1890 Bryant Spring 2021 Virtual Open Studios

Hi Everyone,

1890 Bryant Spring Virtual Open Studios Dates: May 1 – 15, 2021
Thanks again to everyone for the the way that 1890 got together and created a fabulous web presence and fun events during the fall open studios season. We are going to do another 1890 Bryant Virtual Open Studios for this Spring, May 1 – 15. During these two weeks, which coincide with the Mission Virtual Open Studios 2021, everyone at 1890 is encouraged to host their own live virtual events. Live-streamed virtual events are a great way to share, engage and interact with your community, collectors, gallerists, fans and art appreciationists!

Submit Your Events on the New ARTIST LOUNGE
We’ve made it very easy to add your own event. Just visit the new Artist Lounge and fill in the Event Submission Form. It is FREE to submit an event and participate. The Artist Lounge URL is https://1890bryant.com/artist-lounge/. Please note that the Artist Lounge page is a private page just for internal 1890 Bryant tenant use only. Please do not share the Artist Lounge page url with anyone outside 1890.

The Artist Lounge is also where you can create an Artist Profile if you don’t already have one on the site (by filling in the Artist Profile Form), and where you can modify and edit an existing Event or Artist Profile (by submitting the 1890 Internal Contact Form). Independent of open studios, please feel free to submit your art news, shows, workshops, classes, webinars, gallery openings etc using the Event Submission Form anytime year round.

1890 Bryant Spring Virtual Open Studios Events Listing URL
The url link to include in your promotion for the 1890 Bryant Spring Virtual Open Studios is:
1890bryant.com/events
As events are added they will appear here. I suggest you look at this calendar when setting your own event timing and try to avoid overlapping with existing events if possible. Though I set up time slots last Fall this time I’ve left the calendar blank. The timing, duration and platform for your event/s is totally up to you! You could, for example, do an Instagram Live studio tour; or give a Zoom talk about your work; or live stream making art on Facebook Live or YouTube Live; etc.. Please aim to have your events submitted by mid-April. This is not a hard deadline but will allow our developer time to post the event information and also allow time to promote our Virtual Events as a whole prior to May 1st.

To get creative ideas you can look back at the events from last Fall’s 1890 Bryant Virtual Open Studios. Here are a few 1890 events from last Fall:
Sophia organized an ArtQuizzical on Zoom last time which was great fun;
Kathryn showed monotype techniques on an Instagram Live in which we saw her pull prints and play with creative ideas;
Paz broadcast from her installation, The Bucolic Labyrinth, in Palo Alto;
Catherine and Sarah did a wonderful gallery tour from their joint exhibition, Around the Edge at Inclusions Gallery, where each interviewed the other about their work;
Cynthia shared her artistic journey with an in-depth slideshow Zoom talk;
Several artists broadcast on Instagram Live from their studios and introduced the bodies of works they were currently working on.
There were many more events, all excellent and interesting and stimulating. When you look at past events on 1890Bryant.com you’ll find that in many cases you can still watch the recordings from the events.

Mission Virtual Open Studios 2021
As mentioned, the 1890 Bryant Spring Virtual Open Studios dates have been selected to be the same as the Mission Virtual Open Studios 2021 that Trish posted about recently (see https://www.missionartists.org/ and https://bit.ly/v-openstudios)
Please note that the Mission Open Studios LIVE WEEKEND is Saturday / Sunday, May 8-9, noon-4:00pm, and everyone is encouraged to turn on their camera at those times and meet with visitors live. Trish kindly said she’d make sure all the events we list at 1890Bryant.com will be ported over and also included on the MissionArtists.org site as well (which means we’ll all reach a wider audience). Thank you, Trish! Thus by creating an event for the 1890 Bryant Spring 2021 Virtual Open Studios you’ll automatically be part of the wider Mission Virtual Open Studios 2021.

