Posts from ‘Economy’
Paul West, "Key West Pier," copyright 2007
“The Photography” is here, and Edward Riddell brought it. Riddell’s affinity for European flair — particularly Italy’s culture and language—inspired him to title his new collection of curated fine prints Le Fotographie.
Photographers represented on the site are long-standing friends of Riddell’s, and he’s taught the craft alongside many of them. Knowing Riddell’s penchant for professionalism and perfection, colleagues were more than willing to test the idea. A ringing response to a challenging economy and a boon to photography collectors challenged by high prices, Le Fotographie offers the opportunity to purchase great photographic prints. Riddell calls photography one of America’s truly original contributions to the art world, and it just seems appropriate to make photography—a medium that can be replicated almost infinitely—available to anyone.
At this writing, Riddell has just re-structured his pricing. Prints are available beginning at $24.95 plus shipping and handling. Periodically the new business will offer free shipping on purchases over a certain amount. Prints are delivered in special boxes containing an embossed portfolio folder for the print, and a transparent, embossed protective tissue.
If Riddell is successful, his new resource stands to create solid competition for galleries charging much higher prices for limited edition prints. Le Fotographie is the second major innovative Jackson-based arts marketing project in as many months.
(These dynamic initiatives are at the core of what the Town of Jackson needs to incorporate as we plan for the future. We need to be in the business of creating a distinct identity, instead of trying to replicate Teton Village and Shooting Star aprés ski ambience. We don’t have the location, and we need to diversify our economic base. If you had $500/night to spend at a ski resort, where would you stay? In town, or at Teton Village/Shooting Star/Amangani?)
Riddell says Ansel Adams’ Yosemite portfolio is really responsible for the creation of Le Fotographie. In 1958, Adams made affordable prints of some of his most famous images. His will stipulated that those prints would continue to be made
Matt Mallams, "Purse Snatcher," copyright 2006
after his death; he reserved the other negatives, which will never be available for sale.
“As Ansel told the story he believed tourists and visitors to Yosemite ought to be able to have a really beautiful souvenir, something other than “rubber tomahawks” sold in so many of the shops. So to this day the prints are available for only $225, which is incredibly inexpensive for a real Adams print,” explains Riddell. “They are unsigned and stamped ‘Ansel Adams Special Edition Print.’ A signed version of any of those prints would be worth many thousands of dollars.”
Limited supplies are pricier, but few editions of any photogrpaher’s work sell out.
“The concept of limited editions is inherently ‘unphotographic.’ After all, photography is virtually the only art form with the ability to produce infinite original prints from a single image,” explains Riddell. Â Le Fotographie offers unlimited images of every image cataloged.
Riddell’s expertise, love of the medium and, frankly, exquisite taste, curated the collection; but he offers a “democratic” product. Riddell thinks Adams would have championed the concept, and he has stamped “Le Fotografie Authorized Special Edition Print” with a copyright notice for the photographer on each order.
Using the highest quality archival paper and pigment inks, each print is made after the photographer has approved a master print of each image on the site. Riddell will add more images–change things up–monthly. Â The site offers a newsletter, reviews, and (GASP!) a blog that will cover topics relating to photography and the website.
“This way photographers can continue to sell signed editions of their prints to collectors willing to pay a premium for the signature. But for those who just enjoy a beautiful photograph they can afford to buy it and enjoy looking at a beautiful print every day,” says Riddell. Much more information is available on the website:  www.lefotographie.com.
Photo Credits:  Top, left:  Paul Adams, “Key West,” © 2006;  Middle, right:  Matt Mallams, “Purse Snatcher,” © 2006; Below, center:  Jon Stuart, “Backstop at la Taos Church,” © 2007.
Jon Stuart, "Backstop at la Taos Church," copyright 2007
Buy five, get one free. Â That’s the simple and sound model for a new brochure-ticket created by five regional museums in the Greater Yellowstone area. Wyoming’s Buffalo Bill Historical Center (BBHC) in Cody, WY; the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, WY; the Carbon County Historical Society and Museum in Red Lodge, MT; the Yellowstone Historic Center in West Yellowstone; and the Yellowstone Gateway Museum, Livingston, MT are offering families a chance at a free family membership.
All you have to do is visit each of these museums before December 31, 2011. Â With each visit you will receive a passport-like “stamp.” Once the fifth and final museum is visited and your passport is full, a free family membership to the to the
final museum is awarded. Hence, if you have a hankering for a BBHC family membership—good for a year—make that museum your fifth stop.
