What? Somerville Open Studios already?

[rachelmello.livejournal.com]

Hi All,

Somerville Open Studios is having a series of informal meetings over the summer to talk about SOS, how it runs and to discuss ideas for next year. If you're an SOS artist, hopefully you've already gotten email about these.

We would be thrilled if fans of and visitors to Open Studios wanted to come and participate in these discussions!

We spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to best serve our visitors, how to best reach people, what format the maps should be, etc., etc., but for the most part we're the ones who are in our studios the whole time! We would love to hear from people who visit studio and hear what you want. (Which is not to chase artists away! Please, we need you, of course, too!)

The first meeting is Tuesday, June 19, 7:30 - 9pm, hosted by our friends at Washington Street Art Center. We'll be talking "big picture" questions—Event Structure, Special Events etc. In July we'll talk about Publicity and Publications (including the mapbook) and in August about Community Space and Home Studios.

If you want more info, or to get on the SOS mailing list to make sure you don't miss any other events, you can do that from our website, www.somervilleopenstudios.org. You don't have to be an artist to sign up; we have a list specifically for interested community members, too.

thanks everyone!

Comments

[ron_newman]

Hi, Rachel. I'm sure you're tired of this question, but ... are you giving any thought to dividing SOS into more than one weekend next year?

[rachelmello.livejournal.com]

Hi Ron, That's a good question, really. It comes up from time to time and there's always a lot of good discussion about the pros and cons of it. I used to feel strongly that we should divide it; years ago I was heavily invested in pushing the event that way. But over time I think the reasons to keep it one weekend may have won me over, at least for now.

We can discuss the topic more at the meeting, for people who can make it. (Sorry about the overlap with the Bicycle Committee Meeting!)

[ron_newman]

Thanks. For your enjoyment, here's a thread I started on that subject, way back in 2006.

[rachelmello.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting that, Ron. Those points all seem just as relevant now (on either side of the question).

[blacktigr.livejournal.com]

I would just have to say that I loved finding out so many artists lived around me. I didn't have much time to visit Open Studios this year, but will plan better next year. Traveling to Arlington that day by way of Somerville Ave was a revelation in how active an art community Somerville has.

[rachelmello.livejournal.com]

YaYYY!

Thanks for saying so. That's wonderful to read.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

As someone unlikely to make the meeting, I think it'd be great to have an online discussion of these issues (a series of posts here in DSLJ would work nicely) to solicit feedback. You could take the input with whatever grain of salt is necessary (even in person, the filter of people-who-can-and-will-come-to-a-meeting is its own saline).

I do have some thoughts, anyway. :)

[rachelmello.livejournal.com]

I'd love to hear your thoughts, and certainly wouldn't stop an on-line discussion, but it wouldn't be my favorite way to engage people on the topic.

We have many people whose emotions run strong on this question, and sometimes that comes out with a hostility or negativity that I think does more harm than good to the flow of ideas. In an in-person discussion it's easier to watch the tone, but people say crazy rude stuff on line sometimes and don't think *that* sort of discussion would help any.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I hear you, hence the grain-of-salt comment. Mostly it's the question of whether you only want to hear from people who will come to a meeting, which is of course the vast minority of SOS attendees, no matter how passionate/vocal they are.

It was funny reading the post Ron linked to, because I thought I used to be against splitting weekends, though it's possible I was either before or after that discussion happened.

Right now my feelings on it mostly relate to my observations this year that I think many of the small and home-based sites get shortchanged in the current setup. There are so many locations now that most people (again, my observation, no hard data) appear to focus on the larger sites and ignore the scattered singletons unless they happen to be on the way or otherwise right there. I find this very sad because in my perception (could be wrong), those scattered singletons were the reason for SOS in the first place. And most of the big sites have their own open studios at some other time of year, anyway.

I also think that perhaps the guidelines regarding living or working in Somerville should be encouraged more strongly. A lot of people from elsewhere set up shop in their friends' homes, and unless this is explicitly okay, I think it should be discouraged. I say this as someone who has both patronized such places and even hosted out-of-town artists, because my impression at the time (maybe things have changed?) was that the latter was okay to do, and I'd like to have the impression that it isn't, if that makes sense. Because it just seems to water down the whole, but still, it's more about what is the actual goal of the event?

