As January starts to gather speed, I have been trying to catch up on e-mail and the art programme I have ahead. Tomorrow, about thirty-six of us, art-lovers, will be joining Curator Holly McCullough to tour the exhibition, Dutch Utopia, at the Jepson Center of the Telfair Museum in Savannah. I had asked Holly, a dear friend, if she would lead this tour if I got together a group for January 6th. The response has been marvellous. Holly McCullough has been the lead Curator in preparing this exhibition for about five years, and she is thus an expert on this interesting collection of art created in Holland in the late 19th century by expatriate American artists.
Canal Scene, Holland, 1881, oil on panel, John Henry Twachtman
Next week, it will be my turn to talk about art, when I join my friend and art colleague, Marjett Schille, to discuss our art at the North Georgia College and State University's Bob Owens Gallery. Having created art on Sapelo Island, thanks to the Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve staff allowing us to be there as Artists in Residence, we want to tell the college students about creating art plein air. We also want to talk about the ecological importance of such barrier islands as Sapelo, quite apart from their magical qualities.
Meanwhile, I have been trying to catch up on wisdom of fellow art professionals that they share on forums sites in Linked In. They have so many ideas and tips about how to increase traffic to art websites and art blogs. However, I have privately decided that other people must have found how to stretch their days more than the regulatory twenty-four hours! A presence on Facebook - yes, definitely, but the time to tweet on Twitter, post to YouTube, peruse StumbleUpon, discuss things on WetCanvas, scroll through Squidoo, create a store on Etsy – I don't know if 2010 will push me into all these avenues that so many other artists have already explored.