Letter to West Michigan Artists

Fellow artists:

As you know, there has been a hiatus in the discussions on the Russell Building art group. That is still a work in progress, but may need more time. Meanwhile, our colleague Bryan Snuffer has presented an idea that may have strong merit as an interim step. Bryan recently met with some west coast artist in New Mexico and came back with the fruits of an idea that has work well elsewhere. His suggestion that we consider this for our "west coast" is the purpose of this email.

Bryan's gem of an idea is to develop a "Lake Michigan Art Walk". The concept is to create a partnership with local businesses wherein several businesses in an area provide space for participating artists to show their works on a given day (or two-days). Each artist could have one business for display and a chance to sell some of their works as patrons to the business come in. Conversely, the business would benefit from the artists drawing new people to their place. The concept is totally voluntary on the part of the business so the cost to the artists is only the cost of the display (and time.) We tentatively discussed having the first event in mid-June.

As Bryan and I discussed this we agreed that the best approach would be to try a couple pilot events first to see how it went. We realize that there is a lot of coordination needed to pull this together. Businesses will need to be solicited for their support, and we will need to create the free-media marketing to get the word out. Out initial thoughts are to target the downtown area of Muskegon for the first Art Walk. A follow event could be from either the Mall, Whitehall, Lakeside, Spring Lake - or any number of places.

The hope is that we can interest enough artists to make this very attractive to both the artists and the businesses sponsoring the Art Walk. Bryan is fast at work in developing a blog on this and some materials we can readily print to help promote it. We plan to talk with the Muskegon Museum of Art to see if they may be able to help get the word out to their membership (never hurts to ask.) We also plan on talking with the Chamber to seek their support on behalf of the participating businesses.

What we need now is feedback from you folks to both determine whether or not there is sufficient interest, and to get your input. I am sure that there are many in this group who have experienced something similar to an Art Walk as proposed here - and you have some good ideas on how to make this a success. We will also need input on the suggestion that mid-June be the timing for the first event. We will need some time to get the logistics in place with area businesses and free media coverage, but we don't want to wait too much.

With the Art Prize popularity and interest in Grand Rapids, we believe the timing is right for the artists along the lakeshore to get their feet wet. And with the economy still struggling here, this offers an opportunity to begin attracting attention to our arts community in an affordable manner.

All suggestions welcomed!