Different Expectations
What do people expect from Open Studios?
Well, we have just had back the results of our Artist and Visitor Surveys for Forth Valley Open Studios, an event now in its third year.
It has thrown up some surprising facts.
Visitors expectations and those of artists are wildly different.
Less than 10 per cent of visitors go to studios with the intention of buying work. They go for the experience of being inside an artist studio, often for the first time, and they welcome the opportunity to talk to an artist about his or her work and their creative processes. It is for them a learning/educational experience.
This is in stark contrast to many artists who view Open Studios as a commercial opportunity.
In my own case I chose not to sell any work this year, partly because of the difficulty of trying to price work that is produced on an ipad and iphone yet the number of people visiting my studio was the same, even though I was open for less days.
I even had a couple who turned up a month late having mistaken the date on the brochure which they had picked up from our local museum which still had an exhibition of Open Studios work.
They were a young couple, one Dutch and the other Japanese.
I asked them why they had chosen my studio out of the 70 other venues to visit especially as I had made it clear I was not selling anything.
They said it was because I was working with new technologies and they wanted to see the process.
The newly launched CreativeStirling.org kicked off with a magnificent mural in the yard of Stirling jail.
This is a group of artists working under the start-up company CreativeStirling.org which aims to bring together and facilitate the work of artists, designers,musicians and filmmakers in the area.
Yet another example of how Scotland is buzzing with innovative art projects despite the recession.
Our third Forth Valley Open Studios proved to be successful too though some studios reported a reduction in footfall, something we attribute tothe cost of petrol. People tended to go to areas where there were clusters of artists.
Nevertheless I got two unexpected visitors last Saturday despite the event having finished a month ago. A young Japanese woman and her Dutch companion had picked up our FVOS brochure from the Smith Museum and Gallery in Stirling, where we have our current exhibition of members work, and they decided to visit, not noticing the date was June not July.
However, I welcomed them in and after the usual tour of our garden with its collection of 15 sculptures and studio we settled for “Pimms in the patio” ( something we have now got off to a fine art and proves very popular with visitors) I asked them why they had chosen my studio out of the 70 plus other venues.
Their answer was illuminating- because I offered inter-activity and worked with new technology.
Incidentally as a result of the Open Studios I have been offered a digital residency.
I have just had a long conversation with Hungarian filmmaker Tamas Tatai about his proposed film about “The Children of Craig-y-nos”, a book I co-authored with Carole Reeves.
It seems he has a screenwriter working on a treatment who is fascinated by the story.
Well , it certainly has all the ingredients for a pyschological thriller: sick children locked up in a remote castle for years.
Visitors to my studio during Forth Valley Open Studios who came expecting to buy work were in for a shock.
They found themselvles immersed in an interactive artwork with themselves as the “star”.
So, what was it it?
Well, research shows that we are hardwired for optimisim see “The Optimism Bias” by Tali Sharot- and a visiting psychologist to my studio from Stirling University confirmed it saying there are numerous papers on the subject.
So I asked people to smile using my iphone. They then emailed it to themselves, with a copy to me.
So the visitors get a photograph of themselves and I get another contribution to my photomontage “Smile”.
It’s a win-win situation. Simple yet very effective.
Now I discover Yoko Ono has a similar project in the Serpentine gallery, London.
And the Park gallery in Falkirk currently has an exhibition “Smile”.
All I can say there is an awful lot of smiling going on despite the economic gloom and doom with a promise of a euro meltdown and war in the Middle East.
But then we are hardwired for hope.
Went to first meeting of Creative Stirling Industries Forum. The structure has now been put in place. It was acknowledged we suffer from being a small town wedged between Glasgow and Edinburgh – major international creative hubs.
