Fine Arts Career Services

This past week could have been extremely tedious and repetitive, but because I was able to allocate a good deal of the work to other interns in the office I was able to accomplish more large-scale things instead. Before shows and during various community events one of my tasks is to set-up and man a table to get the public interested in going to more shows. If they have a ticket to a show, I try to get them to buy one to another. If they have a multiple-ticket package, I try to get them to buy season tickets. Because The Long Center is very new, it is crucial that we work on building a committed group of patrons and performance attendees. However, this is not all said outright because most people have an immediate filter for any sales attempts. This is why we include an “enter-to-win” box on each of these promotional tables, which allow people to enter their names – along with their contact information – into a raffle for free “Long Center Presents Performance” tickets. As most people know, we only pick one winner and the rest of the contacts go into a spreadsheet of individuals to whom we can send promotional materials. Of course, The Long Center does not abuse the acquisition of these names, and sends very few things to them. But they are an especially valuable asset to an organization that is less than three years old.

The downside to these enter-to-win boxes, however, is that someone then has to manually enter all of the names, addresses, emails, and phone numbers into a database of Long Center contacts. This task is neither avoidable nor time-efficient, unfortunately – and can end up taking days at a time. This week we had about 600 raffle entries to enter because the work had been delayed for weeks due to other marketing endeavors. The other intern and I thought that we would both have to dedicate the entire week to the task. But fortunately, this happened to be a slow week in the box office and the two employees in that particular department had time to take on other departments’ work. I was able to give them about a third of the task to complete, which allowed me a good deal more time with which I was able to move forward in my 101 Dalmatians marketing project.

This has been my most exciting week at The Long Center to date. As I said in my last entry, my boss assigned me to a specific marketing project for 101 Dalmatians: The Musical! at our meeting last Monday. It involves researching animal shelters, rescue groups, and some pet stores in Austin and contacting them about promotional partnership opportunities for the show. The point that we’ve been pushing – both for marketing and moral purposes – is that fifteen of the dogs in the show were rescued from shelters and rescue groups and rehabilitated. One of the priorities of the management team is to promote the adoption of rescue animals and to inform people on the decision to get a dog.

So far, almost all of the organizations I’ve contacted have been extremely receptive. Most would be willing to help even without an incentive from The Long Center, but to create ideal, lasting partnerships we are offering them some special discounts and other deals that will help their organizations. In return they will help us market the show to their customers. At first, I was shocked to find how many shelters and rescue groups there were in Austin, but have since proceeded to contact over seventy. Later this week I will focus on responding to those that have replied positively, as well as contacting the stores I’ve identified in the for-profit sector that may be helpful. However, the more typical office-work has since started to build-up as a result. My co-intern and I are struggling with the balance between maintaining paperwork and donation requests and doing an excellent job on our projects. Nonetheless, I am so glad for this opportunity to be singularly responsible for a large marketing effort on one of our biggest shows of the season.

I began a very exciting new series of projects this past week at C3 Presents. Upon the departure of one project, emerges one equally interesting and informative, and for this rather seamless transition I consider myself very lucky. I’ve begun to work with the promotions department of the company this week, more specifically the promotional managers of a North Eastern casino in which C3 Presents is responsible for the booking.

Firstly, this entailed an hour and a half overview of what exactly this job entails, and more importantly, how these individuals go about accomplishing this job, overcoming various obstacles, and at day’s end, most effectively getting done what needs to get done. The most interesting aspect that I took away from this briefing was the manner in which they go about booking a show for these specific venues. Essentially the casinos approach their entertainment budgets in a completely opposite way than would be executed by just about any other booking agency or venue. Naturally, this causes some indiscretion, but nevertheless is effective for the casino’s purposes. And since they not only book directly through C3 Presents and into their venues, the demands and policies are quite different as well.

I do feel like this aspect of the business, (Promotional work) is one that I am very interested in and could be rather successful in as well. Not to mention, the way that ‘the game’ is constantly changing only excites me more seeing as I am in the generation of professionals that will take the ‘the game’ to the next level. So I ask, why not be a part of it? To think of new avenues and possibilities to essentially manage and put on a show is extremely exciting for me to ponder.

However, in the present I have been working reception equally as much this week as the week previous, seeing as the normal receptionist is still on vacation. Once again, I do enjoy the personal interaction with the callers and feel that I’ve gotten supremely better at forwarding specific callers that don’t know who they need to talk with exactly to the correct individual that can assist them the best. This only comes from taking calls and starting to piece together who in the office is responsible for what, and thus translating that into customer service through the initial call.

