Category: starting out

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not to be… not today

Today was d-day for getting the keys to one hundredth gallery’s first space.  I left home at 8am to do the cross-town drive at the height of peak hour.  I arrived in Prahran just before 9am; enough time for a cheeky coffee before the real estate agent office opened their doors.

The office opened on time and I was handed an envelope with the keys to one hundredth gallery’s (pending) first home.  However, before I could leave the office to do my final ‘final’ inspection, I received a phone call from the agent (who wasn’t at the office yet) to let me know that nothing had been done during the weekend and all of the previous tenant’s furniture was still there.  Worse still, he did not have timeframes for when it would all be moved.  Fail.  Epic Fail.

With many companies closing up shop for Christmas, this means that we will not have the keys until 2011.  Hopefully, very very very early 2011.  Provided we still get access in early January, we still should be able to open our doors in February.  This is only a small speed bump on our journey.  We will open our doors in 2011 and progress our vision and mission to represent and launch emerging artists.

Watch this space for further details!

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tomorrow is d-day

Monday 13 December 2010 is d-day for getting the keys to our first gallery space.  All has NOT gone well in the lead up to tomorrow and the past 6 months have been a bit of a nightmare (see ‘the property’ post).  Our ‘final’ inspection on Friday revealed a space full of office furniture, files, missing light fittings and a general mess.  To make matters more interesting, the front door was blocked with lumps of concrete, chairs and other office equipment (I think someone was trying to prevent us access but can’t be sure).  To our bewilderment, there were also people moving things into our future storage cage, rather than moving things out!

All of this meant that the ‘final’ inspection ended up being the ‘second last’ inspection.  The final inspection will now be just after 9am Monday morning.  If all is not okay, a fairly large spanner will be thrown into our works.  Hopefully I’ll have good news to report after 11am.  Wish me luck!

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contact me, or else

So Charles, what happens if you can’t find emerging artists to display their art in 100thgallery?

Easy – I’ll explore my egotistical self and display my own art!

Do you have enough art to fill 32 linear metres of wall space?

Not yet, but I have enough pent-up inspiration to set to work whilst the gallery fit out is being done.

Sounds like a lot of work.

I don’t think you can call it work.  Spending hours on end painting in my studio with Ben Harper and/or Jeff Buckley, with a bit of Lisa Mitchell and Prince on the side is not work… it’s a pleasure to be doing what I love.

So, that’s it ladies and gentlemen!  If you’re not going to take the next step and launch your artistic career, I’m going to ‘plan b’ and will exhibit my own work to progress my own artistic career!

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the marketing strategy

Opening one hundredth gallery presents some immediate marketing challenges as we have at least two primary markets that we need to continually communicate with.

These are:

1. Artists

Without art, one hundredth gallery will just be a room with really good lighting.  One hundredth gallery needs artists to display their art.  There is no shortage of artists around, but how many of them are willing to take the next step to display their talents?  I sincerely hope that they all will!  Art shouldn’t be kept in private… it should be publically available for the whole world to see.

Apart from asking artists to come forward via this website, facebook, and twitter, I will be aligning the gallery with universities, TAFEs, and some high schools (especially the ones with large art departments).  I will also be approaching artists directly, so look out!

2. Public

Without the public, one hundredth gallery will just be a room full of art.  One hundredth gallery needs the public to come through the doors to appreciate the talent of our emerging artists; and if compelled buy a piece (or two) to take home with them.

For emerging artists to truly emerge, their work needs to be viewed, critiqued and bought.

One hundredth gallery will be going on the PR trail as soon as we have set an opening date.  We will be telling our story to whoever will listen… the papers, journals, magazines, bloggers, websites, etc., etc.  We are also building a mailing list and have an evolving presence on facebook and twitter, as well as the blog/website you are reading!

The next step of course, will be to explore real-world advertising opportunities such as bills, postcards and whatnot. It goes without saying that until the gallery is full of the works of emerging talent, there’s not much point just advertising the space. A little chicken and egg, for sure – but that’s half the fun, right? The point is we’re not of the ‘build it and they will come’ mentality – we’re aware that there are two audiences here that we need to attract, but for rather different reasons.

