We as a group have committed to improving our professional skills in 2018 to be able to sell our work and increase our profiles as artists. Sure we are leveraging disability, it’s what differentiates us from other artists. We naturally have to be more innovative, work with more constraints and be braver with publicly speaking about, and displaying our works. It makes us better artists, despite the able attitude that we are held back by our impairments.
We have applied for CASP and RAF grants that will help us with sourcing educators, mentors, and exhibition requirements for a year of pushing ourselves out of comfort zones and into the bright lights of promotion, marketing and being in the local community’s face (in a nice way of course). At the time of writing there’s about a month till the successful grant applications are announced. We are quietly confident, and mildly anxious.
We have also applied for a grant for 3 Microsoft Surface Pros so we can jump into the work of digital art and expand our knowledge and works into a more “modern” place. Paintings of gum trees are nice and all, but we have things to say and we are looking for interesting ways to say it. These tables are light and easy to use and for some of our members will be perfect to work with as they are less fatiguing than a PC or laptop.
2018 is also the year we hope to be able to find a studio space that we can call our own. Politics and more politics in this area make it difficult. This will be our biggest challenge – keep watching this space 😉
[IMAGE DESCRIPTION 6 sharpie textas in rainbow coloured order]
