Last Night was Slap Happy (Hour). At the event, a guy dropped a huge banner off of our balcony and asked his girlfriend to marry him…she said yes. What a way to propose. 

The event went great. Now what’s next? Tomorrow is Maritz Free Family Day – take a look at this blog post about it - and Sunday is the Public Forum. Did anyone check out that link I posted the other day to the photo of the outside of the building…here it is again. (That was a total side note; just want to make sure you all see it).  

I should also report on another big event we had on Wednesday…Flight (the “salsarific party” as it was being described). We had about 230 guests come for drinks, food, and dancing. We took in $10.00 from each guest (though it was free to ArtLink members) and they each got 2 complimentary drinks (people really like that!). Just in case you are unaware, ArtLink is a WONDERFUL program (I actually just learned how wonderful recently) that allows “young adults in St. Louis to get involved with the arts in an exciting and fun environment, meet other people who share their interests, and learn about the organizations that promote the arts in St. Louis.” The organizations involved include Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Laumeier Sculpture Park, the Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis, COCA, and the Foundry Art Centre. People who sign up for memberships get up-to-date info on happenings with all these art institutions, get discounted or free tickets to events and programs, and are invited to ArtLink member only events (you can find some examples on the ArtLink website). This is such a nice way for area art organizations to team up and make ART READILY AVAILABLE for all. We had lots of people sign up for ArtLink on Wednesday night (probably cause a year membership is only $20 and admission was $10 for the night…$10 more got them an entire year of free or discounted tickets to the same type of events, plus the stuff I mentioned above – smart folks). I feel like this post is incredibly random…I think that is what I will title it. -mrq of camstl

I have to say that most of the art organizations in St. Louis are pretty chummy – and this is a wonderful thing.  I personally sit on a geographically-centralized PR committee, which welcomes around 11 visual arts organizations that are within a few blocks of the Contemporary, as well as a number of other arts organizations. Tomorrow one of our collaborations takes flight – “Dancing Off the Wall and in the Street.”  The event mainly focuses on dance, but the visual arts organizations aren’t getting left behind; they are hosting a gallery walk in the afternoon.  You can get more information on the day’s activities at www.grandcenter.org.  Another friendly endeavor, ArtLink, was launched last year as a collaborative young friends program between the Contemporary, Laumeier, and Shakespeare.  ArtLink has some exciting news to announce next week on the growth of the collaboration – and you can find out more about that at www.artlinkstl.org.  I also sit on a marketing committee for arts organizations in the St. Louis region.  Currently, I’m trying to tackle putting together an advertising piece—shared between 5-6 arts organizations-for our Visitors Bureau.  Tomorrow, I have a coffee meeting with Rachel from the Pulitzer to talk about future promotional opportunities and how we might tackle the next opening night—we both have exhibitions opening on February 1.  Then there’s the Pulitzer’s collaboration with the Symphony – they have their water concert tomorrow evening. Anyway, as I go into the 5th day of the week that seems to be focused on collaborations, I’d thought I’d share some of the details of the army of arts organizations that are helping to make St. Louis spectacular—and certainly a city that doesn’t thrive on baloney sandwiches (see this).

Last night, ArtLink joined the Shakespeare Festival in Forest Park for a beer and treats pre-party prior to the Much Ado About Nothing performance. Shakespeare has had record crowds this year – more than 4,000 attended the show last night, and almost 100 of them were ArtLinkers joining us for our artsy pre-party. Last year, I believe our small group was around 30 people – so, in just a year, we’ve tripled our number of people participating in our partner organization’s soiree. “The world must be peopled!” and there’s no reason why those people shouldn’t be arts supporters.

The show was hilarious – although the Western theme was certainly a new twist on the play for me. I believe there’s only three performances left this year, so if you’re in St. Louis, make the most of this incredible free festival and go shake it with Shakespeare. 

This Friday is the Grand Center Gallery Walk – I believe it’s our 3rd or 4th one now. I’m proud to say that Rachel at the Pulitzer and I planted the seed that has now grown to be quite the event. More than 12 galleries in Grand Center will be open on Friday afternoon and evening, along with a few restaurants offering discounts and some activity on the streets. What I’m excited about (and still in the middle of planning) is a little behind-the-scenes gallery hop with our Director Paul Ha. He’s agreed to lead a small group of ArtLinkers (our Young Friends group) through the contemporary art galleries to meet their directors. We’re starting with ours – and highlighting our Flat Files programs (the educational piece is to show that you can start collecting now) and then we’ll make our way to the art galleries to speak to gallerists about the work they sell, how to talk to a gallerist and what options are available for those who wish to purchase art. Then we’ll end at the new Pace Framing shop, which just moved to Grand Center and talk about how art work is framed. It’s kind of the second-half of the ‘creation story’ – what to do with art after it’s made and offered for sale. Then, in July, we’ll get a glimpse at the first-half of this story – when we host Open Studios and we can visit with artists and hear them talk about how they work, while we see where they do what they do. It’ll be a great way to demystify the contemporary art world.

Ah, and did anyone happen to go to Hartford Coffee Company to see Free Candy last night? The talk show is witty, comical, and informative. Paul was on to speak about contemporary art, our mission, and our current exhibtion. He was also joined by the owner of the soon-to-be open grocery store featuring local products opening near Tower Grove Park, and a fabulous mind that has organized free movies to be shown outdoors in various venues – meant to construct community, conversation and a good reason to enjoy popcorn outside.

I’m pretty focused on planning events right now. Last night, we wrapped up a wine and cheese tour for ArtLink, hosted by our director, and now my attention is focused on our next Select Night, our spring exhibitions, and upcoming fundraising events. And despite the busyness of looking forward and preparing for the upcoming events, I can’t help but sink back in my marketing nerdiness and analyze the outcome of last night’s event.