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inspirationism

The year was 1993.  I had learned the art of etching and my teachers and peers had convinced me to let go of realism and explore expressionism.  So I started etching some weird and wonderful things.  All done with thin lines and enhanced with pen and ink.  My free flowing thought connected to my etcher (can’t remember if this had a proper name) and produced a heap of symbolism, some of it with intentional meaning and some of it sub-conscious thought.  Friends and peers asked me if they could score some of the acid that I was on (I wasn’t by the way) and teachers loved the originality of what I was creating.  My prints were sent to Japan, came 2nd in a Royal Melbourne Show thingy, and got me some great grades, including my only perfect score.

Due to the (apparent) high level of symbolic detail in the prints, I was always asked what they meant; what I was thinking when I did them; and what I was trying to express.  My answer changed depending on the day, and depending on who was asking the question, but the common thread was that they were just free flowing expression without intention. 

I needed a better answer.  So I started answering these questions in the following way…  ‘It’s not really relevant what I was thinking when I did it; what I’m most interested in, is what does it mean to you when you look at it?’  Genius.  I had just worked out how to legitimately answer this question with a question!

Very soon after this, I started my own art movement.  My work didn’t fit into the expressionist, impressionist, cubist, or surreal schools, so I named my movement the ‘school of inspirationism’ and registered it as a business.  As you all know, inspirationism now ranks as an equal with all other artistic schools that came before it and is also taught at all of the top schools and universities.  I also have an Aston Martin made of pure platinum.

Inspirationism will live on at 100thgallery.  Not because it is a movement unto itself, but because all art ‘inspires’.  Art inspires change, it inspires emotion, it inspires thought, it inspires action, and at a minimum it inspires us to say that we can do better.

If you’re interested in having a look at some of the old ‘inspirationism’ stuff, please check out www.inspirationism.com.  This website still exists as I never took it down and is still hosted on an old iPrimus dial up account… yes people, dial up.

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facebook, twitter, and other such things

It’s true.  A couple of years ago I told friends and family that I would not be joining facebook, twitter, or any other ‘social’ website.  Two years later, I’m on facebook, and twitter, and am also writing this blog!

So, what’s changed? 

I’m opening a new art gallery business, and there is a very good chance that my target audience, both artists and patrons of the arts use social media to communicate.  If I’m not on facebook, or twitter, or if I am not blogging about my journey, then I may as well not exist!

I come from an old school of communication that says, don’t communicate until you know what the person you’re communicating to wants to hear/see/receive.  It’s an old-school of thought as there are now millions of people ‘thinking out loud’ and millions of other people linking in to read what they want to read and discard the stuff that they’re not interested in.

So, here we go!  Please bear with me as this old dog learns some new tricks!  Social media is not my forte and I’m spending way too much time staring blankly at my computer racking my brain to try and think of something that you may want to read!

Thankfully I have a social media extraordinaire and marketing guru (my wife, Samantha from thisisbento.com) guiding me on this journey into the un/known.

If there is something that you want to know, want to read, or are interested in, then please let me know via email at charles@100thgallery.com

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you are good enough

Art is in the eye of the beholder. 

Now that my plans to open an art gallery are posted for the entire world to see, I have started to have some very interesting conversations with some very talented people.

Unfortunately, the conversations seem to be following similar lines…

CTH – Wow!  Your work is really good.  Have you ever thought about exhibiting?

Artist – No, it’s just a hobby and I’m really not good enough.

Pffft… look around people.  Art is everywhere.  We have all seen works that make us scratch our heads and say, why on earth did someone pay money for that?  Art is in the eye of the beholder and we all have an inner artist that the world should be allowed to see/hear/feel.

Art is primarily about expression.  If you can express yourself in a way that provides you an outlet whilst making an impression on others, then your job is done.  If your art then inspires others to make positive changes in their own lives, then you have truly succeeded.

This is why one hundredth gallery’s tag line is express | impress | inspire.

Take a chance… as it is likely that you are good enough!

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the property

13 December is a big day.  13 December is the day that I will (or won’t) get the keys to the first 100thgallery space.

It should have been far simpler than this but it hasn’t been and the past six months have presented some very interesting times!

You see, I found the property in March of this year signed the paperwork in June.  I was due to get the keys in September and as such, I resigned from my job (and comfortable steady income).

In September, I was told that the current/previous owner had gone into administration and that the bank were repossessing the property and shredding my paperwork.  Two weeks later, the administrator via the agent and behalf of the bank told me that I could get new paperwork if I agreed to pay more.  Ummm… how about… no.

