Art in the Open _ Suggestions for improvement

[Neil O'Keeffe]

Hi Folks 

many thanks to all who participated in this years Festival. I hope you had fun and were happy with your work. Yet again the exhibition was a revelation of the latent talent and energy that is out there.

Many of you offered suggestions to make the festival more attractive and organizational hints to help make it more efficient. Each one was better that the other. Perhaps you would take some time to post them here, i'm afraid i may have forgotten some of the excellent suggestions and we would like to do our best for you all

Thanks, looking forward to hearing from you 

[Tracy O'Brien]

Scones each day is a great idea - kind of making people have a focus to the morning to get you started!

Being honest, the festival was fantastic this year and there are no glaring issues at all that I can think of that could improve on it - only really minor things. Say regarding boundaries - perhaps a better map as mentioned earlier with say some little visual images of landmarks identified so that you know you where you are..

One thing perhaps also would be an official "badge" for each participant with your entrant number and the art in the open logo etc. It would be kind of handy for newbies who meet so many people and find it hard to remember names! It also might identify you as a participant to the general public, though then again I always hate wearing name tags at conferences or anything like that!

Keeping the paint outs as a wind down for the few days afterwards is also a good idea - I really enjoyed those and it meant that it wasn't so sad when the festival part was over - more to look forward to!

[Norah Blount]

Karen, at home there are plenty of familiar subject matters and you know where you can set up, park etc and it is familiar to you which is so much easier than going to a new location and finding no 1 in John's 6 steps. Painting in busy public places is probably another skill and there is nothing for it but to just brave it and get on with it I suppose but would be good to have an opening session to familiarise newbies to an area etc (especially if your time is limited). I found the wildfowl reserve which is close to Wexford and saw so many inspiring pictures around those roads and sketched here instead of the designated area !

[Elaine Hurst]

Being someone who hasn't participated, but would like to next year, as well as someone who has not had the pleasure of visiting Ireland, yet, I would enjoy painting both in town and in the countryside. Not sure if all that can be done in one event, but just my 2 cents worth.

[Karen Scannell]

Thanks for that Tracy.We'll be keeping a note of all these Ideas.

[Karen Scannell]

Hi Nora,
Did you get to any of the festival Paintouts in the week before and week after the festival??

[Karen Scannell]

Hi Elaine,
We had a series of Paint outs this year in the days leading up to, and after the event, which I think were very successful. If you are planning to come next year, keep an eye on the schedule of events as you might like to stay for some of them, and see parts of County Wexford.

[Elaine Hurst]

I will. If I can get there next year I would like to spend some time, as well as possibly see if the group in the west is painting, and go over there also. I will keep a look out for the schedule as it gets closer next year, thank you.

[caitriona giblin]

i like the scones idea. but i feel that it is equally important not to limit ourselves to scones, but to open our minds (and mouths) to all manor of baked goods. and tea. some people like coffee, but that's just because they're american. :)

on a seperate note, if you want to attract more students, you could give a few participation tickets to the student's union in a few art colleges around. that way they'll have a competition prize for whatever event they're running (there's always something), and they'll do a load of free promotion for you so that the prize looks even more amazing.

i actually like the restriction of where to paint. it concentrates the number of participants, so it's easier for newbies like me to feel easier about standing in the middle of the main street with a can of spray paint and an easel. perhaps different restricted areas each day? could get confusing though.

the moral of the story is: fun and games were had by all, and i can't wait til next year!

[Elaine Hurst]

Ha, ha, Americans and coffee! :) I do like coffee...but I have to add all the trimmings to it to drink it. Drink lots of tea in the winter, and that weird American thing of iced tea in the summer! :)

[David Diaz]

Karen--yes, that means I got very much into scones--Sorry I just got back to this--for some reason I wasn't following or noticing the threads. too this. Well, about where I paint--sometimes I do wonder further, but when forced, as you suggested, you look harder at what"s in front of you and around you. Those small ones that I did before I came over, I went to the same harbor I see most days and just looked in different directions during different conditions.
sometimes I find I look for more nitch areas. Small alleys and the like. You've been painting up a storm these days

[Karen Scannell]

Ta David..must be the "Chill out" after the festival..I feel I'm finding my feet again. Being relatively new to the Plein air thing, I'm realising the need to keep changing as I think I get creatively "stale", with similar subject matter.Which I guess brings me back to how often can a subject be painted.?Mac Phearson is the obvious example of using the same subject over a hundred times...But I don't know if I could generate the same excitement and energy.It's probably a personality thing, or the "challenge"!!

[Sally Downey]

I hesitate to thew in my pennyworth. The organisation of the festival was so impressive that it can hardly be improved upon. May I suggest a little icing on the cake.........(forget the scones for the moment). It would be really exciting for tiddlers like me to have a catalogue of the exhibition as a memento - just to prove that we really did rub shoulders with the greats. I can imagine that the logistics of collating and printing a catalogue in time for the exhibition would be impossible but perhaps it could be posted on the website and those who wished could print it off themselves later.

Thanks again to all concerned for a wonderful experience.