#200Fish Newsletter June 10th 2018
Firstly, apologies for the length of this rambling newsletter.
If you haven’t time to read it all just now, please skip to the end where I
have summarised the key points.
As you may know, we have confirmed dates for our main
exhibition of the fish art: open to the public on Thursday 23rd August and
every day to Monday 3rd September. We will set up the exhibition on Wednesday
22nd August and have a preview party that evening for artists and friends.
Tuesday 4th September we take the exhibition down.
We need to have the artworks in the gallery as early as
possible on the 22nd. That means you either have to bring your work on that day
or you get it to my house any time before that, delivered personally or sent in
the post. (Address at the bottom.)
For 2D works to be hung on the walls, we have to have them
framed and with a string on the back – there will be a rod and hook hanging
system (I believe!). I realise that if you live far away and intend to post
your work, sending framed stuff can be tricky, especially if it involves a
piece of glass rather than plastic glazing. If it really can’t be helped you
could send me work on paper and I will put it in a frame. We don’t have a
budget for this so it will be something I find in a charity shop and the time
and work involved means I can only do this for a few works so please don’t rely
on this.
3D works we will accommodate in the best way we can. We will
provide plinths. The sooner we know how big your work is the greater the chance
we will have of getting a plinth that fits it.
Insurance. We do not have any insurance cover for your
artworks. Of course we will endeavour to take care of your work but please
arrange your own insurance if you feel it might be appropriate.
Publications. As you know, we’ve been putting your pictures
and writing on our website as soon as you send material to us. We’re now in the
process of converting all this material into a print. The current plan is to
produce two things, one a small format, cheap, catalogue, which has your
pictures and the names of the fish and artists but not a lot more text. We hope
to produce this for about £3. We also want to produce a much more lavish book
in a larger format that really does your images justice and includes all the
informative text, poems, songs and so on. It will probably cost nearer £20 but
it should be a nice thing to own and keep.
Part, and it’s an important part, of this project is to get
artists to learn a little about their subjects and to communicate to their
audiences what they find out, not just through images but also in words. We’ve
asked you to do a little research, find something out about your fish, factual,
scientific information, the fishes place in culture and folklore perhaps, and
your own personal relationship with the subject. You might feel moved to
versify or write a song. On the website I added a few links to information
sources to get you going.
Now some of you have produced some excellent pieces of
writing. Thankyou. Some of you, in the light of the idea that your words will
be lying on the nation’s coffee tables for years to come, might like to review
what you’ve done and change it. Easy, just email me an updated version. And
some of you will prefer not to write anything at all. That’s fine; there is no
compulsion about this; it’s entirely up to you. For fish that we don’t get much
text, we might add something ourselves. We do want each page to be individual
and reflect the work of you all, our multiple authors, rather than appear to be
a book written by one person. That said, we reserve the right to edit your work
to improve readability where we feel appropriate or add information where
interesting stuff may have been missed.
Copyright. Now, forgive me for getting a bit
school-teacherish here but while it’s fine to get information from books and
online sources, what we can’t do is publish material that is somebody else’s
intellectual property without their permission. So please don’t just copy and
paste a paragraph from Wikipedia or wherever; it has to be your own work. If
you do quote somebody else’s words then you must acknowledge the author with a
reference to the source. By sending us written material you declare that are
the copyright owner and that you give this copyright to the Lincolnshire Time
and Tide Bell CIC which will then have the right to amend and use in any way.
Could you please check, by looking at the webpage that shows
your fish, that I have your description of the media used and the dimensions of
the work. If this information doesn’t appear could you send (or re-send) it to
me, please.
The actual artworks. The exhibition will be set up on
Wednesday 22nd September and we aim to have a party that evening.
It’s going to be a rush, hanging 200 pictures in less than a day so we really
need your works in the morning or earlier. Either get your works to my house
any time, by post or call in yourself, or try to come to the gallery as earlier
as you can on the Wednesday.