Please Include Hashtag #1890bryant With Your Insta Posts
Finally a reminder. The 1890Bryant.com site includes on the front page a dynamic live Instagram feed of posts from artists at 1890 Bryant who tag their posts with #1890bryant. Please remember to include the hashtag #1890bryant with your Insta posts.

Looking forward to seeing your virtual events at our 1890 Spring Open Studios:-)

Cheers!

Jeremy
#306

Recording of a brainstorming meeting to discuss tips and ideas for organizing your own virtual event as part of the 1890 Bryant Virtual SFOS. This meeting occurred on Aug 24, 2020.

Summary of the brainstorming meeting

• Attendees shared their visions, ideas, aspirations for, and questions about, virtual events.

• Jeremy welcome and intro. Goal: to encourage 1890ers to think up and create live virtual event for our Virtual Open Studios schedule (Sept 28 – Oct 8) and help overcome fears and technical barriers with some practical tips and advice. The big picture is that there are many virtual live streaming platforms you could use, all varying in degrees of convenience (for creators and audience), engagement (and interactivity), control (over who attends, what people see on screen and introduction of shared screens etc) and reach (popularity of platform and availability of recording afterwards for non-synchronous viewing). In this meeting we focused on two main platforms: Instagram Live and Zoom.

• Sarah Newton shared tips and insights into using Instagram Live, including ways to introduce images and pre-recorded videos into an Instagram Live stream.

• Mark Harris shared his experience and set up participating in an Instagram Live interview (click here to see the interview). Mark also recommended consultant Rebecca Williams with whom he is taking a class on virtual presentations.

• Victoria Heilweil shared best practices for presenting live virtual events. She also introduced her husband who can create 3-D virtual tours of artist’s studios and invited us to contact her if you are interested. Victoria also mentioned that 1890 musician David Elaine Alt has copyright free music he may allow us to use for videos that we wish to post on social media where copyright music is taken down.

• I gave an overview of how I use Zoom meetings for teaching, figure drawing and running group art virtual experiences, and Zoom webinars for The Portrait Conversation, where I have a panelist and interview them and draw their portrait.

• In the course of these presentations/discussions we touched on tips for ensuring you have good audio, are well lit, position your camera at eye level and plan and practice in advance to take away technical and performance anxiety.

• Bottom line: for quick, easy, wide reach, no hassle, minimum set up use your phone (vertically) for an Instagram Live streaming (up to one hour and up to two featured “panelists”) and save it at the end into your IGTV so the recording remains available afterwards. For more complex and more controlled virtual event, eg with attendee registration, screen share, multiple panelists, ability to see and hear visitors, then a Zoom meeting (up to 45 minutes free) or webinar may be a good option. I have a Zoom webinar account and help anyone who is interested in the Zoom direction, plus Victoria is very experienced in that area. Sarah and Mark have experience and knowledge regarding Instagram Live that they can share.

Simple Guide to Putting on Your Own Virtual Event for the 1890 Bryant Virtual Open Studios

• Decide on your event title, description, timing and date.

• Submit Your Events on the New ARTIST LOUNGE
  We’ve made it very easy to add your own event. Just visit the new Artist Lounge and fill in the Event Submission Form. It is FREE to submit an event and participate. The Artist Lounge URL is https://1890bryant.com/artist-lounge/. Your virtual “event” can be as short or as long as you want! It also does not necessarily have to be live streamed – you could use a pre-recorded studios tour or demo video and just upload it at the event time. However the advantage of live events is active engagement and the opportunity to connect and communicate with collectors and your community. The rest of this step-by-step assumes a live-streamed event.