As for maps, my biggest criticism was the lack of interactive map online. It was very difficult flipping around to figure out who the number on the map was and where exactly they were, etc, instead of just being able to click on it and have a bit of info pop up. Ideally, the electronic interface should be far more robust than that, but that would be a lot of work. Just a simple Google map or similar would have been wonderful to have.

Hopefully none of this comes off as overly hostile or negative. I'm not mad at anyone. :)

[rachelmello.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the thoughtful comments! It doesn't come across as negative. I'll try to reply on a few key points, and hopefully I won't come across as squashing discussion, either.

On the topic of home-based sites getting "short-changed." Individual or small-group sites are, of course, a big concern for everyone at SOS. The question I don't have answered about visitorship stems from the fact that the biggest three artist buildings in the city do also have Fall opens studios, and yet people seem to really enjoy going to them in Spring, too. It's a demonstrated fact that some people, when given a choice between visiting a large studio building (that they can also see in the Fall), or wandering outside between smaller studios, choose the larger building. Given that as a fact, I have my doubts that removing the larger sites from the equation would cause those people to suddenly take up an interest in smaller studios.

It is also a proven fact that some visitors simply don't know about the individual sites. We need to figure out how and why people believe "Oh, SOS, isn't that in that big brick building...?" We definitely have to work on better communicating the whole scope of the event.

In conversations and in emails, I've had people explain why they like one kind of studio over the other. They are very different sorts of experiences, and some people like both and some really only have a taste for one or the other. I think it is *more* likely that a person who feels uncomfortable going into a stranger's home (we hear that a lot, actually), might take a chance and stretch their comfort zones a little if they're already primed to see art in a context with which they are familiar or comfortable, than that they would come out and try something totally new if the familiar is not also available. Of course this last part is more of a guess.

I still want to work more on ways to encourage people to see a variety of spaces, but there are many valid reasons why some people don't want to do that, and other valid reasons why other people do. I think they're different demographics of art viewers and that we better promote Somerville Artists as a whole by reaching out to and demonstrating to a variety of viewers the variety of types artists and art-studios we have.

I used to feel that SOS was "too big" with all the big spaces, but now I feel like an event has to reach a certain magnitude before people will go out of their way to put it in their busy schedules. Personally, I can only see about 20 studios in any kind of meaningful way in a day; if I'm really looking at and thinking about the work it might be far less. SOS would have to be 10% of its current size for me to see it all. Compare to ArtBeat, say, when there are three stages of music at the same time. You can't go to all of it, and that's a feature, not a failing.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter. I'm not totally stuck in my ways on this, although I have made up my mind for this coming year. For a little background, a few years ago I offered to coordinate *only* if I could divide the event into two weekends. I didn't get as much support on that as I expected and ultimately withdrew my offer. In the intervening time I've listened to a lot more people and have come around to my non-dividing stand point. I could imagine that in a few more years I might swing back, but with the facts on the ground the way they are now, that's what I currently believe.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for these thoughtful replies. I had a long response in progress, left it overnight, then my laptop had a power glitch and shut down. Will try again later.

[ron_newman]

I hope you'll give it another try. I'd like to read more of your thoughts on this subject and I'm sure Rachel would as well.

[siderea]

We need to figure out how and why people believe "Oh, SOS, isn't that in that big brick building...?" We definitely have to work on better communicating the whole scope of the event.

I suspect two things:

1) Frontage. Nothing like a large well-marked building on a main thoroughfare. Compare how the studios in people's homes are nondescript, except for whatever signs or balloons they put out (day of, only) for SOS, and they're often off the main roads. They simply aren't as visible or as notable to as many passers-by.

Maybe what would help is doing what real-estate brokers do for open houses -- putting little sandwich-board signs on the corners at main streets, "Artist Open-House SAT&SUN, THIS WAY [Arrow]" in advance of the event. Though, man, that would be an epic number of signs. (Could Somerville-based real-estate agents be approached for support in the form of loaning signs?)

