emiko-o reware

Gallery Panel SNAG

The last segment of the PDS program, The Evolving Role of the Gallery in a Virtual World of Commerce, gave us the insider perspective of what it takes to run a gallery in this age of internet commerce, not to mention a bad economy. Each gallery owner had 5 minutes to show a powerpoint presentation about their gallery and mission. From left to right: Ruth Synderman of Works Gallery, Beth Ann Gerstein of Society of Arts and Crafts, Sienna Patti of Sienna Gallery, Whitney Couch of ObjectFetish, Patti Bleicher of Gallery Loupe, Karen Lorene of Facére.

Questions posed to the group were:

1. What does a Brick and Mortar Store (all are physical sites, except for ObjectFetish being the sole online-only store) have to offer that justifies the 50/50 split on sales? Why wouldn’t an artist just sell retail through their own site or on Etsy?

2. How are they finding and educating new, young collectors?

3. And how is the internet affecting their sales?

Answers (higlights):

1. “the gallery is there to facilitate the future of the artist,”-Sienna Patti. “It’s ALL of our jobs to be the advocate for art jewelry,”-Karen Lorene.

2. Co-sponsoring important art jewelry exhibitions with local art museums, as Patti Bleicher did with the recent Helen Drutt Collection show; brings in new audiences. “All my customers are collectors,” says Karen, who makes a point to educate every customer about the artist they are purchasing from, even with a letter welcoming them to the world of art jewelry collecting.

3. Whitney finds that the competition, like Etsy, pushes her to work even harder to promote her artists; she encourages the competition!

Thanks to the PDS organizers for all of their hard work: w

SNAG PDS organizers

From left to right: Andy Cooperman, Harriete Estel Berman, Don Friedlich, Ken Bova. Also, much thanks to Etsy and MJSA for sponsoring this program.

This will be the last year that the PDS will be a Pre-Conference event. Next year, PDS will be incorporated into the SNAG conference itself (no more flying in the night before, maybe…)

My show has been getting lots of attention on the web, I can barely keep up with the thank you emails. It is truly awesome. My favorite post so far has been from an Italian journalist, Anna Battista and her blog: Irenebrination: Notes on Art, Fashion, and Style. See her Oct 23rd entry:

The strangely (and fashionably) therapeutic power of Lego

She covers both my ready-to-wear line and the exhibition pieces. She writes, “Oye’s best pieces though are the ones she has done for different exhibitions and events.”

The day after that, LEGO blogger, Michael Huffman posted my show on his BrickBuildr blog; which is great since I don’t usually hear from fellow LEGO lovers.

Yesterday, the show was posted on Object Fetish, an online jewelry gallery run by Whitney Couch.

Lots of fun, seeing the work get posted. Check out more images on my flickr set, as well as images of people wearing my work on the SF Museum of Craft + Design’s flickr set. Here is a sneak peak at some of my fav photos from the interactive, digital part of my show…

People definitely discovered the Effects in Photobooth. Would be awesome to print all of these and plaster a wall with them….. stay tuned for more people images…