The Wine and Cheese event with Paul was the Contemporary’s first “intimate” event for our ArtLink group. I have to say that each time ArtLink hosts an event, the ArtLink Board is genuinely surprised by the response.

We’ve had several young friends groups that have been successful and then fizzled out when core members of the group and the staff changed. We started the young friends program ArtLink last year with, quite frankly, no idea what we were doing. I’m under the impression that a collaborative young friends program has never been done anywhere. And you could probably imagine why: complications arise when you bring together three non-profits into one group. I mean, think of it — three very passionate organizations bringing together similar missions, different visions, and all together outstanding leadership that run their organizations with slightly different styles — crazy, right? Yet everyone is like-minded in that we all want to promote and encourage the arts — and that’s what we’re trying to do with the program. We’ve just had a jolly-good-time working together and figuring out how a group like ArtLink works, and ensuring it’s going in a direction that complements our missions.

The first year of ArtLink was full of social events. They were fun and brought in a lot of members. Then  Year Two (which we’re currently in), introduced more cultural events, such as the wine and cheese tour with the Contemporary’s director. More than 20 new members signed up in a 2 day time period to join us for this event. That shows that it’s working. And we’re all very pleased and shocked a little, I must admit, at just how well this collaboration is working. So we’re crossing our fingers that we keep our heads on straight and keep doing the right things, and maybe this will continue to be a huge success story. You can check out ArtLink at its website, or by sending me an email.

I can say that we’ve certainly had a busy week at the museum. Last night we had our one year anniversary party for ArtLink, our collaborative young friends group we share with Laumeier and the Shakespeare Festival. It was lots of fun. We hosted it at Mercury, loads of new people came to sign up, and many familiar faces stopped by. What was thrilling was that people were having a great time and were in many engaging conversations — and we got to be a part of this dialogue.  I consider us lucky. 

On other news — our office is currently flooded with art work. So many artists and galleries have been extremely generous in donating some very wonderful work for our auction Arts Desire. This is huge. It’s our fundraiser for the year, and will drive us towards meeting the last part of Mrs. Pulitzer’s challenge. And, to mark the occasion, we have a YouTube advertisement. Check it out. Have a great weekend!

Today has been a weirdly quiet day. Much of the staff is traveling to Miami for ArtBasel and the rest of us are trying to continue working on projects with half the staff gone missing! But, I have to say, it’s pleasant to have a quiet afternoon. However, it won’t be so peaceful in a couple days. We have our final Select Night of the year, which is featuring Randall Roberts (who I must say is very excited to be here again). He sent an email round to us saying he has new, funky records that he’s been itching to play – so, there you have it. Come on by. In the meanwhile, check out a great feature we received in the Post regarding Select Nights and our young friends group ArtLink – it ran in the paper last week.

Our fund-raising events require a lot of attention and planning starts almost immediately when the last event is over.  We recently had a planning committee meeting and I thought I would share a few enticing details about our upcoming fund-raiser, Arts Desire. . . . Our annual fund-raiser for 2007 will be themed after Andy Warhol’s Factory (complementing our upcoming Andy Warhol and Jim Hodges exhibition).  We’ll transform the museum into The Factory with silver, glam, and Andy Warhol’s Silver Clouds. In addition to dinner and dancing, we bring in some fabulous art from across the world to be a part of live and silent art auctions – while also offering auctions for luxury auctions and wine. The night wraps up (or, in a sense begins) with a fabulous party thrown by our young friends group – ArtLink -when everyone will dance the night away, amid the clouds. For fun – check out some of our past fund-raising pics (below). While our development team is trying to secure corporate sponsors (we’re offering them 15 minutes of fame), I’m working on securing media placements. Everyone is involved in some sense or another to make this event come together seamlessly, and to help us reach our annual financial goal.  And, in the end, we get to throw (and hopefully enjoy) a fabulous party.

ArtLink had a full-blown arts celebration this weekend. On Friday, Laumeier Sculpture Park opened its new exhibition (it’s fantastic). On Saturday, ArtLink members kicked back and enjoyed wine and cheese under the stars at the Shakespeare Festival (until gusty winds and an immense storm threatened to send us all to Oz). We then wrapped up the weekend by rolling up our sleeves and directing traffic, passing out programs, and collecting surveys before enjoying last night’s performance of Julius Caesar at the festival (it’s fantastic too).

ArtLink is a collaborative young friends group between the Contemporary, Laumeier and the Shakespeare Festival that we’ve all been working very hard on. Each organization has a character all of its own. The Contemporary is dedicated to exhibiting the visual arts and artists of our time and to producing national recognized education programs. Laumeier deepens St. Louis’ visual art culture by initiating a life-long process of cultural awareness. The organization encourages creative thinking by immersing guests in sculpture and nature, simultaneously. Visual arts are complemented by the Shakespeare Festival’s passion for the performing arts. The group conducts professional outdoor theater productions of Shakespeare’s masterpieces for a diverse audience.

I visited Saint Louis last year and fell in love with the city, its history, and the variety of cultural institutions and opportunities available (I still find it unbelievable that we have a free zoo, a great encyclopedic museum, and fabulous parks-amongst everything previously mentioned!). After moving here, I became aware of the impression that some have that there is nothing for young people to do in St. Louis (what are they thinking?). Enter: ArtLink and my hopes that we’ll be able to counter that feeling. Our staff at our institutions believe that by pooling our resources, enthusiasm, and unique characteristics, we’ll be able to present a better and more viable experience of the arts in St. Louis and excite and involve the community. So this is a step. For more info. on ArtLink, visit our (new and still-a-work-in-progress) wepage at www.artlinkstl.org.