• Once you’ve decided on your event timing then your next decision is what platform to live stream on. There are many choices! See this article, How to Host a Successful Virtual Event: Tips and Best Practices, which gives lots of examples of different social platforms for live streaming. Here are some more useful links and examples:
  Instagram Live (up to one hour). For a cool example see Mark Harris’s Instagram Live (IGTV) interview with the with one of the co-founders of @paintthevoidproject, @lisavortman. This IGTV option is easy for both the creator (you can do the whole thing using your phone) and the viewer (no registration, login, passcode, password or even a meeting number is needed). You can also save the recording and share later, as Mark has done.
  Facebook Live
  YouTube Live
  Zoom Meetings or Webinars
  Zoom meetings or webinars can also be live-streamed / re-streamed on to multiple other platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter. I like the control and interaction of the Zoom platform and the ease of screen-sharing and that’s what I use it for my classes and virtual events. Zoom meetings also provide the opportunity to see your guest’s videos and talk with them. Whatever platform you choose there are some basic technical tips that are common across all platforms.

• Internet: Use a tool like speedtest.net to check your internet speed before any streaming session. You want a high upload speed (ideally above 50 Mbps) to stream well without glitches.

• Lighting: Bright, natural light on your face is best. Add a light on your face so your eyes can be seen. Avoid bright light in background.

• Camera position: Raise your camera to eye level. Get close, but not too close. Use a tripod (or monopod) to keep things stable if you’re using a mobile device as your camera.

• Camera quality: The higher the quality, the better! (The rear camera of your phone usually beats the “selfie” cam.) 1080p is better than 720p.

• Audio: Always do a sound check before going live. If using a computer consider a USB mic for better quality audio. You can even use a high quality external mic with a mobile phone.

• Body language: Face the camera, learn to look at the camera (with a phone you’ll need to work out exactly where the camera is), smile, and relax. Make a test (non streaming) movie to see what you look and sound like.

• Background: Make sure your surroundings look clean and professional. Some platforms like Zoom offer virtual backgrounds but unless you have a professional green screen they can look a bit unnatural and visually “eat” into your contours.

• If you’re new to Zoom I also have a brief introduction called Zoom 101. The following steps are what I would recommend if you decide to go the Zoom route.

• Create a Zoom account – either Basic for free with 40 minute limit, or Pro at $14.99/month for essentially no limit on meeting length. Zoom webinars are a $40 per month add-on. See the Zoom pricing options.

• Schedule a Zoom Meeting for your event. Fill in title, description, start time, duration. Decide whether you want attendees to have to register (in which case you capture their email and name, and it is also more secure) or just distribute the Zoom Meeting ID and passcode (I strongly advise against publishing your Zoom meeting access links on any public site or social media due to the risk of Zoom-crashers). I recommend you choose the recording option to document your event. The Zoom dashboard allows you to copy the invite so you can then forward it to your list and post it on your publicity / social media. Please include the registration or meeting details in the Google Doc info. Here are the typical meeting settings I use: registration – required, passcode – yes, waiting room – off, host video – on, participant audio – off, mute participants upon entry, enable join before host – off, record the meeting automatically in the cloud.

• I recommend practicing ahead of time. Create some (non-public) practice meetings specially for that purpose. Have friends attend so they can give you feedback.

• For actual event, whether it is a studio tour, artist talk, demo or class, I recommend using a laptop computer (can be done from phone or iPad, but much better from a Mac or PC laptop with built in webcam and mic).

• I recommend a stand to place your laptop on, preferably at head height, preferably something that can be easily moved.

• Extra lights (e.g. photo/video lights) on your face. These are in the not essential but useful category. Good daylight is fine, but avoid having your webcam looking into a bright backlight so your face is silhouetted.

• Decent USB microphone with long cord that allows you to stand away from your computer is ideal and recommended.

• Make sure you have good Wifi bandwidth and speed. Use Speedtest.net to test your Wifi download and upload speeds. If needed restart your Wifi modem/router before your event. If you run into bandwidth issues (frozen video or audio) ask others to mute their videos.