Finally, my work with the merchandising department is continuing to progress as more merchandise from ACL and Lollapalooza arrives on our doorstep. Thank god for the SWAG bins. This, as well as my work with the initial promotional department I was working with is still going on without a hitch. I have been compiling yet another spreadsheet to fully grasp the information on various marketing targets from polls taken by Lollapalooza and ACL attendees pertaining to the major cities in which they reside.

The HR department has promised a lot of work for me in the upcoming week, so as always, more to come!

-DGray

This past week at C3 Presents has been one of the more interesting and diverse ones I’ve had since my arrival at the company earlier in the semester. Unfortunately one of the staff members in which I worked closely with is no longer part of the company and has moved on to pursue a different avenue of the music business. And with that challenge I wish him/her the best of luck in the remainder of their career. However, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that upon hearing this news, I was slightly disappointed and regretful that I didn’t have the rest of the semester to work with them as well. Nevertheless, my work has been very eventful even in this individual’s absence.

The normal receptionist, Bex has been on vacation, and with that leads this intern to be helping out much more at reception than usual. I enjoy this job though, due to the personal interaction with phone callers and walk-ins. It’s nice to be able to help people on this personal level, opposed to research work in which I don’t see immediate results. However, the substitute receptionist has been doing a fantastic job and I don’t feel that, besides the increase in time I actually spend at reception, much has changed in that regard.

I’ve also been in charge of more shop-keeping and maintenance jobs in the past week including: Packaging, labeling and mailing rather large boxes and packages; Tallying statistics brought on by consumer polls in regards to ACL vendors and sponsors (this was extremely similar to the project earlier in the semester in which I completed the same task for the Lollapalooza festival); Sorting and dispersing various merchandise to clients and other C3 employees; as well as taking inventory on the various office supplies in order to properly calculate how much of each product we would need to order for the next shipment.

On top of this, I’ve continued my research along the lines of the intense spreadsheets I’ve been continually working on since August. Though it is valuable information for the company, I’ve begun to enjoy the process more and more. Obtaining as much information as possible on this material has been a great teaching tool for me and has led to a distinct intrigue in that aspect of the music business. And with this information, I’ll hopefully be afforded more opportunities and knowledge pertaining to my future and the future of potential clients.

I’m scheduled to be helping out much more for the rest of the week, so there is definitely more to come!

-DGray

In the month of November the East Austin Studio Tour delegates much of our time and energy. DiverseArts is hosting Kenny Dorham’s Artist Market and two solo exhibitions of fine art at New East Arts Gallery. E.A.S.T. will begin on November, Saturday 14^th and will run through Sunday 22^nd.

In preparation for our upcoming shows I generated three fliers in the past week to be used as posters and in media release. In order to make the management of images and files easier I have set up an account with an online database called Dropbox. This has made telecommunications more proficient and more readily accessible. Due to inconsistencies in software I have found that acute awareness to file types and compatibility is crucial to facilitate hassle-free file sharing.

The first exhibition to launch the start of E.A.S.T. will feature the paintings of Amy Poynt. A collection of her recent paintings will be hung this Friday, which will probably be an all night affair. It takes a lot of attention to detail and purposeful thought to properly hang an exhibition of art. Communications with the artist about their recent work and personal history inform the context of the show. Before beginning to curate media and press must be generated. A few days before the opening all the works are brought into the gallery and moved around the space like pieces to a life-size jigsaw puzzle. An inventory is conducted of all artworks noting their titles, dimensions and price. Last but not least the paintings are nestled into their appropriate positions on the wall and  anticipation settles into the gallery.

DiverseArts has a full schedule for the month of November. East Austin Studio Tour will take place from November 14^th to the 22^nd. Kenny Dorham’s Backyard venue space has been employed to host an artist market on East 11^th St. on both weekends of E.A.S.T. This provides prospects for artist in the community, who otherwise would not be included in the tour, to display and potentially sell work.  At East 5^th and Comal the New East Arts Gallery will hold openings for two exhibitions. I hang the paintings of Amy Poynt this coming Monday and just twelve days later the paintings and glass murals of David Zvanut will be put on display until early December. I am responsible for generating three separate media releases and flyers to go out to our contacts for each event. With a new show approaching another must come down. New works bring fresh life to the walls of the gallery.

In addition to programming duties I have made it my top priority to initiate the recruitment of new interns for the Spring semester. After the internship fair last week there are roughly seventy resumes to further investigate. I am responsible for keeping up with all communications related to prospective internships. We have eight applications on file to date. I am hopeful that next season DiverseArts will have a fully functioning team of interns. The non-profit organization significantly benefits from a full staff in which each member is assigned a designated area of production. Harold and myself will be holding an informal internship information session at the gallery on Wednesday of this week. This creates an opportunity for students to become better acquainted with our organization and find the best fit for their expertise and interest. DiverseArts looks to the future with great anticipation.

As the first Friday of November approaches, we are preparing for The Blanton’s monthly Art Party “B scene”. B scene is a unique event at The Blanton. First of all, it takes place every month, so it is never far from our minds. It also spans the specific departments in the museum, so that almost every department– especially Education, Public Relations, Development, Volunteer and Visitor Services and Special Events– has to work together to make B scene a success. The community also gets involved through the huge numbers that attend and our large corps of volunteers who dedicate their time to helping us monitor the galleries and greet guests. B scene is also unique for its ever-changing program. Each month the party has a different theme with entertainment and activities to match, which can also attract different crowds. For example, the September B scene features Slam Poetry and different activities associated with poetry and art. Slam Poetry has a dedicated following and is an art form in itself, so we loved hosting all of the poets and their fans! Come to B scene this Friday at The Blanton from 6-10:30!!

Check out The Blanton’s website for more information on this month’s B scene! http://blantonmuseum.org/experience_the_blanton/b_scene/index.cfm

This past week provided a bit of a breather I think for my supervisor and the rest of the staff in the Art Department. Even though there are a few odds and ends that we need to work on, the first wave of the Big Move is over! The HRC’s objects and paintings are now safe as construction begins at the FAC.

Seeing as that project was mostly over (for me at least), my supervisor introduced me to a new project: translating information on a set of prints by Avraham Goldberg. The title, artist info, date, and introduction are all in Hebrew, which I can translate as I grew up speaking Hebrew, my father’s native language. Previously, at the HRC I volunteered by translating identifying information on Hebrew and Yiddish books, so this new project was sort of a deja vu experience as I sat leafing through my dictionary and slowly, but surely making headway!

During my first day with the prints, I felt fairly confident as the information presented  was straightforward and easy for me to translate. However I turned to the last page of the suite, and I saw a double sided introductory text. The two scholars who wrote the introduction did so in a sort of elevated academic Hebrew, which is much more advanced than my conversational skills. And so this part of the translation has taken me a few days, and will be an ongoing project. I have translated, with some gaps, most of the first section, and next week I will tackle the next. There are some words and phrases that are beyond both me and the dictionary, and I will definitely be calling up my father next week, bugging him for some answers (he doesn’t know this yet!).

I hope that in the future someone will find this translation helpful in their research. The artist, Avraham Goldberg, is not renown so much in the U.S., but in Israel he is more well known as an artist dealing with Jewish themes, something that many Jewish artists have tried to move beyond.

I enjoy projects that I know will take a few weeks to complete, so I don’t have to constantly be searching for small tasks to do. I come in in the morning, check in with my supervisor, and get to work! Feeling productive makes me feel like I am really contributing to the HRC.

S asked me to design her website better at the beginning of my internship.  I have never studied about websites, so I hesitated a little.  However, I told myself that I should take this opportunity to learn how to design a website instead of saying her that I cannot do it.  I think I have used enough hours of my time on internet to be able to tell which website is well designed and which one is not.  I told S that I need to research of architects and engineers’ websites to learn how to design a professional engineer’s website.  S taught me some good websites of certain architects and engineers, so I had a lot of fun doing a research about them.  Most of their websites were simple and not flashy like a fashion designer’s website.  After doing a research for some hours, I came up with some ideas, such as size of the logo, color and size of font and place of links to jump to other pages.  I sketched images of my ideas on papers to show her my ideas.

Every Monday, my boss, my co-worker (the other marketing intern), and I have a meeting to discuss what was accomplished during the week before and what tasks take priority in the coming week. We have two shows coming up in the next month that are very important in terms of marketing, so at our meeting my boss assigned us large projects to accomplish within the next few weeks. I’m very excited about mine because it involves a good community outreach program, but is still an important marketing strategy for one of our biggest shows – 101 Dalmatians: The Musical. My job will be to try to form partnerships with as many pet stores, dog rescue groups, shelters, and other similar establishments as possible. Apparently, 15 of the real dogs performing in the show were rescued from various shelters and pounds around the country. Many of them were injured, malnourished, or otherwise extremely unhealthy. The staff for the show nursed them back to health and gave them excellent living conditions, and then professional trainer Joel S. prepared them for the show. They are so gentle with the dogs, and are determined to find them permanent homes when the show’s tour is done. There will also be excerpts in each program to inform people of the gravity of the decision to get a dog, as well as information on adopting rescue animals.

I’m sure the rescue groups and shelters I talk to will be very excited. I’ve already emailed about thirty in Austin, and have at least twice that many left to contact. This show could really make a big impact on the animals in the community, and I am so glad I get to be a part of this effort.