Artomatic 2012 - a Winner

Wow.  So, to be honest, I had some concerns going into Artomatic this year. It seemed that initially communication and organization were not up to my expectations. However, they pulled it off. What an amazing event. Friday night was Opening Night.  My face still hurts from smiling so much.

From seeing old friends to making new ones, I have not has this much fun in a long time.

I reached a bit this year and included a participatory aspect to my installation. Since my painting theme was about dance, I decided to ask the public to contribute by taking photographs of themselves dancing and sending them to me. So far, I have almost 50 participants from around the world who now have their photos on my wall.

Here is an overview of my space: 

Here is the area where public participation photos get posted:

This is a close up of the central dance-themed art. The entire piece is called "Shall We Dance?"

I look forward to continuing to visit Artomatic and encourage anyone near the DC area to partake. The event runs until June 23rd.

Artomatic's Bankers' Hours

I love Artomatic. However, we seem to be experiencing a failure to communicate this year.

The first issue involved registration.OK, there were some technical glitches, and as a technologist, I understand those. However, the rationale given for them ("too much traffic") was disingenuous. No biggie, I got registered and I got over that.

The first real communication breakdown I experienced involved the date we were allowed to start working on our installations. During orientation, I was told that we could begin installing on May 3rd (for a May 18th opening). A very short amount of time. My opinion is that a venue like Artomatic should allow installs one month before opening. But OK, I got the message and made plans. However, I later found out that information was bogus. People were allowed to start installing more than one week prior to May 3rd. How did they know? Why was I not informed? I lost more than a week because I have a day job (self employed) and had arranged a lot of deadlines to occur prior to May 3rd -- so there was no way I could regroup and take advantage of the additional week.

OK, that is fine. I planned to get to Artomatic today -- May 4th -- after work and work until midnight or later.  I was literally shocked to find out that the building closed at 10 pm and that artists would have to start cleaning up at 9:30 pm. WTF?  Is this lights out at 5th grade band camp?  What the hell?  OK, I found that out at 6 pm and decided to get done whatever  I could get done. I was working away, jamming to some Pink Floyd when a volunteer came by and said that "because of the Metro" we would have to break down at 8:30 pm and be out by 9:00 pm. So, apparently the Metro was going out of business on a Friday night in DC and we would lose another hour of work. Seriously????

Dear Artomatic -- I love you. I really do. But please realize that some of us work during the day. Some of us cannot get to the building until after 6 pm.  3 hours is not much time to get set up, work, and clean up.  I don't remember what the hours were for the 2009 AOM, but the current set up seems excessively restrictive. I like to work during the night. I work best late at night until the morning. By making me shirk my day job and work banker's hours, I am feeling very frustrated, pressed for time, and disappointed.

Can you give us one night when we can pull an all-nighter?  Can I sign a waiver and pledge to lock up my floor, no matter what time I get done?  Please - I am begging for some flexibility in the hours. Otherwise, I will have to paint my wall black and tack up post-its expressing my frustration.

Here is a quick peek at initial efforts for my wall - which will be all for naught if AOM continues to maintain Disney hours.