DARts Art Exhibition
& Sale Opportunity

For the latest info, see the Exhibition
page and JR's October Ramble.

 
Letter to DARts Supporting Members:

One of Kathy's students is a real estate agent, who has three private home listings, and she'd like to promote one by having an art show in it. They'll all probably be available till about Christmas.

The three of us toured houses Friday to think about which we liked best. It was a little like Goldilocks in Art Real Estate Land.

The first one was too small with not nearly enough wall space, though it was close to where I live.
 

The second, though plenty large, was ugly, with dark wood paneling on most walls, low ceilings and not much outside light inside and not not nearly enough inside light anywhere. It was, however, on a busy, easy to find, East Dallas corner.
 

Big, open spaces throughout the house. Both the cabinet (far left) and the big mirror over the fireplace can and probably will be removed for the show. The walls are actually quite white. It's just the mix of tungsten and sunlight makes them appear warm.

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The third house, though smaller, lets plenty of outside light in, has big windows all around, lots of winding open space, bright white walls, a big green, flat back yard and even a large, 2-car+, open but covered carport area adjacent to the driveway and a deck. Wall space is somewhat limited, but there's enough for lots of medium and even some large wall works and quite a lot of space for free standing art.
 

We're thinking about art bins for additional flat work, and there's lots of large and smaller horizontal areas for pots, glass or small sculpture.
 

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All three of us liked the third house best. It has furniture, a working kitchen and baths, art, cabinets and mirrors we can move out of the way, plants that make it pleasant, a wide driveway and big trees all around. And there's plenty of close, on-street parking. It will, however, be more difficult to find, since it's well off the main streets.
 

We're thinking about naming the show after the house's address, so its location is obvious. Besides, I love the name of the street. The whole deal shouldn't cost very much, since the primary reason we're getting to use the space is that we'll be calling attention to and promoting the house to potential buyers.
 

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It's somewhere near where Terri Stone lives, in that extended neighborhood east of White Rock Lake, green with tall trees and rolling with hills. The name of the show (maybe) and its exact address is 1026 Tranquilla. The real estate lady, who's from El Paso, pronounced it Tran-kee-a, but I like thinking of it as tran-quill-a.
 

The show dates would probably be between mid-November and mid-December so we can get it together by then and still miss both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Although nothing about the possible event is set in stone yet.
 

I assume we'll print up invitations, split the cost and give everyone a stack of invites to send to mailing lists. We'll also send out PR to the appropriate media, and promote it on the site.
 

We've only had three days now, to consider all the possibilities, so I'm sure more issues will arise.

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All DallasArtsRevue Supporting Members are invited to participate. It's not a competition, although final acceptance of works will be up to JR and Kathy. And a lot will depend on where, in or around the house you want to show your work.

You can drive by the house anytime, of course. But to keep it easy on the real estate lady, in-house visits should be coordinated through Kathy.

We'll keep the discussion on E-mail for awhile, then all meet at the house to get the lay of the place, well before the setup.

The real estate agent wants to show the house with the art in place, so it will be open by appointment, too.

As we were leaving the third house Friday, she told us we'd have to sign something, so in case someone slips and sues, they won't sue her or her company. We didn't give it much thought then, but we've both worried about it a lot since. Mostly because we don't know anything about that stuff. Do any of you?

We may have other opportunities for shows, sales or meetings in other spaces in the future. But we thought this possibility was worth serious consideration.

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Would this be of any interest to any of you?

Have any of you done this sort of thing yourselves?

If so, was it a good or bad experience?

What did you learn from it?

Do you have any other ideas for DARts shows?

More questions and some possible answers are below.

We'll be submitting a proposal by the end of this year to have a membership show at the Bath House, but even if it is accepted -- and we think there may be a good chance of that, it wouldn't happen for at least a year and maybe longer.

What do you think of the ideas so far?

Please let us know what you think.
 

And, in case you hadn't noticed, there [was] a Members-Only Bulletin Board with the latest information that pertains to DARts Supporting Members and Subscribers - only, so I'm not constantly peppering the web with Rumpled E-mails. It's at

There's already a bunch of info there. More coming all the time.

