Giveaway: Goodies at Blue Dome Arts Festival

As seen in today's Urban Tulsa Weekly... (Photos by Don Emrick, courtesy www.bluedomeartsfestival.com)

In 2001, a group of 20 artists gathered in the courtyard of fellow artist Virginia Harrison's Owen Park home for the First International Clayfest. Little did they know that, eight years later, their little gathering would grow into a major arts event, attracting hundreds of artists and thousands of visitors.

The Blue Dome Arts Festival, which occupies First and Second Streets at Elgin and Detroit of the Blue Dome District this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, began because local artists wanted to devise a way to be part of Mayfest, a 37-year-old arts and music festival that infiltrates downtown Tulsa each spring.

Mayfest attracts hundreds of artists from all over the country. They're selected by a jury to show work at the festival. In 1982, Mayfest incorporated the Invitational Gallery in order to accommodate more local artists in the festival. Those artists are juried as well, and with about 100 spots available, admission into the gallery is competitive.

"Local artists were frustrated that they couldn't get into the gallery because of the competition," said Harrison, who works in ceramics and glass. "There are so many artists in Tulsa, and they needed to be able to show their work. We realized that people really want to see local artists' work."

Those artists decided to hold their festival at the same time as Mayfest because, Harrison said, people were excited about art during Mayfest. They encouraged people to stop by their festival once they'd left downtown.

In only two years, Clayfest outgrew Harrison's back yard, so she approached developer Michael Sager, who owns much of the property in downtown's Blue Dome District, about having their event in that area. He loved it, and since 2003, the Blue Dome Arts Festival has steadily grown, both in number of participants and patrons.

Harrison said she's learned something about hosting the festival every year, and she understands how Mayfest started out as a small celebration of artists and grew into a massive event.

In fact, her hope for the future is that Blue Dome Arts Festival and Mayfest meld into one large, arts-lovin' event. Whether that will happen or not remains to be seen, but the two festivals' organizers work in tandem with one another to ensure that both festivals are well-attended and achieve their missions of celebrating and proliferating art.

More than 100 artists will set up booths at this year's Blue Dome Arts Festival, and an additional 30 or so can set up in the festival's space for Emerging Artists. The Emerging Artists area is dedicated to young artists who've perhaps never participated in a festival before and aren't quite sure how. They can set up for free, learn a bit from veteran Blue Dome artists, and then perhaps set up their own booths next year.

In addition to the Emerging Artists area, the festival has added an Emerging Musicians element to the festival, allowing young, burgeoning musicians to set up and play on Blue Dome's stage in between scheduled musical acts.

Tulsa's own Hanson will make a stop at the Blue Dome district at 11am on Sat., May 16. The band will conduct a mile-long segment of its "The Walk Tour," which supports the new album, The Walk. The tour is fighting poverty and AIDS in Africa.

For a complete list of artists and musicians who'll be at the festival, visit www.bluedomeartsfestival.com.

Though the Arts and Humanities Council of Tulsa sponsors the Blue Dome Arts Festival and area restaurants and business contribute to its success, it's still very much a grassroots event, organized entirely by volunteers.

And while Mayfest still attracts more artists and seems to earn artists more money for their work, many of the artists exhibiting in Mayfest's Invitational Gallery will also have booths at Blue Dome Festival, including Harrison. The artists at Blue Dome Festival are generally younger, emerging artists, giving the entire festival a more bohemian feel.

The festival is open Friday, from 12-9pm; Saturday, from 10am to 8pm; and Sunday from 10am to 4pm.

Virginia Harrison gave me a certificate for two free gyros and two free pieces of make-and-take art from Tulsa Stained Glass Co. to give away to two readers. One reader will win the gyros and one will win the stained glass art. To win, leave a comment telling me your favorite aspect of the Blue Dome Arts Festival. The winners will be chosen at random at 9am Thursday, May 14. Good luck!

First Friday in the Brady Arts District

I just called Janice McCormick at the Tulsa Artists' Coalition Gallery to get information about TAC's presence at the Brady Arts District's First Friday Art Crawl for the May 7 issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly.

"Um, isn't May 1 the first Friday of the month?" she politely asked me, while probably silently reeling at my idiocy.

That's what I would have done, anyway.

So, since I, for some reason, though that May 8 was the first Friday of the month, I didn't include information about the First Friday Art Crawl or about the Visual Arts Center's Baywalk in this week's UTW column.

I apologize.

