Campbelltown Arts Centre

What a great day. Today I had my first visit to Campbelltown Arts Centre after being invited to participate in a Pop-Up Shop for emerging designers by Megan Davies, fellow student at COFA studying Master of Cross-disciplinary Art & Design and refered to me by Dianne at IWCS. Below is the invite- DATE & TIME: 21 May 10am – 4pm I will be setting up from 8.30am. If you would like to attend with your stock (which I would really love) it would be great if you come at 9 – 9.30am. The Arts Centre is open from 10am – 4pm so would like the shop to run for these times, I understand if you need to leave a bit early. LOCATION: Campbelltown Arts Centre, 1 Art Gallery Rd, Campbelltown WHAT TO BRING: Yourself if possible and your stock. If you have a portfolio it would be great to bring that as well. I am interested in some sort of contact cards for you as well if people are interested in commissioning you are contacting you at a further date – this is most important for you if you are unable to attend in person. CAN’T MAKE IT IN PERSON BUT STILL INTERESTED IN SHOWCASING YOUR WORK? I am interested in offering you opportunities to engage with the community directly so my preference is for you to attend, if you can’t and still would like to show your designs please contact me via megandavisemail@gmail.com and we can arrange for a drop off or I can pick them up. I will store them securely at all times and get any unsold stock back to you asap. BACKGROUND: I am a third year Master of Cross-disciplinary Art & Design student at COFA. As part of my core course I am to develop a cross-disciplinary project. I am interested in spatial design, interactivity, object design and community engagement so this pop up shop is a combination of those ideas. As I am a student with limited funds this shop will not be as flash as any professional store but will hopeful still look sleek and have a great vibe. I really am interested in emerging designers making connection points with the community whether it be through conversations, commissions or sales. I do work for Campbelltown Arts Centre and happy to share any advice I can give you but this will be a independent project for me and I have not received any sponsorship or in kind support from the Arts Centre to host this event. If you are interested in participating it would be great for you to confirm by Tuesday 17 May. It would be great to see some pictures of your proposed stock as well and use them for promotion if ok with you. Below is a link to a few photos I took in the space- https://picasaweb.google.com/IrenesImages/PopUpShop2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCJmd9dKZwq7yTw# Megan was great and a real inspiration when she told me she’d started out as a casual volunteer 10 years ago, had worked in all the art-disciplines the Centre has featured, was then employed fulltime in 2005 and is now in management. I was inspired by her story, it shows how perservance can pay off. We talked about arts education and community participation and had a lot of common thinking, it was a good day’s chat. Megan suggested we stay in touch for future conversations. For me, it would be good if it leads to employment in a field I really enjoy. The experience today was also reaffirming with my art as people showed interest in the jewellery I made out of the postage stamps in my last elective. The idea intrigued them that you would make jewellery out of something so unrelated, it vindicated my concepts considering Suzanna was rather lukewarm about them. I might have been able to sell the bangle one but I didn’t even think about sales for today, I’m so vague sometime! Megan did buy 2 of my functional ceramic pieces- the green celedon porcelain cup and the shallow, small, high footed reduction celedon dish both made at NAS 6 years ago. I’m having a bit of reaction to letting them go after all this time, they were 2 of my favourite pieces but I’m glad they went to someone who liked them. Megan suggested contacting me again when the gallery shop is remodelled later this year and they begin to stock designer’s work for sale. Hope so, I’d really like that. In all, a productive day for both parties, was a great experience.