2009 YEAR IN REVIEW
Dear Friends and Fans of the San Diego Fine Art Society,
2009 is over - we got a lot done. Below is our 2009 Year in Review. Please scroll down, take a walk through last year and feel proud of what you accomplished! Thank you for your vision and commitment. I look forward to what we can accomplish in 2010.
April Game
February 14th – History of the Female Nude – The Collectors Club welcomes lecturer and art collector Mumsey Nemiroff to discuss the history of the female nude, and how it reflected therole of women throughout art history. It was at this event, on Ms. Nemiroff’s suggestion, that we consider creating a magazine and television show to increase the amount of cultural awareness and connectedness San Diegan’s feel.
February 26-March 3 – SDFAS sponsored mentee Sinclair Stratton to go to ArtExpo New York. It is the trade show that brings the commercial artist and gallery world together. It was a powerful weekend and we learned the quality and use of ArtExpo for future mentees.
March – Board recruitment continues, our first board retreat and fundraising planning meetings begin. New brochures and marketing materials are created.
April 25-26 – ArtWalk 2009– two booths donated by artists Kate McKavitt and Anita Lewis. In order to not compete they donated their booths to the Society, which used them for up and coming artists Rich Hawk and Ansley Pye, who were selected to join the first group of the Artist Mentor Program.
May 3 – Lost + Found: The Prodigal Son in Art, Collectors Club lecture and Juried Exhibition held at Planet Rooth art gallery in North Park. It was given by art historian, lecturer, and former Curator of Education at the Timken Museum. Ms. Hoehn offered a fascinating and rich lecture about how the Parable of the Prodigal Son has been depicted in art from the 15th century to the present, including a juried exhibition by San Diego artists exploring this theme. The juror was distinguished art critic and curator Peter Frank. After the lecture, Mr. Frank discussed the work and announced the award winners. Third prize went to Hugo Navarro with "El Renancimiento de la Mujer" (The Revival of Woman). Second prize went to Daniel Thedell with "Lady of the Eve". First prize went to Joan Mathison with "Going Home."
May 9 – Lost + Found: The Prodigal Son in Art – People’s Choice Awards during Ray at Night. San Diego Fine Art Society’s Collectors Club and City Beat challenged San Diego-based artists to interpret the parable of the Prodigal Son. Twelve paintings were chosen and hundreds of Ray at Night visitors cast their vote for their favorite piece. The exhibition successfully stopped passive art walk strollers and encouraged them to really look at the art around them and to share their opinion.
May 14 – A meeting with board member Robert DeLaurentis and Mission Federal Credit Union funder Neville Billimoriawas very exciting. Among other ideas and suggestions was the offer to initiate a meeting between Tom Karlo, general manager of KPBS and SDFAS to discuss arts programming.
May 16th – SDFAS Board Member Henry Moon discovers that long-time West Hollywood/Beverly Hills art dealer Yoram Gil has closed his gallery and is going into consulting and coaching for artists and art world professionals. We immediately contact him to consult with the Society as the “mentor” of the debut Aritst Mentor Program to launch in June.
May 17 – Sunset Sundays begin: Every Sunday for twelve weeks San Diego Fine Art Society and Hacienda de las Rosas Winery joined forces to highlight female regional artists. In the small winetasting room in Old Town, a different artist was featured each week. Artists prepared twenty-minute talks about their work, their path, why they do what they do… they talk about the featured work of art, which appeared on the invitations and on the wine-labels, and answered audience questions. These intimate talks allowed artists to focus their thoughts and self-expression, allowed community art enthusiasts to hear the voice of those artists, and allowed us all to see artwork that might be difficult to see otherwise. All guests went home with a signed bottle of custom-labeled wine by the artist.
June 26 - Mentor Program begins – A mixture of life coaching and professional mentoring, a small group of artists made a one-year commitment to personal and professional growth. Using techniques used successfully in Vistage and Tony Robbins, but with consideration for the unique requirements of artists, Mentor Yoram Gil took the first group through Phase One of the Program – three months of intensive work that includes weekly group support.
