Welcome! Curious about the Arts?

Hi, and Welcome to the first in a series of blogs concerning the Artists in Residence (AiR) video series: the video library of the arts (currently 35 titles).

After this rather exhaustive background on how the series began and and how it developed (I won't mind if you skip through this initial posting) I plan on going in depth on the story behind each title. ie since AiR titles are intended to present viewers with a "behind the scenes" look at "arts in creation," this blog will explore what went into creating the videos: the story behind the story.

In addition, I hope to explore the problems of starting a small business (something I have some experience with), and the experiences of the artists I've worked with. I hate to say it, but several of the award-winning artists I shot for the series moved on to other careers. Others who showed interest in being shot gave up their dreams.

The Arts are dynamic, and require creativity and imagination; but they also demand resolve, determination, a "stubborn streak," and a fair amount of luck. I hope you enjoy my postings and hope that they help to de-mystify and enlighten you to notions of what it takes to "make art."

Hope you enjoy, and thanks to all who are "curious about the arts,"

Chris

A Chronology of the Development

of the Artist in Residence (AiR) video series

“Hi, I’m Chris Anderson and I shoot artists for a living.” Well, that’s a bit of a lie. I never actually made a living trying to get the Artists in Residence video series up and running, but I kept saying it, hoping it would come true.

In any case, I always loved delivering the line. Whether to an artist sweltering in his or her “booth” surrounded by works of art that weren’t selling—mulling over having to pack up all the stuff they hadn’t sold, and the long drive back to wherever it was that they lived—or to the corporate executive with whom I’d finally made phone contact. It was that essential part of my spiel that got the listener’s attention

During Spring Break 2001, I had my first opportunity to “shoot” an artist; the potter, Ron Dahline, in his “studio” behind the Cedar Keyhole artists Coop in Cedar Key, Florida. I had found him the day before in the same spot, doing the same thing that he’d been doing a year before when we’d visited Cedar Key--a lovely "island" on the Gulf Coast of Florida, due east of Gainesville. Both being originally from Minnesota we’d struck up a conversation—or as much of a conversation as anyone from Minnesota can strike up. With my new DV camera in hand, I’d asked if I could shoot him making one of his “in your face” (we’re talking ghoulish) coffee mugs. He’d said “sure, how ‘bout tomorrow.”

As it happened, I had not brought a tripod and the entire tape was hand-held. At the time—although I was entranced by what unfolded through the viewfinder—the lack of the tripod was a huge inconvenience, however, if forced me to focus on Ron’s work (and hands) and kept me “out of the picture:” editorial elements that became major features of the AiR series. I also took a risk and zoomed in extremely close to the work he was doing—a challenge when you’re shooting hand-held. The farther you are from the subject and the closer you zoom, the greater the chance the image will shake.

To see a clip of Ron's title on YouTube check out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQcbcl0lof0

The result was stunning. I gave an unedited copy to Ron and he commented that he’d never had the opportunity to see himself work.

This struck a chord. If artists didn’t get the chance to watch themselves work (and Ron had been a potter for some 20 years), how about the rest of us? We see the products of artistic creativity, but not the processes: the problem-solving that goes into the creative process. How many of us—non-artists—ever get an invitation to an artists studio? During a stopover in Atlanta to visit my cousin, Mark Knutsen, he watched Ron's tape and saw business opportunities. On the 1,000 mile drive back home from Florida, the concept for AiR was born.

Susan Wyngaard, Head of OSU/Wexner Fine Arts Library has since written,

The AiR tapes are special because you make it possible for the viewer to share in conversation with the artists. Artists look directly into the camera and speak with the viewer about their artwork—their inspirations, their vision, their challenges, and their joy. In addition, the viewer has the opportunity to observe the artists at work, and observe specific techniques at a close range. Unlike other videotapes about artists, your videotapes provide an experience with the artist.

You have taken advantage of the medium (video) to demonstrate that artists are ordinary people who have learned to take chances. Beyond showing how it is done, the tapes show that it can be done. The experience of being with the artist encourages the viewer to release the artist within.

The next months were spent building up enough titles that I could legitimately call AiR a video “library of the arts.”

