Letter from a Member

I joined ASV in January 2013 and have been mightily impressed by the collective talent amongst members coupled with the diverse range of styles and media in the exhibited works. My first ASV exhibition as a participant was at the Kinross Arts Centre and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience: no sales but heaps of positive feedback and I enjoyed spending time chatting with the exhibition curator, Monica Mauer Jan, and our hard-working President, Gillian Govan.


I couldn’t help but be impressed with the untold hours put in by Monica (with help from Gillian, Jenny and Michael) – designing and distributing flyers and entry forms, negotiating with the Kinross Art Space management, accepting and sorting through entries, banking cheques, contacting entrants, printing labels, organising a sitting roster, organising the official opening etc. etc. – the list goes on and on. For those who simply enter and then turn up to the opening, it probably seems like a pretty simple affair: arrange the sculptures around the room and open the doors and Bob’s your uncle. But of course it’s not like that at all. If it wasn’t for a huge contribution made by only a handful of people, there would be no exhibitions.

I rostered myself to sit the Kinross exhibition on the last day and afterwards on the drive home to Gippsland I had plenty of time to ponder the extraordinary behaviour of some of our exhibiting members. It is worth noting at this point that all the participants in the Kinross exhibition signed an entry form agreeing to some fundamental conditions which apply to all group exhibitions, for example: all the works remain in place for the duration of the exhibition; if you exhibit, you share the responsibility of sitting the exhibition; if you sell a work, you pay the agreed commission on the catalogue price. All pretty straight forward and easily understood, I would have thought.
The first rude awakening was to learn that Monica was expected to fill-in for people who decided that they had more important things to do than to honour their undertaking for the exhibition sitting roster. It should be noted that Monica works full-time and cannot simply drop everything to fill-in for people who can’t be bothered.

Around mid-morning, one of our exhibitors arrived and demanded to take his work out of the exhibition early because he had a family lunch to attend and it wasn’t convenient to return at the end of the exhibition to pick up his work. Another exhibitor sent her mother along to let us know she was too busy and would pick up her work sometime during the coming week. Extraordinary!
One of our exhibitors, apparently desperate to make a sale, discounted the catalogue price and then demanded that ASV accept % commission based on the discounted price. Again, extraordinary!
Being a relatively new member of ASV, I don’t know the names or anything about the people involved in the episodes I’ve related above. I’m simply reporting what I see as very bad behaviour.
The key issue is we are a collection of artists who have chosen to belong to an organisation which potentially provides benefits for us all: we gain exposure for our work, we learn from each other and importantly we belong to a community of people with shared interests. Like any community, if we only ever take from it for our own selfish needs, we will inevitably destroy the community. To paraphrase John F Kennedy, it should be a case of: " Ask not what ASV can do for you, ask what you can do for ASV."

My observation is that ASV has the potential to be one of those great vibrant organisations where people excitedly anticipate the next meeting or exhibition and go out of their way to actively promote the work of their fellow members. We have a hardworking management committee who give generously of their time and energy to make everything ASV does a success. Without the full support of all ASV members, the organisation will not realise its potential and in time those hardworking people will become jaded and burnt-out with the risk that the organisation will fall over.
Because exhibitions are important for the image of ASV, it’s incumbent on all of us to fully support the handful of people who put their hands up to organise and manage our exhibitions. Crucially, exhibitors must abide by the exhibition conditions – by signing an entry form you are signing a contract with ASV wherein you agree for your entry to remain in place for the duration, you agree to sit the exhibition and you agree to pay the % commission based on the catalogue price.

For me it’s simple: if you want to play fast and loose and not abide by the conditions, don’t enter. Your contribution to the organisation should be as important as any benefits you may receive.

Elsa