A group of artists were approached by the local bed and breakfast group to be available to have our studios open for visitors coming to Trumansburg. It would be a nice marketing hook for this group and made sense except to her crankiness, me. My big beef is that these nice studio tours that would be tagged into a marketing plan for the B&Bs would hold me hostage to being open (even on the weekends) and manifest itself in someone buying a box of cards to be "nice". Profit to the B&Bs (free programming) and profit to the visitor (free stuff to do)--but it made me cranky. So, when approached, I said NO, no no...but. It's the Buts that always get me into trouble. I said, what if we posted a site of artists in the area and if, just if, your visitor wanted to see the stuff live, they could call or email (which is part of the site) and we could accomodate. We, the artists, get our work out to a larger group. They, the Bed and Breakfasts have a gumdrop to offer to their guests. And, we get to portray a group of artists that are in our little town, on our quiet plateau, to not just the visitors but to those who live and work in Tburg. A letter went out to around forty people and we are putting up mini sites (Luckystone providing gratis), and we have gone live. It is nice to see the range of work, of artists, of people--and from what I can see coming in through email and snail mail, this should be a nice offering. Now, I need to think about how we get the URL out to the broader world so we can begin to get some hits. Today, it's sending it out to you all. Then, mid May, a note to the Chamber of Commerce, Community Arts Partnership and a few other arts organizations in Tompkins, Broome, Chemung, Schuyler and Steuben Counties. Need to see if there are any freebie places to site the site. We'll see.

check it out>> The Trumansburg Art Collective>>