2 new ArtLoveMagic events announced

Wednesday April 4th
ArtLoveMagic Open House

You are invited to come and hang out with ArtLoveMagic at our offices (2630 Commerce in Dallas) from 7:30-9:30pm

Find out what’s up with us and our upcoming events
Meet folks in your local art scene
Share you local art events/projects/needs
Create with us (we’ll have art supplies out and available)
Bring your musical instruments for an open jam
Bring cameras and sketchbooks
Snacks provided
Al ages welcome

facebook event page- http://www.facebook.com/events/397067060304686/

Friday April 13th
Art & Coffee: Superstition!

7:30 – 10:30pm at Buzzbrews Deep Ellum (2801 Commerce in Dallas)

Art & Coffee is back with a awesome FRIDAY THE 13th show!

You probably already know it’s bad luck to walk under a ladder or open an umbrella inside. But did you know you should never change your sheets on a Friday, and that you should never, ever sit down to dinner at a table with a party of thirteen? (Unless, of course, what you want is nightmares and an untimely demise.)

Come out Friday, April 13th to the unluckiest Art & Coffee of them all and explore friggatriskaidekaphobia, (the fear of Friday the 13th,) and other silly superstitions with some of Dallas’ more unusual artists:

Kelsey Kincannon
Ixchel Aguilar
Brandy Collins
Becky Taylor
Cori Berg
David Jessup
And more TBA

Featured Poet:
Victory

Open Mic: Musicians and poets are welcome to sign up to perform on stage. Sign up begins at 7 p.m. sharp (usually filled with 20 minutes).

This is a free event. All ages. Cameras and sketchbooks welcome.

Produced by Breonny Lee and Brian Alguire

Facebook event page – http://www.facebook.com/events/270778886335688/

What Exactly Is “Exposure” Worth?

Derek Miller is an MBA in entrepreneurship, painter, and bassist for Onward We March, a local progressive metal band. He teaches business skills to artists and writes weekly music business advice for his blog Derek Thinks Music. Got a business question about your art? Shoot him an email at derekmiller5@gmail.com

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“Getting your name out there.”

 Some are willing to give away their entire catalog for free in  hopes that the extra exposure will build loytalty and gain fans.

 Other artists insist that every piece of music should be paid for and don’t care about exposure.

 What, exactly, is exposure worth?

 My thoughts:

 A) The exact value of exposure-for-exposure’s sake is nebulous at best.

It’s difficult, if not impossible, to calculate an exact value for each additional unit of exposure, so to speak. Much like advertising, the benefits are only visible over the long-term and are often difficult to directly quantify.

For example, how many additional fans would you expect to get for making an album available for streaming online for free? Would these additional fans buy enough of your music, merch, or shows to make this trade-off a net benefit for your band? This great post by Frank Woodworth does the math to estimate profit per stream, but attempting to discern the value of increased fans and their propensity to purchase is strictly guessing.

 As much as I’d like one straightforward answer, it seems justifying a decision based on the value of exposure is a subjective choice. In the case of streaming, I choose a blended approach.

B) Some types of exposure are more valuable than others.

Paying your own tour expenses in order to tour with an internationally popular band that fits your genre would (probably) be worth it. Paying to get your music tweeted about by a local music blog may be worth it. Paying to get your music available on a Chinese web store if you’re a Tennesse-based funk band will not be worth it.

C) Opportunities that tout “exposure” as their primary selling point should be looked at skeptically.

 Often, the word exposure is a red flag that a service or person is trying to take advantage of you. We’ve all had fantasies that if we get our music in front of the right A&R person / magical wizard, our entire musical career would be solved forever. Companies who base their value proposition on offering bands exposure are playing to this fantasy.

 In our early days, my own band bought into one of those compilation CD rackets where we had to pay $200 for a box of compliation CDs which one song of ours would be on. We were going to be taking baths in exposure-flavored champaigne!

 After dropping the cash and getting the compilation, we quickly realized that the other tracks on CD were awful and didn’t have any rhyme or reason as to why they were all included. It was a mess and we couldn’t, in good conscience, charge people for that collection of debris. I’m pretty sure we ended up throwing the box out.

 Our email inbox is so flooded with these kinds of “opportunities” you’d think we were one email and a thousand dollars away from a world tour. That exposure must be some pretty powerful stuff!

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How do you feel about the concept of “exposure”? Does your band give away free music or not? Why do you make the choices you do?

More Art & Coffee (March 2012) photos from Kelly Underwood

Kelly Underwood, who set up as an illustrator in our latest coffee show, also brought her camera with her and snapped some beautiful pics of the event. The comments below each are from the event’s producer, Michael Lagocki. Enjoy!

This was actually our first Art & Coffee in quite a few months. The show had grown insanely popular last year, but when the location that hosted it unexpectedly closed down we decided to take the winter off and find a new home in spring.

That place turned out to be Buzzbrews in Deep Ellum. Wow. The space and staff vibe are perfect for what we want to accomplish with this show. Spacious, friendly, and open to doing crazy creative things. I’m excited about how Art & Coffee, which is monthly, will grow here.

Local songwriter Eric Tipton was a guest on the national TV show THE VOICE just days before being the feature musician at the show! Eric’s a friend, a great guy, and an amazing performer. It was a blessing to be able to have him at the show.

…as it was to have the Just.Us.League. They’re a live collaborative painting crew that does monthly jams all over Dallas. For Art & Coffee, their founder Jerod Alexander sketched out a large Alice In Wonderland Tea Party on an 8 ft canvas and let the audience go at it. Yeah.