I shot Paul Volker: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fv8sNsmv44

Dawson Kellogg: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogtp5xDx1vU

Eric Marlow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04dwqUjW6ac

And Tom Bland: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=getTRaGVJfk

In June of 2001 The Columbus Dispatch did a nice piece on the AiR series (then, only 7 titles) that included quotes from some of the participating artists and local librarians. One of the artists, Paul Volker, donated the design for a website and I purchased the domain name of ArtinRes.com. (I did the "interview" for the Dispatch piece on an off-ramp on the way to Dayton to shoot Dave Brand).

Artists were eager to participate given the exposure that might come of involvement. But I realized that they would only participate if I aggressively marketed the series. I began visiting art fairs and recruiting local artists for the series, those whose work I admired.

An important decision came with the realization that few individuals would want to purchase the titles—maybe a few collectors, but how would I reach them? I decided to offer the titles to the artists—at cost—and leave that market to them. I wanted to build a full-blown “video library.” Clearly schools and libraries should be the primary market for AiR titles. Without realizing it, this became a further enticement to the artists to participate. Rather than exploiting them for merely financial gain, I was giving exposure to their love and craft for an educational purpose.

I began submitting tapes to VideoLibrarian, School Library Journal and Library Journal, major national publications that review books and other media purchased by schools and libraries. All three reviewed one or more titles. Most referred to AiR’s “low production values,” but also referred to AiR as being mine.

“Parks and Hill are two of some two dozen artists profiled in Christopher Anderson’s series-in-progress on artists in their mediums.”

Great Press, for the series and for me. And I wasn’t even in the tapes. Good reviews and direct-mail catalogs (with less than a 1% response rate) eventually led to sales to more than 70 schools and libraries across the country, in Canada (a country known for arts support), and Puerto Rico.

To minimize costs (outsourcing of video duplication is costly) I purchased 5 VCR’s for duplication. I also designed cover art that I could cheaply color copy and trim to fit VHS boxes. My price point of $25.00 seemed quite reasonable for my market and my cost/unit was approximately $5.00 excluding time and wear and tear (an issue that came back to haunt me). Of course that didn't take into account the costs of travel, the expense of equipment (my $1,500 original camera finally failed, leading me to buy a $4,000 dollar camera and a $500. wireless mic system).

Then came 9/11.

I actually shot an AiR title on 9/11 (Justin Telhet).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzdybxWwDX8

One result of the September tragedy was the formation of the “Back on Track America” (BoTA) campaign by Jane Applegate (SBTV)—an effort sponsored by Amtrak, the SBA, and others to assist small businesses affected. BoTA offered a coast-to-coast series of motivational sessions that brought together government, businesses, and small business experts and consultants. As part of this effort a national contest was organized offering a “Small Business Makeover” as the prize. I submitted a proposal, won, and was shipped off to Washington DC (for less than 24 hours) to be “honored.”

As a result I got “90 minute consultations” with Jane, Cliff Ennico (co-host of PBS’ Money Hunt and author of the syndicated column “Success in Small Business”); Nancy Michaels, President of Impression Impact; and Susan Solovic, a small business consultant. Each kept me busy with coming up with boilerplate, putting together proposal packages, and reviewing my “Release Agreement” with artists. I ghost-wrote a piece for Cliff’s “nationally syndicated” column in which I “interviewed myself” about the BoTA experience. It was picked up by the Dispatch (this time I got my picture in the paper (“local boy does good”)).

The trip to DC was exciting, although I had just grabbed a pair of "formal shoes" prior to leaving and found that they were too tight. If you ever have the opportunity to go to DC, bring "sensible shoes;" you're going to do a lot of walking, if you want to see the sights!

During the next summer Ceramics Monthly agreed to review all of AiR’s pottery titles.

And I had the opportunity to shoot a communal wood firing at Steve Smith's studio:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISL3JkfQdT0

It was also at this time that I was introduced to the SBA’s free online service (SCORE) that allows entrepreneurs to select from a large number of small business experts and submit questions. One of these counselors was Ed Zimmer who I began working with and continues to be a great motivator and counselor (he spent one entire Christmas Break teaching me HTML so that I could completely re-design and update the ArtinRes website, all via e-mail). Ed established TenonLine.org

I became acquainted with a number of SCORE counselors across the country and with each response (I had a stock, open-ended “introduction” to AiR in order to solicit suggestions) the idea of “going big” kept getting repeated. The idea was to “get under the wing” of a large sponsor that could benefit from an association with the arts (through the series) and allow me to get back to the business of “shooting those pesky artists.”