Thankfully, the bank came back and agreed to the original price but extended the timeframes to 13 December 2010.  Actually, it was 30 December but this date also had to be amended as the bank’s representatives are all on holiday between Christmas and New Year!

So, in less than two weeks, one hundredth gallery will have a home or I’ll be back to the drawing board.  Watch this space…

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why one hundredth gallery?

I really didn’t think that naming the gallery (and business) would be as challenging as it was.  My objectives for the gallery name were that it needed to be self-explanatory, slightly abstract, cutting-edge, appealing, and something that I could be passionate about.  The name also needed to be available as a .com and .com.au and able to be registered with Consumer Affairs Victoria.  Not a tough ask at all!

The working title for the gallery for the past six months was ‘Gallery42’ as 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything (as per The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams).  The naming committee and marketing extraordinaire (my wife) vetoed the name as too abstract (specifically, the street number of the gallery is probably going to be 49… so, 42 may have been a little confusing), so it was back to the drawing board.  For the record, I still really like this name!

The next great idea was ‘Emergist’ as the gallery’s primary focus is to exhibit emerging artists.  The naming committee again vetoed the name; this time for not being inclusive enough.

Given how challenging the naming process had become, the next working title was (aptly) ‘Untitled’.  We thought that this name was uber-cool, however the internet in its modern form has been around for about 20 years so the web addresses were well and truly gone, however I did register galleryuntitled.com.au just in case.

Next Big Thing; Open Space; Once Upon A Time; Concrete Box; White Wall; Blank Wall; Display; First Look; First Show; Debut; Blank Slate; Tabula Rasa; Site Unseen; Someday, One Day; Tomorrow; Today; Nube; Aspirist; Creatist; Emergin; Future Masters; Spring; Chance; First Chance; Big Picture; Anything; Now; Now Showing; My Art; Get Art; Fluffy Fish and many others were all possible options… well… all of those except for Fluffy Fish (sorry Elise!).

Six months passed and I was still no closer to making a decision.  Thankfully, I had self-imposed a deadline, and that deadline was last Monday.

Enter 100thgallery.

Whilst this may have been the 100th name that we brainstormed, and may very well be the 100th gallery in Melbourne, these weren’t the reasons for name. 

Actually, it was all far more simple than that.  My full name is Charles Tyler Hardman, making my initials CTH.  ‘C’ in roman numerals is 100 and T and H have no Roman numerical value so the decision was made easy!  One hundredth gallery (AKA 100thgallery) was born!

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who am i?

After eagerly sending out a launch email yesterday, a friend replied saying that I had forgotten to put my name on the website.  Alas, I had!

I did have a personalised email on the site the night before, but issues with web hosting, domain hosting, name servers, domain servers, mail servers, SSL settings, MX details, A details, etc. (don’t worry, I don’t know what any of that means either) meant that I had to swap to a gmail account.

All is fixed now and charles@100thgallery.com is active, but I thought it would be a good idea to introduce myself to those of you I haven’t met.

Like many people, when I finished high school, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do.  Actually, I did know what I wanted to do.  I wanted to paint, draw, and print but I couldn’t work out how I was going to make any money out of it when I couldn’t get a look in with any of the galleries. 

So, I ventured out into the “real” world… I kept my two casual jobs, started a third, and went to university full-time.  Whilst it didn’t all go smoothly (I failed my first semester and was door-knocking for a living), I ended up with an Organisational Psychology degree and was heading up Training & Development for telecommunications companies.

Fast forward another few years and I had completed my Masters in Adult Education (& Training) and was working in General Management roles.  I did a three year stint heading up a business unit in Bristol, UK (a truly amazing experience) and came back to a GM HR role about two and a half years ago.

And there I was.  I had a couple of degrees and 17 years of corporate experience up my sleeve. I had been with my employer for over 7 years and new opportunities for progression had dried up.

It was time to revisit what I really wanted to do… paint, draw, and print.  Whilst I had continued to dabble in painting and drawing during the past years, it quickly dawned on me that the initial hurdles that I faced with exhibiting my work in galleries would still be there.

So, rather than rely on other galleries to exhibit my work, I decided to open my own.  And rather than exhibiting my own work, I would exhibit other artists work.  Emerging artists shouldn’t have to delay their dreams and they shouldn’t have to work in the corporate machine before attempting them.

One hundredth gallery aims to provide a space for artists to exhibit their work, but more importantly provide the opportunity for artists to give their craft a red-hot-go with the aim of making a living out of it.

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