July – Mentor Program and Sunset Sundays continue. Installation begins for the second annual Sculpture in the Gardens exhibition at San Diego Botanic Garden. Out of hundreds of entries, twenty three sculptures by sixteen San Diego-based sculptors were selected to create a Phantom Gallery in the 36 acre garden.
August – Mentor Program and Sunset Sundays continue
September 2-4th – Beyond the Border International Contemporary Art Fair is San Diego’s first major fine art fair and a ground breaking contribution to the arts. Planned by Ann Bertchtold (San Diego Art Prize, L Street Gallery), Julie Schraeger, and a team of talented women, the expanded the scope of what San Diego could be forever. Twenty-three galleries from the Pacific Rim, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Mexico came together at the Grand Del Mar Hotel. The VIP reception drew over a thousand people including art critics and drew national art magazine coverage of San Diego for the first time. The event was a roaring success, but was criticized for not having enough San Diego art presence, and the VIP party not having a place to rest or have dinner. SDFAS recognized the opportunity to advance the Society and to provide support.
September 7th – After seeing seeming un-ending press and advertising for the Art of Photography Show and Beyond the Border, SDFAS discovers that the public relations team behind both art events is Olive PR Solutions. We hired them immediately.
September – Phase One of the first group of the Mentor Program ends and Nonprofit Management Solutions consultant Jon Vencil interviews all participating artists. Phoebe Chongchua, former reporter for Channel 10, is contracted to create video profiles of all of the artists to capture their path and their story. As a former employee of KPBS, Phoebe created all the videos to the length and quality that would appeal to PBS as possible content later on.
September 27th – Meeting with Phoebe Chongchua and Deanna Mackey, station manager of KPBS to show the Mentor Program videos and to discuss programming options, PBS needs, and a possible relationship between PBS and the Society.
October 5 – Nonprofit Management Solutions produces its first evaluation report of the Mentor Program’s first phase. “There are no similar national programs to compare with. As a result the program has the potential to set the standard for mentor-based art programs on a much broader scale.” Hooray!
October 7th – Olive PR Solutions starts working hard with SDFAS on focusing our messaging and developing a new tagline, one that links Art Pulse TV with the Society.
October 11 – Fall Salon, New York Times best selling author Susan Vreeland joins San Diego Fine Art Society for a reading and book signing of her latest novel "Luncheon of the Boating Party" about Renoir and his circle. Ms. Vreeland is a San Diego resident who specializes in historical fiction based on the people and movements of art history.
October 27 - Mentor Program Launch Party at the University Club – 60 members, donors and members of the press came tocelebrate the successful launch of this innovative and necessary new program.
October 28-31 – Mentor Program Weekend begins with a new group of artists entering Phase One. Group One enters Phase Two, where mentees come to Yoram rather than meeting in the studio, and group support sessions switch to every-other week.
October 29th – A meeting takes place to discuss the possibilities of collaborating with the Beyond the Border International Contemporary Art Fair and San Diego Fine Art Society. All agree that SDFAS would be a perfect charity partner, bringing “San Diego” to the fair, and we begin discussing a VIP preview night Awards Dinner.
November 2nd – Jon Vencil, through his consulting firm MK Logics, is commissioned to do a Visual Arts Scan, to see who and how the different nonprofit arts organizations around the county could fit together, and to make recommendations for collaboration. This is part of a two-phase project that will encourage team building and cooperation between key organizations to enable our common vision to be exponentially more successful. The study is expected to be implemented by 2012.
November 9th – Yoram Gil suggests the name “Art Pulse TV” for the new arts television show. Graphic designer Aaron Rix designs a logo treatment that ties in San Diego Fine Art Society branding with Art Pulse TV.
November 15 – For the second year in a row, twenty-three large outdoor sculpture by regional fine artists were put on display throughout the 36 acre San Diego Botanic Garden. Nearly 200 people attended the reception. Catered by Vigalucci’s and including music by a local classical guitarist, the self-guided tour and community meet-up introduced art lovers to the Garden and garden lovers to art. It was a great success.