Thanks,

JR Compton
DallasArtsRevue.com

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1026 Tranquilla Feedback The first member to respond -- so fast it amazed me -- it always surprises me that anyone else is up at my hours of the night -- was Art Shirer. At a little after 5 Sunday morning, he stated simply: Muy Cool Idea! Art Shirer   Jim (Crowe)'s not interested in participating in the home show. Thinks it's a waste of time. Sorry. Carol Crowe     It does sounds interesting to me, but here are a few things to discuss. When I discussed it with some friends, somebody mentioned, not an actual show, but a situation where their friend had some art in a house that was being shown by several realtors. At some point this person's art was stolen, and it was hard to do anything about it because so many agents had access to the house. Does her "private listing" mean that she's the only one showing the house? If not, I doubt that this agent would insure any of our art, and I wonder if we'd be willing to put out the money to do it ourselves. There's a lock box thing on the front door. Apparently, any realtor can get in almost any time, if they have a key card. It's sounding less and less secure for more than one day. -JR Would there be an opening reception? Do you see this as a show that extends over at least several days? If so, who's there watching over things? Us. I think most of the action would happen at the opening. -JR Please don't read me as poo-pooing the idea. I'm very much interested in possibly participating in something like this. But as everybody knows -- and as I learned for the first time when we did our last Continental Gin Open Studios -- there's lots to think about when you're putting together a group event. And you need participation by many people to make something like this come off. James Michael Starr     Sounds like a good idea. Rgds, Anila Agha     Sounds good to me, too! Chris Bergquist Fulmer   I am not sure about this. "As we were leaving the third house Friday, she told us we'd have to sign something, so in case someone slips and sues, they won't sue her or her company." What do they do now if someone slips and sues? Would it be our fault because of our art that was distracting in some way. Seems someone could slip and sue on any walk through of property. This sounds like a fun/unique idea, but I think this may be more trouble for the amount of exposure we would get. Suzanne Truex     Thanks for what you're doing and inviting me to participate. I was sorry to miss your get together last month. A bunch of family trauma.... Between that and having totally overcommitted my time -- I'm not going to be able to participate in the house sale. I'm saving everything right now for an upcoming solo show. Would love to be in a Bath House show if it comes around, though. FYI, I've had a piece of work stolen. (See story on the DARts Cover.) Sonia King   Larry and I would be interested -- we have a lot of work already framed from the last show -- that no one outside Plano got to see!! Do you have any idea how much the cost would be per person? Thanks to you and Kathy for all your hard work. Carol Wilder   I'm sure Richard and I would have work to show if you have the exhibit. Sounds like a creative idea for a show. Let us know any details! Marty R   A friend and I did such an event in the lobby of an apartment building on McKinney Avenue at Bowen -- a lively street near Primos, Cafe Express and the Bakery (?). It was a lot of work to gather and install the work and produce some PR. We didn't sell any work. That's not to put a kibosh on your project. The third house looks fine; however, your photographs are so good that it's really hard to tell. I would go with your selection. I'm not sure about the location. I rarely go to the Bath House because it seems to be far away and not possible to combine their openings with other gallery openings. While I have no question about the quality of work that you and Kathy selected; however, I think it would be prudent to have an outsider make any selection. It should not be a Dallas Arts Revue member. The Bath House sounds like a good idea. I went to the Day of the Dead opening and they had a huge crowd. I, of course, understand that it was populated by friends and family of the people who were in the show. The success will depend on getting the word out. Of course, I would participate. With all good thoughts, Paul Harris It's not really a juried show. People should bring what they want to, what they think they can sell, if anybody comes. I just wanted to say that we'd have final say, in case somebody needs to. I'm not sure why that would be, but when it might happen, we'd already have a policy in place. -JRC DARts Supporting Members, Here are some answers -- and, of course, some more questions: We will decide whether to do the show by October 25. Right now, I can't imagine not doing the show. But we're still open to opinions, questions and experiences. Kathy says the agent had brought up the insurance matter much earlier in their discussions. On the stairs leaving was only my introduction to the matter. The agent explains that we exhibiting artists would each have to sign a statement that we would not sue the real estate company (Ebby Halliday), if we were to slip or fall on the property. We still don't know whom visitors might sue... Kathy suggestes Ebby Halliday sign a statement that neither we artists nor DallasArtsRevue will be sued, either. I've produced and curated a few shows over the years. But it's been awhile. I understand it's not a simple matter of showing up and showing work. This one has to be a joint venture. For an invitation, I am imagining a small black + white postcard (4 up on a postal weight letter sheet) with a fairly straightforward, though perhaps lightly doctored photo of the house (probably based on the image above) on one side with all participating artists' names, with other invitational information on the other side. How much it would cost probably depends on how many of them are printed and how many we each send out. Do we want to mail invitations individually or as a group? Does anyone else really want to design an invitation? I don't even have a working address list for area media Do any of you? Would you share it? This is not a done deal, although there are enough Supporting Members who want to participate. Most of the responses so far are positive. We're still concerned about security -- leaving the show up for very long, since so many real estate agents would have access to the house. Perhaps we should just call it a 2 or 3-day show and sale, like on a weekend. Negative or positive, we appreciate your opinions and your reasoning. We've decided not to decide just yet. We wanted to put this idea out there and garner some experience and opinions, before we commit to it. JR Compton This letter will be updated -- probably daily -- as we get more useful information. Right now, I think this is the full list of members who've already indicated they would participate; more are certainly welcome. Kathy Dello Stritto Paul Harris Carol & Larry Wilder/Enge Terri Stone Marty & Richard Ray Anila Agha Chis Fulmer James Michael Starr Art Shirer Ebby Halliday wants us to sign this form. I suspect we want them to sign the same thing for us, and for DallasArtsRevue.com. Hold Harmless and Release of Liability   Date: ____________ Artist: ________________________________________________ Property: ________________________________________________ The signing of this instrument constitutes a full waiver and release of all claims the Artist has or may have against the owner of the Property, Ebby Halliday Real Estate, Inc., its Agents or Employees, arising from participation in exhibiting artwork at the Property. . ________________________________________________ Artistís signature ________________________________________________ Artistís printed name

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