Hey, kids! Last Thursday night, my school celebrated their second annual Fine Arts Extravaganza with a musical performance and an art show. Our winter art show is with the fundraiser Artome. This is our second art show with Artome and I CANNOT brag on them enough. I swear, I'm not affiliated with them in any way, I just love how easy of an art show (and fundraiser) this is. You can check out last year's Artome art show here.
I shared quite a bit about this art show on my Instagram and I got a lot of questions. I thought I'd put them together in this post and hopefully help anyone out who is wondering about hosting an art show like this. Before I dive in, here's a short time lapse I made of the pre-show...that's right, this is the calm BEFORE the storm!
Here are some of the questions I got about out experience: Is this the only art show you do? No. We do a HUGE art show at the end of the year where every piece of artwork that every child has created is on display. I usually do two blog posts at the end of each school year highlighting both the 2-D and the 3-D portion of our art shows. You can check out archived art show blog posts by using the search bar on my blog and searching "art show".
What happens to the artwork that is not purchased? After the art show, it is removed from the frame and shipped back to me at no extra charge. In fact, there's no charge for this art show except for the cost of the frame. I'll get to that in a minute.
How much is the artwork, framed? That's up to you. Artome charges $19 for the framed artwork (and labor of framing and setting up the art show) and you simply up charge. I ask $25 and receive $6 per piece sold. Artome does not charge any additional fees. No charge for set up, shipping, paper, nothing. So, to me, the $19 is super reasonable.
So, how does this work? You start by contacting Artome either by email or phone. I'm a phone talker myself so I just give them a shout. I ALWAYS get someone immediately. Customer service is spot on. You start by setting up a date and time. About a week later, you'll receive your box of paper for the artwork to either be created or mounted on. The artwork is to be created on a 9" X 12" surface. The paper they send is about 12" X 18" with a space for you to add the child's name, title of artwork, teacher's name and school. Once all of the kiddo's artwork is created, Artome sends you a shipping label. Then you drop it in the mail at your local UPS about 2 weeks before your show. The day of the show, the crew arrives about 2 hours before show time to set up. YOU DO NOTHING! It's fabulous. In fact, the guys who set up my show, had it up in less than an hour!
Writing all of the names on the labels sounds like it would take for ever. What do you suggest? Last year, me and my parent volunteers collectively clocked 2 hours just writing out the names of my 350 students and the rest of the details on the forms. This year, I asked my school secretary if she could print me labels and she agreed. That shaved so much time off the process! I cannot recommend that enough!
If you don't create the artwork on the paper, how do you attach it to the paper provided? We used 3M spray glue. It is stinky but works great. I see you used chalk. Did that smear? How did you set it? My third graders used chalk and we had no issues with smearing! A mom volunteer sprayed it with hair spray and then we attached to the paper...no problems!
What if parents can't make it to the one night only art show? Can they still purchase? So, you get to decide when the art show ends. And, when it does, all of the artwork is packed up, framed, and shipped back to Artome. They do post-show sales for a couple of days after the fact. If you do have sales, they'll ship the framed work to you when they ship the unpurchased and unframed pieces.
What if more than one person wants to buy a piece of artwork? Like a grandparent or something? Artome can do a super high quality print of the original. Then they frame the print and it seriously looks just like the real thing!
What lessons did you do and how did you decide what to have the kids create? I actually did a repeat of my self portrait projects from last year! They were such a hit...I mean, parents love self portraits, right? You can find the complete lessons on all of our projects! First grade did Royal Self-Portraits, second grade did Super Hero Selfies, third grade created these Sandra Silberzweig-inspired Chalk Portraits and fourth grade did Romero Britto-inspired Selfies!
I think that answers about all of the questions I've gotten about this art show. I really love it and love this tradition of having a fine arts night. I do think next year, I'd like to add another element...but because we really go to extremes with our end of the year art show, it feel nice to have a beautiful art show that I'm not sweating bullets over.
I know at some art show that folks put together, they have places set up for kids and families to create. I'm intrigued by this idea...but with our musical program already taking place on the same night, I think adding that just might be too much. I'd love to hear from y'all if you do something in addition to sharing artwork at your school art shows.
I'd also love to hear if you've worked with Artome? What did you think? Such a great idea!
By the way, these are the chalk pieces...I think they look great, don't you? No smears. That also shows how carefully each piece is framed.
Thank you so much for letting me share my art show with y'all! It was such a fun night. We plan to use the funds raised to purchase clay and glaze for our spring projects. Y'all know how quickly 500 lbs of clay and a million bottles of glaze can add up!
Big thanks to Artome for making it a fun and EASY night for this super tired art teacher!