November 19th – Meeting with Phoebe Chongchua and John Decker, news and programming manager for PBS, to discuss the practical needs of PBS and how SDFAS programming would fit in. Itis decided that Art Pulse TV, San Diego Fine Art Society’s television and online video content arm, will begin with interstitial (short video) content beginning in early 2010 and if all goes well, given a weekly half-hour television show and/or inclusion in PBS’s regional weekly news hour in Spring 2010.
December 2-5th – SDFAS visited Art Basel Miami Beach on December 2 and 3rd to get a feel for the world's most celebrated contemporary art fair. It is an important research mission as Beyond the Border International Contemporary Art Fair has aspirations to make the same positive economic impact in San Diego as Art Basel did when it came to Miami Beach. The fair has generated a city-wide, week-long circus of international contemporary art parties and exhibitions. There are over a dozen major art fairs happening simultaneously around the city, art gallery parties, “popups” – what we would call Phantom Galleries, absolutely everywhere. It was celebrity-studded, confusing, daunting, and magnificent. I should say, the scene was magnificent, but not the art. It seemed to be more show and style being sold to the showy and stylish than truly world-class artwork selling to passionate people truly moved by art (the notable exceptions were the galleries of the design district near the Art Miami fair, and the Martin Marguiles Collection at the Warehouse in a scruffier area of Miami). A major fair that brings economic vibrance and international notoriety is a good thing. The city becoming engulfed in mayhem is quite another. On a more practical note, we observed that a prestige item available on the VIP preview day of Art Basel Miami Beach was a hot-pink logo tote bag for carrying catalogues and fliers. SDFAS decides to include this in the contract with Beyond the Border, allowing more visibility and an additional means of fundraising.
December 11 – Jon Vencil submits the Visual Arts Scan draft, recommending as our top-three arts partners ARTS: A Reason to Survive, Beyond the Border International Contemporary Art Fair, and ArtWalk. All three relationships have begun. We will be sharing offices with ArtWalk beginning in January 2010 and providing a Business of Art scholarship to a graduate student at UCSD for ArtWalk 2010. Board members of ARTS have expressed an interest in the Society and discussions about a possible relationship are being explored.
.200x300.jpg "Beyond the Border International Contemporary Art Fair welcomes SDFAS as Charity Partner for 2010")
December 14th – Beyond the Border International Contemporary Art Fair officially offers SDFAS the position of Charity Partner in 2010, which among other things lets us contribute to the educational programming of the event, host the VIP Arts Awards dinner opening night, and to provide custom-made tote bags for free to VIPs on opening night, and for sale on subsequent days with 100% of funds raised going to the Society. World-wide press releases go out in January.
December 16th – Messaging finally nailed down:
“San Diego Fine Art Society (SDFAS) is strengthening the pulse of the art community through education and collaboration. Core programs like the Artist Mentor Program empower artists to reach their dreams. Art Pulse TV reveals the passion and the people behind the art. By removing barriers and building bridges, SDFAS is helping San Diego reach its potential as a top arts destination in the country. To find out how you can help, visit www.sdfas.org.”
This paragraph will be used in press releases and on the Society’s website beginning in early January, 2010.
December 16th - Web designer Jason Warden of Gooey Graphix is hired to create the Art Pulse TV website.
December 31st – Thank you from April Game:
Special thanks to Yoram Gil, whose valiant devotion to the cause of helping artists and Art made him an invaluable asset during the first six months of the Mentor Program. His insight, wisdom, tough-love and commitment helped make the Program the success it is.
Thank you to Rae Barney, whose skill at keeping books and organization has kept me sane and the Society on solid ground. She is a tough, smart, talented young woman and damn good at her job. Thanks Rae!
