drawgasmic art show - follow up

[gymnopedie.livejournal.com]

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:)

Comments

[teahound.livejournal.com]

This is really fascinating. =)

[torinir2.livejournal.com]

Agreed. :D

Awesome stuff there. :o

[gymnopedie.livejournal.com]

posted a few more here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=6075116&id=721221154#!/album.php?aid=447238&id=197598175003&ref=mf

[monstersexual.livejournal.com]

...brb, kicking self repeatedly ;[

Okay, but really, thank you for this post! That's really interesting, and it's refreshing to hear something that seemed sorta fishy turned out to be something awesome after all!

[gymnopedie.livejournal.com]

Don't kick yourself :) Take a look around at your nearest city area, see if they have an art group?

This place had a sponsor that is a group of artists... their art rotates through various businesses through out the city too.

[spiffystuff.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it turned out well!
No matter what, first time events are always suspicious - even if someone's not actually a scammer they just might not know what they're doing and get overwhelmed :/
I still say tho, don't expect to get the fee money back.

[gymnopedie.livejournal.com]

I never expect to get fee money back with these things :) I never do the ones for 'prizes', those I don't trust with a single dime.. Just the shows where I can DRIVE too! St. Louis is a pretty booming town artwise, and really the only reason why I went was because I could get there in 20minutes.

Mine didn't sell, but the gallery around the corner has it until I drive back to go get it. Definitely made me much more interested in the area though, they seem to draw a large crowd of people that like art - specially since I'm starting to put together portfolio for my own show one day.

It wasn't this guy's first event, he's done a few others that are just as off the wall as this (I mean really, 1,000 people?)

[ocelotish]

I never expect to get fee money back with these things :) I never do the ones for 'prizes', those I don't trust with a single dime.. Just the shows where I can DRIVE too!

Actually, I think you hit upon my general view of things. Pay for the experience (being shown, the party, etc.), any money you get back is just gravy.

[gymnopedie.livejournal.com]

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=6075116&id=721221154#!/album.php?aid=447238&id=197598175003&ref=mf <- couple of more here.

Yea, pretty much. The only one that I REALLY REALLY have to break even at is GenCon. But that's like MAJOR cash, so 35 bucks really is like "a day at work" for me. heh. It's why I have a part time job still, so I can toss some money here and there to get back into the gallery crowd. Since I do both illustration AND art that is more for just a wall:)

[frazzled-niya.livejournal.com]

great to hear/see that this place isn't scamming artists out of their money :)

[gymnopedie.livejournal.com]

Yea, it's run by an actual group of artists / business that's registered, etc :) The group Cranky Yellow's building was around the corner.

They had a good bunch of St. Louis area sponsors, one that, if you get 'juried in', the art gets shown for a month in various businesses. Pretty damn cool find :)

But yea, some places, you have to be wary of, but since I knew the location, and checked over their sponsors, I felt it was safe to toss a painting that way :)

[gymnopedie.livejournal.com]

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=6075116&id=721221154#!/album.php?aid=447238&id=197598175003&ref=mf here's a few more, along with a friend of mine, AND my roommate back when I went to college:)

[frazzled-niya.livejournal.com]

cool

[sunhawk.livejournal.com]

When I posted about it, I was more concerned about it being essentially a vanity press than an outright "We're gonna take your money and run!" type of scam. It's good to see that they actually did put the art up, though I'm more interested to know whether any of it was actually bought and did anyone buy the book, plus what did this book look like - was it nicely published? Basically a zine? Do you have any pictures of it?

Thanks for investigating.

[gymnopedie.livejournal.com]

Book's in pre-order status. They had the layout running in a slide show. I bought one so I'll take a picture of it later on. Forgot to look to see if they had their one copy out, was too busy looking at everything on the walls, and all the arts and crafts downstairs:)

I'm not so sure what you mean by a 'vanity' press, since the book'll be put on market in the local shops. (wouldn't all artist books be 'vanity'?) Definitely not zine quality, but more of a soft bound flip book (I think his site had an example of another he'd made)
http://www.facebook.com/gymnopedie?v=wall&story_fbid=138254516192580&ref=notif#!/album.php?aid=185202&id=173668614485 <- shows their one mock up, setup.

Art was bought, any on the site with 'sold' was taken down, a print put up and a dot to show it was no longer available.

[sunhawk.livejournal.com]

Vanity press is the term used when people pay to publish their own work, rather than have a publisher print it it and pay them the royalties. The example I used in my original entry was for Poetry.com, who ran a vanity press that pretended to be a poetry contest: You submitted poetry, they let you know that you didn't win the $100 (or whatever) prize but you DID get in the book, but if you wanted a copy it would be $60. I paid the $60 and this nice hardcover gild-etched cover book arrived and it clearly had just anyone's poetry in it, even at 14 I was embarrassed to see the other poems LOL

The vanity part refers to the fact that the vanity presses in question aren't interested in quality, they just want your money to make your books. Not all vanity publishing is bad nor are all vanity presses scammers or bad (Lulu.com is a popular website for artists to make their own artbooks to sell, that's perfectly acceptable, etc) but they aren't generally accepted as "real" publishers by many authors published the traditional way.

Oh that's good that art was selling, do you remember the average for prices? Or could give an example of a sold artwork price?

[gymnopedie.livejournal.com]

aaaaah that place, gotcha:)

I couldn't imagine them trying to split any profits. This was definitely a "Here's the show, it went swell, now if you'd like a book we're taking orders to see how many we're going to make" kind of thing.

art was supposed to range from NFS - $150. Mine hadn't sold, but this isn't my usual type of crowd, but it doesn't bother me too much. New people saw it that isn't in my usual 'group'. Seems more like the artsy kind of stuff was picked up more so than the illustration styled.

http://drawgasmic.com/artistpage.php?a=2020
http://drawgasmic.com/artistpage.php?a=1424
http://drawgasmic.com/artistpage.php?a=1929
http://drawgasmic.com/artistpage.php?a=1814
http://drawgasmic.com/artistpage.php?a=1836
http://drawgasmic.com/artistpage.php?a=1302 this one was up for 200~

[sunhawk.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

I like that last link, the peacock one is really neat!

[gymnopedie.livejournal.com]

http://www.crammedorganisms.com/book.php kind of soft cover like that, I'd imagine. I know the art purchase part was set up to the side and definitely NO pressure to buy it (actually, my husband was the one that told me to get one lol)

[sunhawk.livejournal.com]

You imagine or did they say?

That would be a nice book, if it was that format.

[gymnopedie.livejournal.com]

I forgot to find it to see if they had a physical example, but seeing that the main place behind it is Cranky Yellow (company definitely, has a lot of random art in there, etc, runs galleries through out the year, bands too), and was also sponsored by a LOT of area groups, even one art group that helps teach kids in need after class...

I was merely basing my assumption off of the whole 'he made one before this' :)