artists_beware | drawgasmic art show

hey all!

This is just a quick follow up to this post here from a while back.

quick links: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Drawgasmic/173668614485?v=wall <- their face book
http://drawgasmic.com <- the main site
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/travel/27hours.html <- NYTimes featurette
http://www.riverfronttimes.com/events/drawgasmic-1029072/ <- local events news paper that goes out once a week to area restaurants, etc (really awesome if you live in the area, I might ad, specially if you need a tattooist)

While many, MANY places are scams, it's always good to do a little research as well as to not miss out on some awesome stuff like this place turned out to be:) I was actually a little saddened by some of the reasons why people weren't signing up: the looks of the art, artist that was running it (who had a business, another book, and did other shows), and the name of the show. The way they did the email in a batch form, could have been done better, but it was probably their fastest way to just send out a net and catch some people.

For a gallery group, this was quite the normal kind of crowd that starts up these group shows.

I've done a few shows that are group works that did require a fee. These are NOT gallery run. In fact, what it is commonly happening is a group of artists band up - out here in St. Louis there's a few groups, kind of like how impressionists would have coffee together, etc - and need to cover the cost of rent, band, food, insurance, and advertising. Most of the time, there's no book, this was the first time I saw a book.

This show was like that. Run by a small group of people that just wanted to do something INSANE :) Insanity is a great reason to get together art, and MAN, did they get together some art. WALLS and WALLS of art!^^

There's a book in this. The book will be stocked over seas, and in the local area book shops that host a lot of art books to sell to locals and tourists (specially down by the U-city Loop area) The book also came with a handful of prints and a sketch book in a little bag. I don't have one to show.

They constantly kept updates on their facebook, had about 1500 fans sign up and quite a few local vendors also pushed fliers.

As you'll see in the pictures, their advertising paid off.

So, I only live about 20 minutes away from the site of the show, I decided I was going to see if this was a scam or not. It wasn't:) (again, I fully realize that many emails to art shows REALLY are!:) )

This was on the 2nd floor of the gallery, the main floor had a live band and crafters (jewelry, clothing, etc) as well selling their wares. The crafting group was one of the sponsors.

(my husband, whom has been slowly getting better at the whole 'going with wife to strange stuff')

If you want, I'll upload more, but I felt these showed the space best, instead of just individual art, which you can see on their site.

Again, thanks for reading:) I just wanted to do this to 'clear up' the 100~ posts that were made against it and perhaps one day you'll stumble across something oddball to get your work into. I saw some fantasy art, anime, collage, artsy fartsy stuff with 'big ideas'... It was a really big mix from all over the world:)