A query as to whether passport owners may request the reward of a family membership to be gifted to another family has not been answered; Â but it seems a good way to get even more people to visit the great consortium of museums surrounding Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. For now, go with the assumption that the gift is non-transferable.
Questions? Â Contact Marguerite House (307.578.4137/margueriteh@bbhc.org ) Â OR Lee Haines ( leeh@bbhc.org/ 307.578.4014) Â at the BBHC.
The BBHC released the announcement, and you can visit their website at www.bbhc.org.
Has Jackson’s first business incubator arrived on the scene?
It may have, but do the artists and activists involved know it?
Not long ago, Travis Walker’s Teton Art Lab up and left their Center for the Arts space. The group loaded up its truck and moved to Greg-o-ry.
Lane, that is. Â 6,500 square feet in the facility formerly home to Huckleberry Mountain Candy Company. Teton Art Lab is the new landlord. The group is reportedly sub-renting space to MADE’s John Frechette, who will use the space as his studio (he’s not moving out of his retail shop in Gaslight Alley); to artist Ben Roth, who will also use his corner as studio space, and to blogger/filmmaker/photographer/activist David Gonzales—word has it that Gonzales plans to capture artists creating and composing, and post it to his site. Â Abbie Miller has been down there, sewing her heart out; Â and a musical group emulating the Greatful Dead has set up rehearsal space.
That’s a factory! Â A huge Warhol fan, Walker may have subconsciously (or consciously) established his own arts assembly line. “The Incubator.” Â ”The Assembly.” The new location is certainly not a great foot traffic/retail space, but that could change. And maybe Jackson’s town leaders will take notice. If ArtLab and its tenants succeed in their mission, they will nurture new artists, new business and talent. And product.
Business incubators often get established because communities donate empty, excessive space. Business incubators can be industrial, high-tech, medical, artistic, even food growers. The idea, says one expert, is to set up a commercial building capable of housing different operations and industries at low cost. Incubators supply in-house office help to all tenants—copy machines, answering phones, teaching technology skills. Assistance continues until fledgling businesses are developed enough to move out of the space on their own. Cost of doing business is lowered. The vacated incubator space is filled by a new, young enterprise.
ChubbyBrain, a tool resource for business entrepreneurs, posted a United States map that in 2009, highlighted states with incubators. Maps measure total number, distribution and “scalability.” ChubbyBrain’s totals map is
shown here. The site also graphs 2009′s top ten incubators. Healthcare offers the most, followed by technology and internet companies.
Incubators are measured several ways, but Wyoming, as of 2009, had zero incubator presence.
“We funded an incubator with a USDA grant which purchased the building,” says my expert. Â ”We then set up a non profit corporation with the board being half private and half government. The government board members were mayors and commissioners. It is important to get real business expertise on this board. Activists have the vision but not often the practical skills to make it happen.”
Well, we need business experts. We’re loaded with activists in Jackson, so what we need are business strategists acting in the interest of diversifying (lessening risk) Jackson’s economy. Â Leaders should look to establish tax breaks for properties that can’t, in the immediate future, realize full value for their space.
Risk happens not only when you carry potentially volatile investments; it exists when you invest in mainstream, blue-chip sectors—if that’s your only portfolio presence, you are carrying great risk.  Ask anyone loaded with BP stock or too much empty, expensive commercial and residential real estate in Teton County.
My expert councils that the best way to start is to visit established, successful incubators. Many aren’t viable because they are not grounded in solid business basics.To provide a job, a business (or any enterprise) must be successful enough to generate plenty of worthwhile income.
Item #2
CIAO Gallery has put out a call for entries for “Autumn Leaves – Works Inspired by the Fall.” Deadline is October 29, 2010. Â Artists are invited to submit their entries to the gallery by visiting CIAO’s website and clicking on the “Call to Artists” page. Â There, you will find instructions. Â www.ciaogallery.com. Â Â Good luck!
The Great Plains, for many an undefinable space, is “….a place that you can feel deep in your bones, a place where you cross into this space where the land is mostly just an anchor for the sky–it’s a place where you can’t open your arms wide enough to take it all in.”
Michael Forsberg’s photographic embrace of America’s great, sweeping prairies Great Plains – America’s Lingering Wild, on display at the National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA), reveals that region’s ecosystem’s tender underbelly.  The great magic of the plains is mystery—its ability to “camouflage” its own natural wonders.
