The newest edition of the SwingWorks gallery will use the space in our lobby at our current location at 577 S. Market Street as a gallery/retail store. With a load of traffic that goes by the front of that building (two freeway entrances are around the corner) the gallery/store concept is one that can succeed on its own merits.
THE GALLERY
My notion for the gallery is to have a series of ongoing shows to draw traffic into the stores on a regular basis. The current show features art from the Haunted Mansion comic book series. While the limitations of our license with Disney prevents us from fully implementing the gallery concept (by selling prints for instance) it does give us a high profile draw to establish the location in peoples minds.
The follow up shows will deal with themes established in advance and designed to let you, the SLG artist, try and do illustration work that shows off your talents. The way the shows will work is like this:
1) An announcement will be sent out via our creator email blast letting everyone know about an upcoming showing and setting a deadline for entries.
2) Before the deadline, you will send a low res jpg image of your drawings. If you would like to send sketches first before going to finished art that would be fine and, as a matter of fact, encouraged (in order to elimiinate duplication).
3) SLG will review the submissions and select a number of the entries (it could be anywhere from everything submitted to maybe two pieces per artist, depending on the number of submissions).
4) Before the show, you will send us your originals in a matte, frame, or in some other format suitable for display. If you don't want to go the expense of framing, that's okay, we can work with it. If you do frame the work, it will have to be in something that can be removed so that we can scan the work for the prints and catalog/book we will print (see next steps below). If you want to send us the work already scanned, that's fine too, but the idea for this step is that we want artwork that we can hang in our gallery for display.
5) A date for an opening will be established and then, there you go, your stuff will be on display for anywhere from 1-2 months (until we change shows).
6) Artwork and print sales. What we plan to do is to sell prints of the pieces in the show. We recently purchased a six color, high quality printer that prints on canvas as well as photo paper and other high-end specialty papers. In order to keep the retail cost of the prints down, we plan on doing the prints in a semi-on demand fashion, starting with a small inventory of prints for immediate on-hand sales and replenishing on an as-needed basis. Reduced waste means a lower retail price, greater sales and greater profits.
My initial idea is that we will offer prints in two formats and prices. Smaller, 8.5x11 prints on glossy or satin photo paper and larger pieces on canvas which we will stretch and mount to a size that is best suited to the piece and the quality of the electronic file. We will sell the prints at a price to be determined later. Our cut of the sales of these prints will be 60%, which sounds high but SLG will be covering ALL of the cost of printing, materials and distribution.
A show book will also be printed, this will initially be in small quantities and sold only on site or at conventions, a royalty of 15% of the cover price will be established for this book and royalties will be distributed on a pro-rated basis.
During the period of the show, SLG will also handle the original art sales for the pieces. You as an artist will establish a minimum price for your orginal, we may adjust upward if we think you are being conservative with your prices. SLG will take a 50% cut of the sales of the original pieces, so you will need to establish your price with that in mind( that is, if you want say $100 for a piece, we are going to sell it for $200).
7) VIRTUAL GALLERY - In addition to the sales on location, SLG will also be establishing a virtual, online gallery where your pieces will be on display and offered for sale. This gallery will take the form of an ebay store, where we will, on occasion, list the prints (not the originals) for sale on ebay. This is designed to draw traffic to the site. Ebay, as most of you know, has millions of worldwide users. By establishing the stores presence on Ebay we should be able to expose your work to thousands of people who are not currently comic book readers. This will also allow SLG to establish an online presence on ebay with appearing to compete with retailers who are buying our regular comic book product.
The lsiting in the virtual gallery will stay available well after we have changed shows, so it is possible that we will be selling prints from one show after we have changed shows in the physical gallery.
I am very excited about the gallery concept and what it can do for SLG in the long run, both as a stand-alone concept and as something that will further help promote the comic book work of all of our outstanding artists. As I mentioned above, our first show is in progress with the Haunted Mansion work currently on display. the shows we have planned for the future are as follows:
1) Art of the Tiki, cocktails and pop-culture polynesia - Polynesian and tiki subject matter. This is more wide open than you think. It doesn't have to be JUST tikis, but anything to do with polynesia, the pop-culture images of tikis and polynesia, or any kind of island themed drawing. Whimsical, serious, whatever.
Show Opens: March 1
Submission date: January 1
Final art due date: February 1
2) Tron and the art of the future. Obviously this is designed to help do a local launch of the Tron comic book. We plan on having a lot of Tron images on display. However this is about Tron and the Digital World of Tomorrow. So, what I would like is to get futuristic images, cityscapes, astronauts, circuit designs, retro visions of the future, the works. You can do a Tron piece, however we will not be able to sell Tron prints, so it would not behoove you to do one of these.
Show Opens: May 1
Submission Date: March 1
Final Art Due: April 1
3) Wonderland and other worlds of wonder. Again, this is themed after one of our Disney licenses, but the concept itself is wide open. Alice in Wonderland is a public domain property and thus you could do your own vision of Wonderland and it would still be cool to sell prints and the like.
Show Opens: June 15
Submission Date: April 22
Art Due: May 15
4) Pirates and othe unsavory characters. Everyone likes pirates. yarr matey, this could be any kind of bad guy, seafaring or otherwise.
Show Opens: August 1
Submission date: June 1
art due: july 1
5) Gargoyles Ghosts and other spooky beasts. This will be a Halloween themed show with ghosts ghouls vampires and haunted houses being the major theme.
Show Opens: October 1
Submission Date: August 1
Art Due: September 1
7) Santa & other Suburban Nightmares. Holdiay themed show, but I would encourage you all to take this concept and turn it on its head. Get weird. Or cute.
Show Opens: December 1
Submission Due: October 1
Art Due: November 1
THESE DATES AND SHOW CONCEPTS ARE NOT SET IN STONE! As with anything in life, our plans are tentative. Also, unlike everything else we do here at SLG, I am welcoming input from everyone on this. For the time being I will be handling all of the gallery/store details myself. So, if you have any questions, comments or suggestions please email them to me at my now email address of danvado at slgbiz.com (I am trying to keep this address spam free, so close up the spaces and put the @ symbol in the appropriate place) or give me a call at the office.
The idea here is to have fun, get daring, try new things and go for something that will be cool and which we can all be proud of. I'm also hoping that you will all try and do something beyond comics artists.
Hope to hear from you all soon.
Dan Vado