For about a year now, galleries in the Brady Arts District have been joining forces to collectively open their doors on the first Friday of each month. Greg Gray, owner of Club 209, organizes the event, which involves the Tulsa Artists' Coalition Gallery, Club 209, CFC Chocolatier, the Tulsa Glassblowing Studio and Donna Prigmore's pottery gallery holding exhibit openings and other art-related events all on the same night, at the same time.

In addition, at the May and June events, the Visual Arts Center will host a Baywalk, wherein artists will set up shop just inside the garage doors of the Mathews Warehouse, the future site of the center at Brady and Boston. About 20 or so artists will be there with wine and work, exhibiting and selling to passersby.

The entire event is free and open to the public, and it's a great time. I took Isaac last month and he was fascinated by the glassblowing at the Glassblowing Studio. I mean, really. He stared at it forever. I think he sensed that he could break it, and that intrigued him.

And I love seeing so many bodies in downtown Tulsa at once, all gathered for the purpose of celebrating and supporting local artists. Awesome.

First Friday starts at about 5:30 or so on Friday, May 1. At each gallery there will be a sheet of paper with information on participating galleries, their addresses and the times of their openings. Because TAC won't open until Tuesday, May 5 (its annual 5x5 show; read more about that later), the gallery won't be open, but they'll have a table at the Baywalk with a sneak preview of a couple of the 5x5 pieces and some info about coming attractions.

Dealing with the media: We're not so bad

I've almost recovered from my very hectic, but very exciting, weekend. I saw two stellar theatre performances -- The Playhouse Theater's Romeo and Juliet and Theatre Tulsa's Educating Rita -- and I had the honor of being a presenter at Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition's latest installment in its Artist Survival Kit workshops, called Stop the Press!

The workshop, which spanned about three and a half hours Saturday, involved a wonderfully informative presentation by Adrienne Nobles, communications director for the University of Central Oklahoma, on the basics of writing and releasing press releases, making and maintaining media contacts and otherwise connecting with the media. The information was intended for artists, but it would be valuable to any small business person who lacks the experience or know-how of working with the media.

Following her presentation, we lunched and listened to Kathy McRuiz update us on the progress of the Arts and Humanities Council of Tulsa's Visual Arts Center, an exciting endeavor that that will bring even more cultural and arts appreciation to the Brady District and looks to be completed by fall 2010.

Then, Glenda Silvey and I talked on what to expect during a media interview. I had no idea that Silvey was an avid collector of Oklahoma art, and, after speaking with her, I appreciate so much the coverage she gave local arts endeavors while she was an anchor at KOTV. I didn't realize TV stations are so reluctant to cover arts and culture stories, and Silvey said the sparse attention given these kinds of stories is only going to get worse, as more and more stations become increasingly concerned with their bottom lines.

I'm totally in the dark when it comes to the ins and outs of broadcast media, and I appreciated Silvey's informative and insightful presentation. What I liked most about her, though, was her sincere interest in each and every artist who attended the seminar and her desire to help them in any way she could.

OVAC is doing a highly commendable thing by offering this series of workshops, which serve to teach artists the business of art, giving them access to the tools they need to be, not only creatively successful, but also financially successful in their work.

Briefly, here are some of the highlights of the seminar. Most of these are borrowed from Nobles' presentation.

*In writing a press release, highlight the aspect of your exhibit or event that makes it unique to your reader. What are you doing that is different, contemporary, exciting?

*Invest in an Associated Press style book (available at college bookstores and online) and write according to AP style. This makes it much easier for the media person you're contacting to translate your release directly to print.

*Also invest in an Oklahoma Media Guide, available at www.okpress.com, and get to know the media contacts in your area. Before you even have an event, make contact, let that person know who you are, offer to take him/her out to lunch. Nine times out of 10, you won't be turned down.

*Know the publication/station's deadlines, for stories and for calendar submissions, and get your stuff to them as early as possible.

*Have a Web site or a blog on which you display your art work. A Web site is the most important marketing tool you have.

*Have someone else read over anything you plan to send to the media before you send it. Make sure it is informative, well-written and clever, free of grammatical errors, misspellings and punctuation mistakes. Always include a link to a site to which someone can go to view and download images of your work. Make it as easy as possible for the media to use your words and images, and they will.

*If you have questions about writing news releases, try these links: Publicity Insider, Press Release Writing Tips, wikiHow

*Don't be nervous! We're people, too! That said, don't always expect your event/gallery/whatever to receive coverage. We try to cover everything we can, but there's no possible way to cover it all. Be patient, be persistent and don't give up. And, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me!