Thank you to Autumn Kegley for taking the minutes at the August 26th meeting!

*We had over $7,000 in sales for the Edmonds Arts Festival Foundation, who sponsored our efforts through covering the publicity costs (over $800), and purchasing the wine for our opening night party. The 25% commission garnered from those sales will provide a nice "boost" to their funds available for projects in the local arts community.

*We gathered over 200 new contacts for our mailing list *Our opening night party turnout was better than ever before - and included a significant group of arts patrons who purchased work!

Heather has been reviewing the new entries in our "Guest/Mailing List" book, and looking at the pattern of turnout over the week. At this point it appears the opening night party attendees were mainly people who are already on our mailing list. However, those who came through during the week and the following weekend were largely a new audience. These people found our venue through fliers passed out at the Saturday Market near the fountain, or who were directed to ArtWorks via signage.

It appears that we were often overstaffed, especially during the weekdays. Turnout was rather slow on the weekdays compared to the weekends, and in many instances the volunteers outnumbered the arts patrons visiting our show. An overall consensus among the ArtistsConnect members at this meeting was to drop the week-long event (and its attendant logistical problems) in favor of an extended weekend show or one spanning two weekends only. It was widely agreed that timing the opening night party on a Thursday evening in concert with the established Third Thursday Artwalk would help our overall attendance.

At this point, Ken Smith has already booked a fairly full calendar of events and classes at ArtWorks in the coming year. We will need to begin planning much further in advance to reserve a consistent set of weekends for our semiannual shows, if we wish to establish a pattern and increase attendance among local arts patrons. After much discussion, it was agreed that we are too loosely organized as a group to achieve our goals of consistent show dates and a more smoothly run exhibition (which doesn't tax the patience of the show coordinator to exhaustion).

Samantha Saether put forward a vote:

*Should we determine a few "official" functions which members would be elected (or volunteer) to fulfill for a certain period of time...

She argued that we should become a bit more organized in this fashion. It would allow a "show coordinator" to set dates for our 2007 and 2008 shows, and begin to shape a consistent pattern. In most artist support/interest groups there is a consistent core of people who do the organizational work and a looser constellation of others who come and go.

While many of the ArtistsConnect members don't want to create an official structure with treasurer/secretary/attendant paperwork, it appears eventually we will have to commit to some kind of structure. Our original concept was extremely loose, however, our membership and the shows a majority of us participate in have grown beyond a completely loose structure.

When put to a vote, the majority of members at this meeting wanted to continue participating in shows. However, in order to keep our monthly meetings from being overwhelmed with random discussions of details related to shows/show issues, it was suggested that we hold separate meetings for show organization. This would allow the purpose of the general monthly meeting to return to creative presentations and networking. When put to a vote, most members present (31-1) felt we should separate meetings for shows from the general meetings.

Julie Scandora suggested creating positions such as Webmaster/mistress, Coordinator (to work with Ken Smith on scheduling meetings/events/show dates), etc.

Amy Peacock carried on from Julie's proposal, and has agreed (for the foreseeable future) to continue maintaining our website/member list/new member sign-up records/name tags/newsletter/attendance list.

Jonlee Nunn is interested in continuing to design/coordinate creative programs for our monthly general meeting.

Bill Butler volunteered to coordinate the shows for 2007.

Kathleen Johnson volunteered to coordinate with Ken Smith to fit our meetings and events into the ArtWorks calendar and be our liaison with the city.

Heather McGilvray (with the assistance of Amy Peacock) will facilitate the general meetings for the next 6 months.

Joan Longstaff announced an opportunity for our members to show work in her gallery. She has recently renovated her real estate office (located in the historic blacksmith's house at 524 Main Street) into a gallery space. She will take a 25% commission on work sold through the gallery, and would like participating artists to come to events such as openings, unveilings, and Third Thursday Artwalk nights. Nancy Thompson will help connect members with Joan Longstaff, and coordinate show dates.

Amy Peacock moved our August meeting into a fun/creative realm through her proposal of an altered-book exchange. ArtistsConnect members would pass books in rotation to each other for a free-form collaboration.

By passing the books around a group of participants, we would all be able to share in a little piece of each other's creative process and grow from each other's creative inspiration. The completed books could perhaps be displayed at a future ArtistsConnect show. Amy brought a selection of her own altered books for us to peruse at the meeting. They had varied themes and included many different media - we could follow a theme/or not in our own exchange. It doesn't necessarily matter what kind of book you begin with - however, the book itself may suggest a theme. Kathy Rinaldi and Nancy Thompson have both recently participated in round-robin artist journal groups for a year and a half using blank journals. They found it a wonderful creative stimulant - and encouraged the group to participate in this project.

If you are interested in joining the ArtistsConnect altered book exchange - please contact Amy via her e-mail: apeacock@pavoninestudios.com

Heather McGilvray is putting together a juried show centered around "Bird Art" to compliment the other activities planned for Edmonds annual Birding Festival in May. She will be jurying the show, which will be held during the weekend of May 19th & 20th. Keep an eye out for further details - and go forth and create great bird-themed art!

Women Painters of Washington are sponsoring an open show in June of the coming year for the first time in their history. Look for further details on their website at: www.womenpainters.com