Nature’s camouflage, though, is natural wonder. Â In this enchanting exhibition Forsberg wakes us up to the fact that what many people might dismiss as dull, in-the-way detrius is critical foundation for this embattled grassland ecosystem. Â Like many wildlife photographers, Forsberg
stuffs himself into a bivy and otherwise does what he needs to do to capture his images of wild lands and wild species. Â But Forsberg’s photography is friendly–not freaky. Â A wide angle view provides hemispherical landscapes; viewers swim through these prairies, spotting primrose, cougars, bird species, butterflies, tiger salamanders—and of course the great Bison—from behind diving goggles.
You can stand out in the tall grass prairie and not move all day, says Forsberg, and see all sorts of creatures that will come your way. Â But, he clarifies, you can also just look at your feet and see hundreds of species….(the prairie) is just teeming with life.
Childhood innocence, that scampering into twilight when fireflies commence their blinking. Â That’s what Forsberg accesses. Â We’re playing hide-and-seek in these waving, flowered, delicately populated fields. Â This is a treasure hunt. Â Forsberg handles his subjects with utmost delicacy, lest they break.
Great Plains – America’s Lingering Wild, remains on display at NMWA through January 30, 2011. Â Â www.wildlifeart.org
Item #2
Last week Governor Freudenthal’s office and the Wyoming Arts Council released Wyoming’s Creative Vitality Index.
The (pie chart rich) 107-page report “measures the changes in the economic health of an area by integrating economic data streams from both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors. Through per capita measurements of
revenue data from both for-profit and nonprofit entities as well as employment data from a selection of highly creative occupations, the system aggregates the data streams into a single index value that reflects the relative economic health of a geography’s creative economy. The CVI provides an easily understandable measure of economic health to help communicate information from a broad arts coalition to policy makers and stakeholders.” *
Where did this report come from?
“The CVI grew out of a conversation about whether to undertake an economic impact study of the arts. The staff leadership of the Washington State Arts Commission and the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, in collaboration with others, explored ways to expand and enrich the economic argument for support of the arts and especially public funding of the arts. In doing so, the group was influenced by two national conversations concerning economic development: the defining of a creative economy and the outlining of the concept of economic development clusters. Those conversations did something the nonprofit arts community was very late in doing–they included the related for-profit creative sector in a universe normally reserved for nonprofits.
The public value work articulated by Mark Moore also played a role in the development of the CVI. That work helped the public sector component of the nonprofit arts funding community move away from a perspective oriented toward saving the arts to considering ways to be responsive to what citizens wanted in the arts. The approach also worked to shape agency deliverables to reflect their actual value to the public rather than the value arts aficionados considered them to have for the public.
One result of this influence was that the CVI was developed in a context of thinking in which individuals are assumed to have choices and that, to remain viable, public sector arts funders need to offer choices the public will value and thus select. In this concept of selection is the understanding that choice in the arts ranges outside the nonprofit arts and that the public sector arts agency needs to ensure that such choice is available.” *
You can download the entire report by visiting www.wyomingartscouncil.org. * excerpt from Wy. CVI
To bring you a great link. Â Â Posted this on Facebook today, and will post it here, too. Â Â I’ve become a bigger fan of the opinions of columnists considered, traditionally, as “conservative.” Â The energy and tumult of the world is shifting values of liberals a little to the right, and the values of conservatives a little to the left. Â More meeting in the middle. Â If you didn’t see it, newly appointed Democratic State Chairman Chuck Herz just recently had his letter to the Op-Ed page of the New York Times published. Â In the letter he praised the views of David Brooks, who spoke of the situations humans create for themselves that are too big to solve when the worst happens. Â And when the worst happens, it is catastrophic.
Thomas L. Friedman, in this column, is saying that the worst has happened many times over and both political parties are culpable. Â And that means the population at large is culpable.
A pull quote: ” It is not your imagination,” says corporate strategy consultant Peter Schwartz – there is a lot more scary stuff hanging out there today. Â Since the end of the cold war and the rise of the Internet, we’ve lost the walls and the superpowers that together kept the world’s problems more contained. Â Today, smaller and smaller units can wreak larger and larger havoc – and whatever havoc is wreaked now gets spread faster and farther than ever before.”
