

As this was the first fundraising event that we had ever organised there were a few aspects that we could of done slightly different, such as the advertising, thinking back on it now, if we could of had our venue organised earlier on, we could of reached a lot more people, and maybe raised even more for Mind. However, because of the locations we wanted it was very straightforward in getting the venue.

Also, the charity itself was great at sending us out a fundraising pack, however, they like you to register your event months in advance, so that they can also advertise it, reaching a larger audience, however, until we had our venue we couldn't register the event, so that did hold us back slightly.

However, we did email a lot of different venues, and we only heard back from less than half of them. But i think it all worked out for the best as we had a great day at the event, and the venue was definitely in a great location. 

We placed submission boxes around Cardiff and one in our University, and we had a lot of submissions through this method, however the majority of them were digital submissions, and we think this is down to both money and time. The internet these days makes sending people images a lot quicker than waiting for the post to come.

So i think next next we wouldn't include a P/O address to post them, as we didn't receive any from this method, which we were quite surprised by! But i guess this is something that we have learnt from the experience itself.

However, it was nice having a mix of original drawings and photographed ones. Thinking back to the event, i couldn't pin point what artwork was the most popular, there was a fair mix between photography, drawings and digital submissions, so this proves that having different methods for submissions was the right decision, as it allowed people to pick the method that suited them best.

Finally, the sheer amount of members of the public that got involved with the event as a whole was fantastic, i never thought we would get quite so many submissions, as we were hopping for around 30, so this shows that people were willing to get involved for such a great cause. For me, it was all about getting people into art and to show them how it is about having fun and enjoying the freedom to make what you want!

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As we were getting so invoked within framing and making the cards, we didn't take as many pictures as i would of liked of people enjoying the work on show. Also as we had a lot of little children at the creativity table, we couldn't take pictures of them to put them online for many reasons.

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Fellow artist Kat Thorne brought down some fantastic stitch works on the day of the event! these got a lot of attention from the public as they are very intricate and delicate!

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I think one of the most popular aspects of the event was the creativity table. We brought in the card, pencils and colouring pencils and placed them on a table at the end of the space. The idea was to get people into the space and to get involved with the idea behind the event swell as enjoying the work on the walls.

I think this was real effective as people could relax and have fun.

We had some great pictures drawn, and we made sure to also put them up on the wall, so that they could see it wasn't about how good the work was, it was about bring art into the community, and showing how fun it can be!

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Here is how we curated the space. We decided to keep one wall portrait and the other landscape, as luckily we had a very equal amount of each! All together we counted around 120 submissions, not including the ones we got on the day of the event, and the ones people made within the gallery itself!

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Some of the posters we made and put up around the gallery space and windows, that way we could get as many people passing by to come into the space and see what it was all about!

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Here we go!

So we are finally in the venue and the day has come for our art exhibition/fundraiser. Here are some photographs of the space and the basement where we are borrowing some of the plinths and tables for the event!

Its a huge space! trouble is the 2 flights of stairs up to the gallery might kill us with these tables and plinths!

Wont be long now and we will all be set up! - we are using a laser projector spirit level to make sure we get all the artworks along the wall in a straight-line!

To start with we drilled two holes about 2 meters apart and attached the fishing wire, so that we could hand the work up on it, on the other wall we used white tack so we could see what was more effective in the space itself.

We had tried both ways in uni and we could decide, so we wanted to see it in the space before we made a final decision.

However, after we put a few up on each side, we decided that the fishing wire was too unstable, as the more postcards we placed on it the more it began to droop, and not as neat as the white tack and bulldog clip method!.

So we removed the fishing wire and filling the holes, then reverted them to the white tack method. This was we could make sure we had a straight line of them along the wall, which was so much better! as it was more eye catching!.

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Local school invite

The school that i got involved with for this art fundraising event enjoyed the project so much that they have invited me to their art departments end of year show. i have been asked to take photographs of the pupils work, and to get them printed as we did for some of the works in our own fundraiser, and put them up for sale at there own exhibition.

They have also decided that as our event was in support of Mind and they appreciate everything the charity does in relation to art and art therapy, as some of their students have local support from the charity itself, they would like for all their proceeds to do directly to Mind as well!

This is fantastic news! So after raising money for Mind through the public, it doesn't end when our event does! it will be carried on through this local school, and they have said if it all goes well, they will continue on this idea every year.

I never imagined when i asked them to get involved that it would go quite this far, and it is great to hear feedback that the pupils are getting on board with the idea as well!

Im really looking forward to this exhibition fundraiser, and i can't wait for July to come!

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Me busy making a greeting card for a customer at the event! I loved this drawing! Wish I got there first!

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I am praying that today will still be a great success, regardless of half of Cardiff City centre being shut down! 

Fingers crossed we aren't affected too badly!

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Waiting for the keys to the venue! Then we can get in and get everything set up ready for the opening!

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ARCADECARDIFF have been so supportive and helpful throughout the organisation of this event, and now they have even posted about our fundraiser on their facebook page and website!

As they will have more followers than my website, tumblr and facebook page that i have created i’m hoping that the event will reach even more people.

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These days Facebook can reach a lot further than simply just creating a website. We have had so many submissions in, now we need to make sure that we get the footfall for the event itself.

I would hate for people to of put in time and effort and we not raise any money for Mind. So i have created a page for the exhibition/fundraiser, along with a Facebook event page, this way on the static Facebook page i can post all the submissions we have had to let people know what the event is, while the event page itself tells them when and where.

So far i have had a few likes on the Facebook page, but not very many accepted invites to the event. Hopefully as people get the invite in their mail they will click attending!

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PERSONAL SPACE, 2015 by kayleigh adams Via Flickr: Art fundraising event at ARCADECARDIFF June 14, 2015

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T00 MUCH

Im starting to get over whelmed by all the jobs i took on for this pop up event, Yes me and Charlotte organised the venue and the event itself together, but i was the one constantly emailing and getting phone calls, when i was stressed about my own work alongside having to go to work, so multitasking isn't for me, as i need to concentrate all my focus on one thing at a time.

I also feel that by creating a personal website to showcase my own practice, with a live blog attached was a lot of work in itself, and that is only a small part. Alongside this, i was in charge of all aspects of social media.

I created a website for the pop up exhibition with a blog attached, a Tumblr to document all the behind the scene  research, discussions and critiques, with a step by step guide to what stage we were at within the event.

I then created a separate Tumblr to use as a promotional tool, as i wanted to specifically only have it advertising the event, no behind the scenes information appeared on the blog.

So this means i created in total

-All the poster designs and submission form designs -two websites with two attached blogs

-two Tumblr blogs/pages

-A Facebook page, and an event page.

However, these all needed updating at each milestone of the event, which i hadn't taken into consideration at all. i found myself becoming stressed, and falling behind in other areas of the project, as all my attention was being focused towards advertising and marketing online, as i didn't want to let us down and have no one turn up to the event.

looking back now, i shouldn't of taken all this on by myself, as i could of used the help, and i could of stopped myself from all the stressing and worrying.