Outside the front door, poet Amberly Russell and airbrush painter Eddie Walker presented a unique collaboration. Eddie’s been illustrating several of Amberly’s poems, adding a new dimension to the words. Amberly even mounted an Ipod and headphones outside so audience members could hear the poems as they watched Eddie paint.

I love it when we really have a variety of artforms at the show. Artist Leighton Autrey brought a scratchboard to his first Art & Coffee. He used an exacto knife to “carve” an image out of the black background as he met and talked to audience members.

It’s always good to have Kylun Rodriguez in the house. He’s the son of my founding partner, David Rodriguez, and is the youngest producer on the ArtLoveMagic roster. I’m secretly hoping he becomes a lead producer this year and runs his own show sometime.

A huge part of the success of Art & Coffee is not just the feature artists, but the open mic, where audience members can perform. I believe we give young musicians and writers a strong opportunity to grow in their skills. Many local performers who now gig regularly got their start at an Art & Coffee open mic.

Thanks, Kelly for taking the photos! And thanks for sharing your art with us.

The next Art & Coffee show will be at Buzzbrews (Deep Ellum) on Friday, April 13th at 7:30pm. The show is free to attend and all ages are welcome. See you there!

-ML

Gut Check | What feeds you as an artist?

So much of our lives are spent on auto-pilot that we can get pretty far down the road and without realizing we are out of gas. We often don’t know we are in trouble until our gauges are below empty and that fateful spluttering of the motor takes us to a point we can’t ignore.

In your “gut check” you may find that as a “starving artist” you are truly starving. How long has it been since you fueled up? Chances are whatever fuels you is unique, but there are clues within your soul by looking for the things that give you joy.

Do you need a more steady diet of the small stuff like getting a new set of paints, the company of friends, time in nature, time spent alone in your home, browsing titles at the comic books store, soaking up pop culture on a couch in front of your TV?

Or is your gauge so low that you need a major infusion? Do you need to take some time off from your day-to-day to reconnect with the things you love so you can be energized again?

Feeding yourself as an artist isn’t something that you can relegate to the margins. Like food, you have to make it part of your daily life.

–Cathy Hutchison

Art & Coffee (a whole new brew) photos by Robert Hold

Our first Art & Coffee of 2012 was a huge success. Lots of great art, music, and poetry as you can see here in photos by Robert Hold.

Art & Coffee’s new home, Buzzbrews in Deep Ellum, is going to work out great. Awesome people there, great space, full menu and bar, etc. Enjoy these photos and join us when we return to Buzzbrews for the next A & C show on Friday, April 13th! Spooky!

ArtLoveMagic is hiring

We are looking for some assistance to help us grow.

ArtLoveMagic will soon hire someone for a few days a week. The job description includes a lot of everything, but here are some basics to give you an idea:

- Manage and organize inventory (know what have, know what is missing, reorder)

- Calendaring (reminders, manage dates, check on any conflicts in scheduling that may impact)

- Assist with the set-up and/or delivery of open house events

- General assistance on any event schedule. On an event he/she is to keep track of expenses for each event.

- Coordination with our accountant, balancing expenses

- Organize and manage network list (the ArtLoveMagic Phone Book: artists, volunteers, resources, partnerships, locations)

- Assist in managing and promoting ArtLoveMagic and the general arts within Dallas on Social media, blogs, etc

- Organize data files

- Manage contracts & grant research

- Assist  in finalizing and maintaining 501c3

_____________________________________

The pay will be $10 an hour and we think it’s about a 15-20 hr/week position. Most of these hours would need sometime in the 9-5 weekday schedule, but the exact days are open to discussion.

The work will be done from our office in Deep Ellum and at various surrounding area events.

If you are interested, send your resume and an introductory paragraph to David@artlovemagic.com

Thanks!

Art & Coffee – a whole new brew

Art & Coffee is back! We’re proud to announce that our popular monthly live art & open mic show returns on the first Friday of March.

Buzzbrews is a wonderful new home for us. They’re very community oriented and really into supporting local arts. They have their own free parking lot (if you get there early enough, and they serve a full menu, full bar, and brilliant coffee. Perfect! full menu at www.buzzbrews.com

As usual Art & Coffee is completely free to attend and open to all ages. You can feel good bringing your friends and family to this free show. We’ll have live artists, feature performers, an open mic, and interactive art for kids and adults.

Bring your cameras and sketchbooks. Poets and Musicians are welcome to sign up for the open mic starting at 7pm. Help us kick off our new season in our new home with a BANG!

The line up for this show is fantastic:

Feature Artists:
Robert Hold (Photography)
Desiree Mazzola and Chris Small (hemp jewelry)
Eddie Walker & Amberly Russell (art/poetry colab)
Leighton Autrey (painter)
Joshua Boulet (brush & ink)
Eddie Medina (Illustration)
Kelly Underwood (illustration)

Special Audience-Interactive Art by:
Cori Berg
The Just.Us.League

Feature Musician:
Eric Tipton!!!
(millions of viewers of tv’s THE VOICE saw Eric perform on Monday)
special performance by Jordan Davis

Feature poet:
Konichiwa Zach Schrotter
special performance by Amberly Russell

Host:
Deborah Driscoll

This show will be produced by Michael Lagocki.
See you there!

To RSVP for this event on facebook, click here:

http://www.facebook.com/events/391949824154737/