• Start your Zoom meeting at least 30 minutes before the event start time. This is really important to give you time to troubleshoot. Always do an audio test (within the Zoom meeting controls). Have someone join and make sure they can see and hear you. Practice muting and unmuting your audio and video. Practice turning on and off the Participants window and Chat. Once your Zoom meeting has started you have the opportunity in the Zoom meeting controls to stream your Zoom meeting live on Facebook and YouTube if you wish to. When your attendees arrive I recommend practicing having them mute and unmute their audio and video, go between Speaker and Gallery view and turn chat on and off. These are useful skills for anyone attending a Zoom event.

• I recommend arranging a helper to take care of the Zoom aspect, making sure the webcam view looks good, monitoring the chat, and freeing you up to be the artist!

• Have a plan and stick with it, particularly when it comes to promised start and end times. That is most respectful to your attendees.

• Any questions? Need help? Just email me at jeremy@jeremysutton.com.

 

1890 Bryant SFOS 2020 Virtual Ideas Zoom Meeting Minutes – June 17th, 2020

Hi There, Fellow 1890 Bryant Artists & Artisans,

Thank you to those who attended our building Zoom meeting to discuss SFOS 2020 Virtual Ideas. The meeting took place on Wednesday, June 17th, 2020. 27 artists from the building registered to attend and most were present at the meeting. The agenda was based on contributions and feedback from the community of artists in 1890. I hosted the meeting and these minutes are written up by me. Please email me directly if you spot any errors or omissions or if I need to make any changes or corrections.

Cheers!

Jeremy Sutton, #306

AGENDA & MINUTES

1. Welcome

I thanked everyone for coming to the meeting.

2. Goal

This meeting was focused on discussing, generating and brainstorming virtual ideas for the 1890 Bryant Studios SFOS 2020, including visioning and defining what a successful virtual presence at SFOS 2020 may look like and the tools we may need to achieve that.

The goal was to establish a clear plan of action moving forward and the agreement of volunteers to pursue some of the resulting ideas.

3. Meeting Protocols and Etiquette

We reviewed the Zoom meeting protocol: one person speaking at one time, everyone else muting their mic when not speaking. Everyone who wished to say something got an opportunity to do so.

4. Virtual Presence Platform Demo

Charles Stinson gave a presentation and demonstration of a virtual communications and web presence platform called Wild Apricot. It is a membership management system that supports contacts database, website, scheduled emails, event management, online store, donations, membership dues, newsletters, and more. In the case of 1890 Bryant, “members” would be the 1890 artists and artisans and other tenants who wish to participate. If adopted it could replace the old 1890Bryant.com website, the Google Group email “hub” and offer much more that we don’t currently have such as a way to share news, show notices and events, and could even host a storefront for selling artworks. It could vastly simplify a lot of our open studios preparation and outreach/promotion. It would still require volunteer tasks, but the tasks would be simplified.

In this demo Charles Stinson showed the website of the non-profit organization, the Pacific Rim Sculptors group that Charles belongs to, that use Wild Apricot. showing the following:

The view of the general public visitor to the site;

The view of a member of the organization visiting the site(i.e., an 1890 Bryant artist, if we were to use the platform);

The administrative “dashboard” view (very brief overview of the powerful tools behind it all)
Charles then described how this platform might optimize a lot of 1890 Bryant artists’ collaborative efforts (e.g., Open Studios, promotion).

5. Artist Spotlight Videos

Examples & best group practices. Simo showed some of the short artist videos that Simo & Charles had created for promotions for the last Open Studios:

Mark Harris

Simo Neri

Paul Morin

Michael Kerbow

They kept to a plain black background, very short duration and every artist answering the same five questions. This established a consistent standardized format. We then looked at clips of a few other artist spotlight videos.