2) I have enough background in the arts to have gotten it immediately, when I first heard of an "Open Studio" event, that it was meant in the sense of "Open House", only, you know, it's about seeing artists' work in their workspaces. I think there's plenty of people in the world who hear the word "studio" and understand it to mean "professional working space that looks like a commercial/office building, not unlike the things called 'studios' in my high school/college", not "place where artist works, wherever that is." And so the idea that it might involve going into private residences does not immediately occur to plenty of folks on first hearing. Not sure what the solution to that might be, except to simply make heavy reference in promotional materials that it's seeing artists exhibiting "in their homes and workspaces".

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying I know the right answer, anyway.

When I first started going to SOS, I did make a point of visiting every studio, which took all of both days, but I thought it was worth it. (Then it got too big for that, and the bigger it's gotten, the fewer places I've made a point of visiting.) I also recall feeling like it was mostly about the home/small studios, so to me, that was what SOS was: visiting studios that were pretty much never otherwise open. Now it kinda feels like it's mostly about established places just all happening to be open at the same time. Or maybe it doesn't feel that way to people who aren't comparing it in their heads to the way it used to be, I don't know.

[rachelmello.livejournal.com]

There's a couple things here I'm curious about:

I'm not sure, but I suspect, that the number of home studios has increased in the past several years. I'm curious how the addition of the studio buildings make it feel more "about" those buildings. I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but I wanted to understand the mechanism. What makes those buildings feel more salient? I'm guessing here, but I *think* group studio buildings do more publicity for themselves than individuals do. Does that feel like it might be part of it?

I'm interested, too, in this idea of SOS being a size to "see all of it." How many studios can a person thoughtfully or meaningfully see in a day, including walking between them?

Last time I went to SOS as a visitor, I appreciated that there was more than I could get to. It felt like having multiple stages at a music festival. No one expects to hear all the bands at ArtBeat, b/c they play simultaneously, but you're not the first to voice a desire to "see all of" SOS. I wonder where that difference comes from? Again, just pondering out of interest, not meaning to put this on your head, personally!

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I'm not suggesting SOS should be small enough to reasonably see it all, just saying I remember when it was. Then it got bigger but I could still easily see all the bits I wanted to. Now it's just huge and, for me, kind of overwhelming.

It's different from something like ArtBeat because while AB may have a few stages, it's still just a few stages fairly close together. Everyone at AB is within a relatively small space and I'd guess many of the spectators at any given band didn't go looking for that band, but just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Also, bands at AB get paid to be there.

[rachelmello.livejournal.com]

On the topic of guest artists from other cities, SOS is generally quite united in or position that the event is intended to be for artists who either live in Somerville or have artist studio space in Somerville.

We have no legal or logistical way to enforce this-- all we can do is state that as our policy, and firmly request that people help us make this a showcase of Somerville's artists. It sounds from what you're saying that we need to continue to be clear about our intentions on this, and work on our communications. One fact we're dealing with, though, is that this policy/preference is rare. Many other Open Studios actively solicit artists from other communities to participate, to make their event bigger and to bring in more visitors and more registration dollars. We're in an unusual position to have such a huge community of artists, and some artists who try to come here to exhibit are acting in a way that is generally encouraged in the Boston area arts scene, so they have to be paying a lot of attention to understand that we're doing something different here. It's not visible to the public, but we turn away a lot of artists at registration who do the Open Studios "circuit" quite legitimately, and who apologize for their misunderstanding when we explain it as kindly as we can.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I had no idea other towns did it differently! Go figure. (I've only ever been involved in SOS.) Well, this only applies if the PTB think that keeping it a Somerville thing is important, otherwise it doesn't matter.

But I wasn't even thinking any serious policing/enforcing, just more like as part of the reg process some statement that says something along the lines of "By checking this box, I solemnly pinky-swear that either my own home or studio is in Somerville." Just to make sure that the people who do decide to skirt the rules do know that they are doing so.

[rachelmello.livejournal.com]

Funny you should say a check-box verification. That's something we just started talking about doing for this year!

[rachelmello.livejournal.com]

As for the maps, our webmaster is doing a lot of work on those this year in conjunction with some new help, hopefully, from some folks at the media lab. As it happens a Google Map with this much custom data is anything *but* simple, and while it's outside my skill-set to talk about it, I know we already push the limits of what google wants people to do with their data far beyond the intended usages in a couple axes and have had to do some funny stuff on the back end to deal with limits they set. somethingsomethingsomething api somethingsomethingsomething. I'm out of my depth here, but I can say it's on the table this year.

