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Guest Blog: Melissa Hefferlin’s Vision for Chattanooga Arts Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Melissa Hefferlin is one of CreateHere’s board members and an internationally-recognized painter. She brings us this dispatch, with an urgent call to action.
As a mid-career artist in Chattanooga I want to create ways for my colleagues and myself to extend our professional reach beyond our “regional” boundaries. I want to see us stretch into national territory.
Within Chattanooga we have fine collectors, supporters of the arts, and excellent access to high quality, regional publicity, but I believe Chattanooga professional artists can improve in the area of attracting outside attention to our local art scene. I want to figure out how to bring collectors and art lovers here, and to encourage meaningful and practical professional relationships nationally. One idea I have is to create a national painting competition, with both figurative and abstract categories. Imagine the Nobel Prize of painting being held in Chattanooga. I can see it clearly…
Advertising is also on my mind. But it costs a lot of money.
A few years back I emptied Barnes and Nobles of its entire rack of art periodicals, and then telephoned each magazine about pricing for ads. The price for one page, in one issue, ranged from $3,000-$9,000. One intelligent sales rep advised me that size doesn’t matter so much (smile), but what matters most is repetition. He believed that in order for an artist to register in the mind of a potential customer one must be noticed by that customer three times before he or she will take action. Therefore, he encouraged me to buy not one page for $9,000, but a run of three, 1/3-page adds running for three months. I remain grateful for his advice, though we declined the opportunity. I do think repetition is important, though. And I think it’s repetition that will get Chattanooga recognized as a center for the arts.
I’m asking anyone interested in working with me on getting our art scene recognized nationally to contact me via .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Let’s start a conversation: how do mid-career artists widen the perimeters of our work zone? How do we spread the reputation of our rich community? Let’s find out together.
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