Artspan VAST (Virtual Artist Studio Tours) videos

Artly Owl Artist Chats

Instagram Artist Example 1 – ipcny
(Re)Print Q&A

Instagram Artist Example 2 – sulpreservation
Cento Favole Morali

Maryam Hoseini’s Every Day Abstractions (an Art 21 video)

Artist Cribs: Tony Oursler’s Multimedia Madhouse | SFMOMA Shorts

After viewing all these examples we discussed aspects of the concept of creating a series of consistent spotlight videos of artists in our building for a newly revamped virtual presence. There were various thoughts and viewpoints. There was a consensus that the idea was very good and everyone agreed Charles and Simo had done an amazing job and clearly worked very hard on producing these “prototypes”. Quite a few people expressed their strong desire for more personalized videos, taken in the artists’ studios rather than against a plain background. Some also wanted a slightly less uniform ending inviting people to visit (…and in the time of COVID there won’t be an invitation to visit in-person!) There were a lot of people that loved the three words: “say three words that summarize your art”. Try it and see what three words you come up with! Some feedback concerned production value: better video, better audio, better lighting, etc etc.

6. 1890 Bryant Website and Web Presence

Here is some information from Peggy Li that I shared during this meeting regarding the 1890bryant.com web site. Unfortunately Peggy Li wasn’t be able to join this meeting.

START QUOTE “Let’s design a new, post-pandemic website for our building that reflects the individual and collective talents and diversity within our four floors, and elegantly and effectively invites the outside world to participate in our events.”

“It’s hosted for free on Jon Rogers’ server. Trish owns the domain and she wrote:”

“The website was put together by someone before I arrived in 2006. It is old and I updated it by hand for a number of years then we hooked in the updating so it fed off the data from the missionartists.org site. I still update some of the text when we have events. But really it’s ripe for any sort of change but does not currently have an owner. We need someone to create and maintain a new site”

“I currently receive emails from the site. Occasionally there’s someone looking for how to reach an artist and I hook them up. But mostly it’s people who want in the building and think it’s a business site. I have a canned response that tells them this site has nothing to do with the building management.”

“Issues in my (Peggy Li’s) opinion only:
With missionartists.org and the fact that many artists already have their own websites, how much does an 1890 site need to showcase each artist? How many people and how much resources would it take to keep it maintained and up to date? Even though I only scratched the surface thinking about this as a project, I was rapidly coming to the conclusion it would be best if the website was as simple as possible. Basics: providing a directory that would link to artists’ existing websites (and if they don’t have one, perhaps that would link to a Missionartist profile), have a more robust way to announce events and clear connections to social media for 1890. Perhaps have space for an “artist of the month” highlight.”

“Personally, I find the whole “mission artists” vs 1890 bryant website a bit unclear, as essentially they repeat information (in terms of attempting to catalog all the members of the building on each site)?“

”Running a website and in addition doing promotion of it, is a big job. Since not everyone in the building participates (or may not want to), perhaps it is something that requires membership fees that can compensate someone willing to be the owner or at least offset costs, and members can then be held accountable for providing content, hitting deadlines, contributing work on it, etc. Then it also won’t get “lost in the shuffle” as artists move in and out of the building and ownership and information leaves with them. Or, hire an agency or freelancer to manage it.” END QUOTE

We all agreed the old site needs updating, that it was confusing having the double site of 1890Bryant.com and MissionArtists.org, and that the Wild Apricot platform Charles demonstrated seemed to address all these issues.

7. Virtual 1890 Exhibition, Artist Talks, Panel Discussions, Workshops, Live Events, Shows & Demonstrations

Show and tell both inside and outside the studios – implemented for SFOS 2020. This links up with having artist spotlights – a longer form version with studio tour? We discussed having the new revamped site include Jennifer Berkowitz’s wonderful maps with clickable video links.

