Sunday, July 16, 2006

Painters of the Flinders Ranges

I wonder how many people enjoy going to meetings as much as I take pleasure in visiting with the “Painters of the Flinders Ranges” when organizing up and coming exhibitions. I attended one of those meetings today with a social time afterwards.

There is a huge amount of work when it comes to the administration side of our group, more so for our major exhibition that is held at the Wilpena Woolshed once a year. This exhibition runs from 16 Sep – 15 Oct 2006.

At this Wilpena Woolshed Exhibition we have a ball, as artist in residence interacting with our peers as well as meeting many wonderful people that come to view our work. Large numbers of artworks are sold during this exhibition to many holiday makers and visitors who desire to take home a piece of the Flinders Ranges to hang on their walls. Because the artists are painting as well as looking after sales, it gives the customer/visitors an opportunity to ask questions about our artworks first hand. After all it is the artist that has the knowledge of what we are all about.

Even though today was very cold, none of the members or their partners realized it was chilly, as our host John Millard and his wife Edna kept us nice and warm at their beach home at Waroona Island. It was a dreary day but took these two photos of the view I was looking at during the meeting. It was just soooo relaxing!!!

Waroona Island

Below: off in the distance is the Sourthern Flinders Ranges.

Flinders Ranges

Technorati tags: art, artist, exhibition, Flinders Ranges

7 comments:

Schuivert said...

I enjoyed visiting the homepage of the network very much Susan. Nice to know more about the area, although I realise there is much to tell.
Interesting to see that a lot of the artist share colour preferences and even have a somewhat similar style.
I noticed that all of your paintings are oils.

The aims and setup of the network interested me as well. It must be a good plan. Thought that the "training" aspect sounded very serious. That might perhaps frighten some away, others may see it as a possibility, right?

Susan Borgas said...

Glad you enjoyed your visit Bart. I have never really thought about the shared colour preferences and similar styles but yes similar yet different. Gee that is confusing! I guess when a group is painting the same area there are bound to be similarities though the individual styles are apparent when the artist work is hung with subtle and even strong differences in style. Mine of cause is realism though not realistic like a photo once my work is examined closely.

The network is incorporated for some time now with the umbilical cord cut from the NRDB with a much more relaxed atmosphere when it comes to training. The idea though is that all members work together to promote our art as well as the region and be willing to contribute there time to keeping the network workable. Members for this reason have to be committed right from the onset of joining and because of this the artist applies before a juried panel like any other job that they may apply for.

It would be lovely to be able to sit back and hope as individual artist that our work will sell on its on merits but so often it doesn’t work that way. So getting the left and right side of the brain working together and promote and market our work is the way to go….. it might not be a romantic idea to be an painter and business person together but it certainly makes a difference when it comes to getting artist names out there and sales of artworks.

Working together as a dedicated group, we end up with a bigger voice shouting across Australia and longer term across the world, it really works!

Susan Borgas said...

I just remembered you made a comment about my paintings being oils. I need to have new images sent to the Webmaster of recent works and your comment reminded me of that. I just hate parting with the dollars to have it done! :D

Schuivert said...

"be willing to contribute there time to keeping the network workable."
That is through organising shows, participating in other shows and fairs and advertising also the other artists and the region?
It does not included adapting the subject of the paintings to the needs of the network, or donating works or so?

I know that it can be sad for beautifully, rural areas to be met by a lack of employment opportunities. This idea might help to get tourist to buy local products or perhaps even stay longer or come more often.
But I suppose to really make it work you probably need more of these kind of ideas.

Got to find out what the NRDB is ;-)

Susan Borgas said...

Yes time goes into meetings, catalogues, invitations, advertising, organising accommodation and the list goes on. We the artists actually do the collating of catalogues. Design work towards the invitations and catalogue and generally try to keep people that we deal with happy. Just like organising a wedding…...lots of work and that is without producing the paintings... eek!!!

What we are doing as a network does help other artist in the area, as promoting art as we do is another product to encourage tourist to come and visit the region. Another more recent committee is “A Brush With Art” (http://www.abrushwithart.com.au/ ). The network is a member and once more it is all about promoting art in the region but this time as an art trail. This will be the third year running. It has now become the “must do” by tourist so it is working.

As individual artist some of the members of the Painters of the Flinders Ranges do sell their work through other group or solo exhibitions, which allows them a wider variety of subjects to paint. When work is sold through the Painters of the Flinders Ranges exhibitions, the artist provides paintings that have a Flinders Ranges “theme”, as we are promoting the area. They the artist still receives the money for his/her painting with a commission going to the gallery providing us the space.

NRDB….. chuckle…. I am being mischievous to you when I used the short version, as I knew it might have you scratching your head but did wonder if it would twig from the networks website…. It is the “Northern Regional Development Board”.

Schuivert said...

That looks good as well, the "brush with art" page - It is something I know from the region I am living in. Unfortunately they don't have an english language homepage.

No :-) the NRDB didn't twig out on me, I must have missed it. I am wiser now.

Thank you for explaining.

Susan Borgas said...

Your welcome Bart :D