We’re at the watershed; we need to consider good ideas, where ever they come from. Â To read the full article, click here.
This is a lesson we in Jackson could learn; I hope we are learning. Â The truth expressed in Friedman’s article is applicable to Jackson’s economic woes: Â we’ve put our eggs in one or two baskets. Â We have crashed hard. Â We need more baskets.
(“You know… more money funds — flows through the private capital markets in a day than through all the world’s governments in a year. So, there’s no question that this job, this transition, this move of America and the world to a clean energy future is not going to be done by our governments. It’s going to be done by our entrepreneurs, by our investors, and — and by our business leaders.”- John Doerr )
An “up” note: Â I applaud Jackson’s resilient, ever-expanding and brave arts community. Â So much positive energy and ideas are hatching (from the arts basket), and growing! Â We stumbled, but in recent months I see one of our private sectors taking up the challenge and running with it. Â Congratulations, all you entrepreneurs, new galleries and public art pushers! Â You are picking up on ideas and bringing them forward. Â It’s a beautiful thing. Â I love hearing about new ventures, so do send news to me via my email: Â tammy@jacksonholearttours.com. I don’t always pick up info from Facebook, because I rarely scroll past the first page of posts on my wall. Â Â Direct mail is best.
The tide rolls out, the tide comes back in.
Lots of closings around town lately, and people moving on.  So sad.  But there is new growth as well, buds of activity and new operating models.  Two new galleries are opening; one, Heather James, I’ve mentioned and will write more about soon.
The other is a gallery with good potential for locals:Â MADE. (Brilliant name!)Â It opens soon, in Gaslight Alley, just down from Valley Books and Brookover Photography, across the alley from Crazy Horse Native American Jewelry and next door to Bet the Ranch.
MADE’s proprietor is John Frechette, owner of Strapped, his own line of belt buckles fashioned from colorful, translucent fused glass. Frechette plans to load up the shop with handmade “products from around the country.” I take that to mean his goods are manufactured in America.
Frechette’s space will be home to Strappedglass.com. It will also be a new venue for local artists, with space dedicated to local work. Frechette plans 
to feature local artists on a rotating basis, spotlighting products for week-long intervals during peak tourist seasons. Artist “weeks” begin Thursdays and end the following Wednesday. Opening night parties happen on Thursdays too.  Frechette says it’s mandatory for artists to attend their own opening nights, but they are not required to be on premises for the full week.
Artists need to apply to Frechette to be considered.  Those who are scheduled pay $175 rent for the week, and all sale proceeds go directly to the artist; no commission is paid to MADE.  The fee also pays for opening night refreshments, e-invites and flyers advertising the event. Extra ads beyond what MADE supplies are at the expense of the artist.
Interested? Contact Frechette by emailing him:  info@strappedbelts.com. Provide the following information: Name, Business Name, Website, Mailing address, Phone, email, estimated number of invitees for your opening night, and your first three choices for an exhibition week.
Hurry, because as you might imagine, slots are filling fast.
A phone number has also been supplied:Â Â 307.690.9019
At this writing, May 20-27 is the first available artist exhibition week; Frechette has dates available into September, 2010.
Item #2
The Cultural Council of Jackson Hole has announced that 2010 Arts for All grant applications are currently available.  The Cultural Council is a non-profit arts organization that “strives to bring together arts and cultural organizations that are supporting the communication, collaboration, and promotion of cultural life in our valley…”  The Council administers the program.
Grants are available to both arts and culture organizations and individual artists.  All!
Potential grant awards are generous. Up to $6,000 may be awarded to either an individual or a group, but all grants must be matched 1:1 by the applicant.  Arts for All distributes social service tax dollars from the Town of Jackson and Teton County for arts education, says the Cultural Council’s Alissa Davies. The program’s mission includes “producing and presenting opportunities and public projects by artists that have a strong community benefit.”
Completed applications are due by June 1, 2010; there are no exceptions for late applicants.
Davies notes that no support will be provided to organizations already receiving public support from Town or County funds. Arts for All funds are allocated to the Cultural Council at the discretion of the Jackson Town Council and the Teton County Board of Commissioners.
Davies emphasizes that there are no guarantees elected officials will fund beyond this cycle.
For more information about the Arts for All program, to receive an application and guidelines, or for information about the Cultural Council, please contact Alissa Davies at 307.690.4757, or email culturalcounciljh@gmail.com.