Simo expressed a strong desire for an exchange of views amongst artists in our building about productive/innovative use of technology, sharing how we’ve been adapting, what people have been producing, working on, or simply pondering, during this interesting time of shelter in place. How has artistic production/inspiration been transformed / enhanced? New habits/processes developed to manage space and time and bridge physical separation from clients and collaborators? Exchange, critique, inspire, and collaborate on art projects in this time of social distancing. I suggested all this could make great panel discussions and virtual round tables that we could organize and host on Zoom as a component of a series of live virtual events around Open Studios. Other ideas for such live virtual SFOS events could, for instance, include an on-going series of artist talks / demos and discussions.

Victoria Heilweil shared this link for an event that is now passed but it is still interesting to visit as an example of how a group of artists made a hybrid social distant but in-person event: National Arts Drive, June 20th An interesting idea to do stuff outside that people can drive by, bike by, or even walk by to see. Outdoors is safer (with masks and distance) than indoors. We could combine some sort of live event with online virtual tours, artist interviews, etc.

There seemed to be general agreement that closer to the time an SFOS schedule of artist round tables, mini-workshops, demos, music/art performances, and other interactive live virtual experiences by 1890 artists should be developed and promoted it on web and social media. It was pointed out that Sarah Newton has been doing a great job on the 1890 Instagram presence (https://www.instagram.com/1890bryantstudios/) and that we could all be more active in using the #1890bryantstudios hashtag when we post. There also seems to be a second Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/1890bryant/) with just two posts.

Here are some links relevant to virtual presence, events and art shows kindly shared with me by Audrey Heller, fellow artist and a member of the Artspan board:

ArtSpan’s Annual Benefit Art Auction Online Gallery

ArtSpan’s Virtual Art Studio Tours

Albuquerque-based “Art Gone Viral” art show turned into a virtual event using the BoothCentral platform. This example was shared by Audrey because Artspan will be using this fabulous and powerful platform, BoothCentral, for hosting live events throughout the SFOS. We could, for instance, arrange an 1890 Bryant event / virtual show through Artspan using this.

8. SFOS Accounts Report

Anna Sidana gave a Summary of Finances. We discussed applying some of available funds, including those that previously would have been spent on security and building items, and funds that will be accrued through SFOS fees, towards upgrade of the web site, the implementation of Wild Apricot, commissioning of professionally edited artist/building/studio tour videos, etc. It was agreed in principle that these tasks needed professional paid freelancers brought in. We need the expertise and have little time to implement all this between now and September.

9. 1890 Hub List Update

Refresh and remove contacts who are no longer at 1890. The Wild Apricot platform seems to offer a way to address this and maintain a more current communication list via it’s membership function.

10. Summary of Ideas Discussed and Agreed Actions

To get the ball rolling on all this it was agreed to create a “sub-committee” of volunteers to develop a “Scope of Work (SOW)” and “Request for Proposal (RFP)” for the implementation and on-going maintenance of the Wild Apricot platform (including revamp of web site) and for other technical and skilled tasks that we may need to, or choose to, subcontract to paid professionals like the videos etc. (Thank you Wendy Miller for the SOW/RFP jargon:-) The people who volunteered were divided into two groups:

Those primarily putting in the time and effort to discuss, meet and formulate
(Charles Stinson, Diane Olivier, Jennifer Berkowitz, Simo Neri and myself, Jeremy Sutton); and

Those who don’t have time or bandwidth for full participation, but would like to be included on the cc of the communications so they can contribute fine-tuning input at that latter stage
(Anna Sidana, Sophia Green and Wendy Miller).

We will aim to have something to share on a wider level by around mid-July so, ideally, we are ready to commence contracts for the work by end July / beginning August and be ready in time for SFOS by the beginning of September. Jennifer and I have already spoken with, and emailed with, Artspan staff. They are aiming at a September / October SFOS which will be primarily, or 100%, virtual. They have lots of great ideas and it’ll be exciting to work with them! Some of our event concepts may be ones we can best do in collaboration with Artspan. The details on all sides are still being worked out so it’ll be best for us to reconvene a building wide meeting when we have more information.

 

Here’s the full 2 hour recording of the meeting: