Dear Friends,
Our August Exhibit, the third held online, was a great success thanks to the artists who entered 89 paintings, and to the gallery team led by Paula Fowler. Helping her were Karen Stopnicki, Website Director, Nancy McMillan, Gallery Chair,Cissy Geigerman, Sally Hoyt, and Martin Butler, Administrative Assistant at WAS-H. I encourage you to browse through the beautiful work. Go to our website, Online Gallery, and select the show you want to view. Clicking on photos of the artwork enlarges them.
We will continue to sell paintings from the show and we hope to increase our sales as buyers discover us online. Sold paintings are to be matted, backed, and wrapped in a cover, either paper or plastic. Art stores sell these in packages to make it easy. We continue to practice social distancing, so the sales occur online, the artist drops the painting off by appointment at WAS-H, and the buyer picks it up by appointment.
The Annual Members Exhibit (AME) in October will probably also be held solely online. Everchanging public health conditions will determine our final decision about hanging artwork in the physical gallery. Other state organizations that we contacted are all planning for online shows for both annual member shows and international shows.
To enter an online exhibit, the artist must be able to submit a quality photograph of their painting(s). In July WAS-H offered a class on how to do this with a smartphone and the class will be offered again in September. Check the virtual education offerings for details.
Our October AME workshop artist, Don Andrews, is willing to wait to see what early September brings before we make any decisions about his week-long workshop with us. We will hold it upstairs for a small class (11), offer it online, offer a combination of the two, or cancel.
Our fall workshop offerings organized by Nicole Hansen, Education Director,, will begin registration August 5. Our new broadcast equipment is installed but has a couple of bugs to be worked out which will delay the start of classes broadcast from the WAS-H classroom instead of individual teachers’ studios. When those are ready, we will send out an e-blast notifying everyone!
Be sure to register for the September General Meeting on September 6. Members can register for it just like you do for a class. There is no fee for Gold Members, but all others will be able to pay the usual small fee for the demo and will be entered in our door prize drawings for $25 gift certificates to Art on Almeda, whose new building will be open by then. This year WAS-H is purchasing gift certificates as a thank you to Vicki Trammel for her years of generous support of WAS-H including monthly door prize gift bags.
As always, please feel free to communicate your ideas, suggestions, and even critiques. We implement as many as possible! I hope and pray for a quick return to our ability to gather together, visit, eat, drink, and paint. In the meantime…
Stay well, stay safe, and keep painting!
Beth Graham
WAS-H President