This is a field of work for which people can be paid very handsomely, and we already know that buying it done professionally is completely outside of our scope of budget. Fortunately we also have talented, intelligent people who find it at least kind of fun to do and who are extremely generous with their time.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I may not be sure what you mean or maybe we're talking about different things. I'm thinking of something like the Obscure Stairways, etc of Somerville map that Ron made, which has around 150 things on it. That sort of thing doesn't take any special skills, just a little time.

[nomacmac.livejournal.com]

I wasn't able to go this year, so maybe this has already happened, but I would love a kid friendly designation on the maps, or a separate kids guide to SOS. The descriptions of the artwork are so short, I am never sure if we are going to see paintings or rainbows and flowers or decapitated puppies. At a museum I can 'distract and move on' if I see something that will be nightmare-inducing for my kids. When we are in someone's living room, that is nearly impossible to do.

I also know that some artists would probably prefer that I not bring my kids into their living/work space. I am fine with that, but I need to know who to avoid.

[rachelmello.livejournal.com]

A "kid-friendly" map is an interesting idea. You describe the problem quite well: some artists I adore do really creepy stuff, and I can see how a parent would want to know about this in advance.

What I don't know is how one parent could know what's "kid-friendly" in another parent's eyes. I should say here that I'm not a parent, so that's my first handicap.That's not insurmountable, many of my friends and more importantly, lots of people in our community are. But of the parents I know or have encounters with, some would find, say, images of two women embracing to be objectionable, while others might be more worried about heterosexism. You describe a potentially violent and terrifying scene, but I've seen a parent encourage a young boy to buy war-related art because he liked tanks. (Even though the art was meant to be anti-war, the boy just wanted the tank). I personally have attended a family-oriented film-festival and was terrified by the horror-film previews that were screened (the films were rated R, but the previews, which were mini horror flics, were rated "All Audiences.").

I like the Idea of a kid-safe or kid-oriented designation, I'm just not at all clear about how it could implemented without the lowest common denominator being potentially too, well, bland for parents who are taking kids out to see art. Maybe it's a checkbox that artists can select for "child-friendly art" and it's one of the indexes? You still would have a wide, wide range of what that means to individual artists, but at least some artists would choose not to select it... maybe? I would think that a concerned parent would still have to go see the websites of artists they might like to go see... and even that might not show the whole range of work.

Let's keep the idea open and see if there's a good way to approach it. If you can make it to any of the summer meetings, please come introduce yourself and we'll talk more.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

As a parent, I totally agree with your comments about nobody agreeing on the standards. If a mechanism for this were in place, I think it ought to be something voluntary on the part of the artists. The commenter above seemed to think some artists don't want kids in their space. Do you think that's true?

Basically, I imagine a designation that could, depending on what seemed to be the better way to go, indicate "not child-friendly" for artists who either think their stuff isn't good for kids or who just don't want kids in their space, or indicate "child-friendly" for those want to say they are. And the lack of this indicator would essentially indicate nothing, because it might be that the thing doesn't apply or it might be that they just chose not to check it. My instinct is that the better one to go with is the negative indicator, since it applies to multiple situations (the art or the space) and even if you disagree with their assessment, it's still what THEY think and that's that, whereas a pro-kids checkbox might upset folks who show up and decide no, this isn't kid-friendly at all. Does that make sense?

Or maybe it's just not important enough to bother with at all. :)

[nomacmac.livejournal.com]

When I made the suggestion, my vision was that the artist would have the option of checking off 'may not be suitable for children', allowing them to base the decision on the content of their art, or the venue being not appropriate for small children (for example, lots of delicate hand-blown glass in a very small room). Of course, people would have the option of checking out the artist on their own and making the decision about visiting based on their own criteria. I wouldn't want anyone except the artist making the decision about whether they think it is appropriate for kids. It's not possible for everyone to have the same opinion about what is appropriate, but it would be a starting point.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Sounds like we entirely agree, but you summarized it more clearly. :)