It was beginning to hit me. Here I was, one guy with a camera, working long hours (14-16 hour days) at the computer in my dining room, but the series was getting national attention for my efforts. Within a year of shooting Ron’s tape, my name had been linked with AiR in local and national publications and eventually in an international publication (kerameiki techni: the International Ceramic Art Review—“We write with great interest of your Artists in Residence series”), I was in contact with experts with national reputations (the former head of a major movie studio, Emmy-winning documentary filmmakers, a poor fellow you spent decades documenting some obscure pottery technique, and He had had to pay techni for advertising space, and they had reviewed three AiR titles for free? “How’s that?”).

The worst part was that I was being solicited to “come down to (fill in the blank). There’s a huge thriving arts community down here. You could shoot four or five of us in a week.” I didn’t have the money.

Initially, I felt that the “public service” that AiR was accomplishing would be compelling enough. What large corporation wouldn’t see the benefit of supporting the building of a huge national archive of regional artists?

Anyone with any sense of corporate and community responsibility would see such an effort as being up there with “mom and apple pie.” As it turns out, any kind of “archive” is looked at by corporate America as a huge albatross that simply becomes a money pit. It has to be organized, continually administered, there are issues of new and evolving technologies (there was still no one standard for DVD technology), and they are very costly to maintain.

I had to have “bait.”

Why not offer the AiR tapes themselves as a promotional venue?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnsjJM4uh0g

At this time there was a growing stink about vendors (Coke, Pepsi, and junk food manufacturers) exploiting kids in schools. Vendors were being called to task for luring school systems into agreements for setting up their vending machines in schools in exchange for band and team uniforms, and other perks. The school systems were making out like bandits, but the kids were suffering from rotten teeth and getting fat, to boot.

Initially I contacted a local Pepsi distributor—through a close family friend—with the proposition that they buy hundreds of AiR tapes (at $25.00/tape), I’d add a promotional trailer to the tape, and Pepsi could donate the tapes to schools and generate “goodwill.”

This at a time when schools arts programs were being cut back all over the country due to budget cuts: a genuine win-win-win situation for all, I thought: I’d sell tapes, Pepsi would get good press, and the schools could augment their arts programs for free.

I must have waited 6 months for Pepsi’s reply, and it never came (in addition to the wasted cost of having supplied them with the entire Air cataloge of titles). The added irony was that the family that owned the distributorship (one of the largest in the country) was known as “a generous supporter of the arts.”

Failing to get a response, I approached Kraft Foods with the same proposal. “In the area of arts and culture, our funding is rather limited geographically due to budget restrictions. In addition, to our headquarter community of Chicago, our support is targeted to communities where there is a Kraft facility. We look for programs that are multi-disciplinary, with an emphasis on integrating the arts into public school curricula, and that impact an entire school district rather than a single school.”

Wasn’t that what I was offering them? I had suggested donating tapes to school systems, not just one or two. The geographical limitation was their decision, and I had pointed out that the tapes were already being incorporated into arts curriculum. The letter ended with “I’m sorry that we’re unable to partner with you on this excellent program, but I’d like to extend our best wishes for your continued success.”

It was signed by the Director of Corporate Contributions. Ed was right. As a small company, I could “turn on a dime” when it came to flexibility, but large corporations were “battleships” that took a long time to analyze situations and tended to go with their gut instinct: in this case, arts equals contributions, not a marketing/advertising opportunity.

I wasn’t asking for money. My intention was in selling them a vehicle for their advertising department. I had spelled out, in dollars and cents, how many schools (and students) they could reach with the simple purchase and donation of several tapes ($50.00) that included a promotional trailer touting their products—and the guarantee of their “advertising message” being viewed by a captive audience of students (their major advertising demographic) in art classes! Ie, sending the message that “Kraft supports the arts and think it’s important that kids have access to them.”

I went over to the “other side.” California had recently put through legislation to ensure that kids had access to “healthy alternatives” in those self-same vending machines. California was going to transition from Coke to milk and Nestle was pushing the effort. What better way to introduce a “healthy alternative product line” to school systems than to lead off with a “generous contribution” of a couple of AiR titles (again, $50.00/ school for a tape that would be viewed by hundreds of kids a year until the tape broke)? I approached Nestle. Same response.

I approached the “Got Milk?” folks.

“Got Art?” I asked.

In each case, I got the same response. Each corporation that I approached seemed to be saying, “Chris, the project is really wonderful, but go try to foist it off on someone else.”