It’s entirely up to you whether you wish to offer your work
for sale or not, but if you do I need to know the price you want beforehand, so
I can print a price list and labels etc. We won’t be charging any commission
but the gallery may charge a commission. They have still not decided this. It
might be worth assuming there may be, say, a 25% commission, so set you price
accordingly. Tell me the price you want to receive and then I’ll add the
commission, if any, onto the list price when I know it.
Collecting your work, or not. The exhibition ends on Monday
3rd September and we have Tuesday 4th to take down and
clear out. If you want your work back then, please come and collect. That, of
course is tricky for those of you who have sent works from the far corners of
the planet. We’ll make individual arrangements. However, we have plans to take
the #200Fish on the road with exhibitions at various venues. We have ideas but
nothing definitive yet. It would be great if, unless you particularly want your
work back immediately, you could leave it with us, to exhibit again.
Fantastically, some of you have sent us your artwork saying it is a donation to
our company and we can keep it or sell it if we can and keep the proceeds to
further future projects. Thank you very much. Needless to say we would welcome
further such generous gifts.
For 2D works please ensure they are framed and with D-rings
and string, as we will be using a rod and hook hanging system. If it is really
impossible to send us your work in a frame (it’s on paper and you are posting
it from Mongolia) then we do have a few frames that we found in charity shops
and will do our best to present your work as best we can, but we don’t have a
budget for this so don’t rely on us! For 3D works, we’ll just treat each piece
as best we can.
If you want to try to sell prints, priced and cellophane
wrapped, that’s fine, though we only have a limited display space.
If you have signed up for doing one of the fish, but now
find that you won’t be able to produce an artwork after all, please let us know
so that your fish can be allocated to somebody else. It would be a shame if
somebody gets put off painting a picture because they think somebody else is
doing one and then it turns out that they don’t.
Finally and in other matters, the Time and Tide Bell
installation on the beach north of Mablethorpe is now scheduled to happen a bit
later in the summer, hopefully just after the #200Fish exhibition closes.
Later in the year, lightly pencilled in 14th to
28th November, we will be holding another art exhibition at the
North Sea Observatory. Called ‘By the Sea’ it will be a contemporary take on
the wild coastal landscape of Lincolnshire. This is not quite the mass participation
project of #200Fish but we have still a little space available so if any of you
would like to submit a proposal of work to be submitted for this show, please
e-mail me. http://transitiontownlouth.org.uk/bell3.html
Set up day: Wednesday 22nd August 2018.
Party night (vernissage, for those who like such things):
evening of 22nd August.
Open to public Thursday 23rd August to Monday 3rd
September, inclusive.
Take down day Tuesday 4th September. Collect your
work then if you need it back at the end of this exhibition. Leave it with us
if you want it shown again.
Either send or deliver you work to my house in North
Somercotes before the 22nd August or bring to the North Sea Observatory
on the 22nd, earlier in the day the better.
2D work should be able to be hung on a wall with hooks. This
probably means framed and with D-rings and string fitted. 3D work will be
displayed as appropriate.
If you want to offer your work for sale make sure you tell
us how much you want, net of any possible gallery commission, in good time so
we can print the price list. (We don’t take any commission ourselves – as a
community arts organisation we’re on your side!)
If you would like your work retained by us for the next
exhibition of the #200Fish that’s excellent.
If you want to donate your work to us so we can sell it and
support our future projects that would be marvellous.
We do not carry any insurance for your works – leave it with
us entirely at your own risk.
Have you sent us your writing about your fish? We intend to
create two publications, one a cheap, brief catalogue and the other a more
lavish, more expensive, book. We don’t have a print deadline set but send your
written material soon or you may miss out.
Please confirm that it is your own work and does not
infringe any copyright or other intellectual property rights. Understand that
by sending us written material you agree to give copyright to the Lincolnshire
Time and Tide Bell CIC and that we can then use the material in any amended
form and publish in any medium.
If you are interested in our next exhibition, ‘By the Sea’,
let me know.
Artistic Director, Lincolnshire Time and Tide Bell Community
Interest Company