Thank you to Aaron Rix, whose idea it was to have a Mentor Program. His patience has been sorely tested and I'm happy to say he is still with me and with the Society. His branding and graphic design, art photography, and creative spirit has served the Society since its inception, often under pressure and always with excellent quality. Thanks Aaron!
Thank you to 2009 board member Sean Donnelly, who was a voice of calm and balance on the board, and who stepped in at the right time to use his board contribution and business relationships to arrange for a top-notch insurance policy for any and all of our projects and special events. He is a bright and caring professional and a real friend to the arts.
Thank you to 2009 board of directors member Robert DeLaurentis, whose skill at networking, negotiation and getting things done led to our hiring top-notch media consultant Phoebe Chongchua and our growing relationship with Mission Federal Credit Union.
Thank you to Marcus, Shane, John and Lisa, without whose help installing the sculptures for this year's Sculpture in the Garden exhibition we would have been utterly lost.
Thank you to Nathan, San Diego Botanic Garden groundskeeper, whose professionalism, hard work and thoughtful guidance helped us get out of an installation jam and made what could have been a waisted day a fruitful one.
Thank you to Jack Foster Mancilla. Jack is excellent at capturing fleeting, beautiful human moments, the kind that happen all the time all around us but are gone as quickly as they came. He has attended Society events all year, capturing the warmth and earnestness of the artist talks at Sunset Sundays, the glow of pride and joy at the Mentor Program Launch Party, and the intensity of some of the Mentor Program studio visits. Jack, thank you for being a part of the team and for offering your eye and your talent to the cause.
Thank you to Jennifer Borba von Stauffenberg, owner of Olive PR Solutions. Her firm will not only handle all of the Society's public relations, but will guide the development of Art Pulse TV, screening and resourcing content and making sure that San Diego's art stories are told. Her competence and sheer joy in her work, as well as her patience and nurturing demeanor, make her an invaluable addition to the SDFAS team.
Thank you to Fei Zhou. Fei and her husband Pierre have been attending SDFAS events since our first Collectors Club event in April 2008. It was through Fei that SDFAS was introduced to artist Ansley Pye, for which we are still grateful. She acted as an ambassador between the Beyond the Border International Art Fair and the Society, bringing Ann Berchtold and I together for the first time. At that meeting, Ann extended an invitation to the SDFAS board of directors and Collectors Club for the VIP preview of the fair. We attended and were blown away by its achievement. Her initiative began a chain of events that is still developing. A talented artist, arts supporter and collector, her depth of spirit increases her beauty exponentially. Thank you for being involved Fei!
Thank you to art historian and SDFAS member Ann Hoehn. Her brilliant lecture on the Prodigal son created a burst of member sign ups for the Society and was a rich addition to the Society's offerings. I look forward to working more closely with her in the new year. It was through Ann that we met SDFAS friend and fan Laurie Hawkins, with a distinguished career in development and a strong belief in the arts, she has become an ally we count on. Thank you Ann!
And thank you Laurie! Your time, expertise, and good-natured, caring spirit means the world to me personally and to the Society.
Thank you to Jillian Hayward! Jillian is an art history major and volunteer at the San Diego Fine Art Society. Her intelligence, work ethic and grace has helped our events come off without a hitch. Thank you so much, Jillian! Time, effort and passion are worth everything, and I appreciate your effort more than you know.
Thank you to Phoebe Chongchua, who created video profiles of the first group of the Mentor Program and produced a polished half-hour documentary for our celebration launch party in September. Her role has evolved into the Society's media consultant and the producer of Art Pulse TV. At the cutting edge of where information and entertainment are going, Phoebe is leading SDFAS' pioneering arts and culture programming strategy. Thank you Phoebe!
And our very special thanks to Henry Moon, without whose valiant efforts and financial support the Society would not have been able to operate. You were the fuel in the engine that kept the machine of the Society moving. And so on behalf of myself and the health of the culture and creative spirit you help to keep thriving, I offer you my sincerest thanks.
And thank you to all of our friends, artists, members and donors whose support has made the Society what it is today. Happy New Year!