This, at the same time that schools and libraries were forking out tight dollars to buy the tapes from me.

My morale was beginning to sink. On the one hand, I’d gotten pretty proficient at discovering the e-mail addresses of lofty executives, hidden away on corporate websites.

On the other hand, this simply meant that the rejections didn’t take quite as long to come back.

Ed kept encouraging me, suggesting that I keep in touch with the executive’s secretaries (those whose job it was to give me “the bad news”). I would often carry on correspondence with them several times before the ultimate rejection came. Maybe someone would have a change of heart.

Then the VCR’s began to break down. A tape containing a “clean” recording and one containing a “messed up” recording look exactly the same. Unless you sit down and watch it all the way through, there’s no guarantee that what you’re sending out to “paying customers” is high quality.

And while it’s common sense—it takes an hour to record an hour-long tape—it also takes an hour to watch an hour-long tape and I was recording 5 tapes at a time—I didn’t have to time to sit and review each and every tape that went out. I was knowingly sending out a faulty product. I had also made the investment in a new $4000.00 video camera: “state of the art.” What I was shooting was top notch, but there was no guarantee that my customers were going to be able to watch it.

And then “it” happened. “It” was being approached by a textbook salesperson. Throughout this ordeal I’d been teaching, and trying to make a living, as an adjunct faculty member at Columbus State Community College. The salesperson was wanting to know if I’d like to look over their textbook offerings for the teaching of my English classes.

A light went off.

I immediately searched the web for publishers of college Art textbooks. McGraw-Hill Higher Education was at the top of the list. And better, the e-mail address of their exec. in charge of textbook development was right there. M-H seemed to be a progressive company that actively solicited new ideas. And they jumped on AiR: “loved it.” AiR was to become their video content provider, or so we all believed.

Having a text is no longer enough. If you want to sell your text you have to add value (interactive web-sites, CD-ROMs, anything) that will distinguish your product from the competition. And even college Art History texts are not exempt. I sent them off some tapes (overnight mail) and I had my first-ever multi-party phone conference.

“Sorry we had to postpone the call. We got so caught up in the Dawson’s tape we couldn’t stop watching. What you’ve got here is great.”

As a result I put together two "AiR samplers;" one they requested:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdvjGaGxOiM

and another that I produced:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXT8_paDlRU

Six months later, after drawing up a proposal and providing several compilation DVD’s of AiR artists talking about their craft to be shown in the M-H booth at a major college arts conference, I got the e-mail. Just before Christmas. Future sales were expected to be flat and all new marketing programs were to be cut out of the budget. “I’m really very, deeply sorry, Chris” wrote the woman who had steered me through the process, offering insights and suggestions.

I can go on about the forays into non-profit status, or the “middle-men” services that allow a “for-profit” company to accept donations (for a fee); or the drop-off in sales as the economy tanked. I talked to folks at the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution. Spoke with award-winning documentary filmmakers and even the recipient of an Emmy. But eventually I couldn’t even afford to keep up payment on the website. I pulled the plug on AiR, ignored the handful of orders, and pulled down the website.

Then, last September, I started to hear about YouTube: this crazy site where anyone could upload clips and the world became your audience. On a whim, I uploaded the AiR trailer. It still looked pretty good. A couple of days later, a few folks had stumbled across it. Then someone rated it “awesome.”

I uploaded a few more clips (10 minute snippets of the hour long titles) and now I was getting comments, and subscribers. AiR may have been “dead” (no website, no duplication equipment) but the content was still there and I had lots, with 35 finished titles and lots of titles “in the can.”

It’s been heartening to “resuscitate” the series: get some life back into it. And I want to see where it will go. I’m not making any money from this, but maybe there is hope after all. These days I’m being philosophical about the past. Maybe the series and it’s concepts were simply before their time. Maybe a streaming “video-on-demand” model is the way to go.

In any case, the AiR series is getting far more exposure than ever before. More than 28,000 folks have taken the time to view them and 60+ have chosen to subscribe. Sometimes it’s their only subscription.

In any case, I’d be honored to have your involvement, your creativity and enlightenment in this endeavor.

Sincerely, Chris Anderson

Artists in Residence

www.ArtinRes.com

PS, I wrote this about 6 month's ago. Since then AiR hits have hit 103,000 and are growing by nearly a thousand a day, with 200 subscribers.

Thanks,

Chris