Sonoma County Art Trails
Artist Agreement-2024
Welcome to Sonoma County Art Trails! We are delighted that you are part of our community! Being an Art Trails artist comes with a variety of benefits, opportunities, recommendations and requirements. Being an active participant is crucial to the success of the event. Below, we outline what that looks like.
Benefits
MARKETING – The SCA puts tremendous effort into marketing the open studios event, including producing a full-color catalog, a dedicated website, social media postings and email marketing. All of these efforts are enhanced by your involvement. Art Trails will mail catalogs to all of the customers on your mailing list, for free! If you have not yet developed your list, now is a good time to start. Email templates will also be provided to help you market the event electronically, should that be your preference. Please be aware that it is through the efforts of all involved that Art Trails has been successful. Understand that by sharing your postal mailing list, and actively using electronic formats as well as social media, you are contributing to the success of all Art Trails artists.
COMMUNITY AND COMMUNICATION – This is a multi-faceted event and timely communication is extremely important. To that end, we offer two important meetings, one before the event, (the kick-off) and one at the end (the wrap-up) as well as the ever-popular Preview Show Opening Celebration. These events offer artists a chance to both socialize and stay on top of all things Art Trails. We strongly encourage you to attend. Please be mindful of emails that come from Michele Kimble, mkimble@sebarts.org. These will contain important information.
A valuable communication tool is the Artist Resource page, which you can find on the Art Trails website.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT – We all know that education is power and to that end, Art Trails offers several workshops each year to support artists on their journey. Be it marketing, photographing your work, social media, or video making, all are presented free of charge to participating Artists. There is also a Mentoring committee that will work with incoming artists. Each new artist will have a mentor working with them. Also included in your fee is the opportunity to show your work at several satellite preview gallery shows around Sonoma County. Please consider taking advantage of these offerings.
The requirements
1. To personally host an open studio, in my own working studio, October 19-20 and October 26-27, 10 am – 5 pm.
2. To bring one original strong example of my work for sale to the preview exhibit at Sebastopol Center for the Arts. Size specifications, delivery date, etc. will be emailed to you.
3. To participate as a team member for at least 10 hours for the greater good of the Art Trails program. I recognize that many artists make a larger time contribution. If personal circumstances after my first year make it impossible to fulfill this requirement, I agree to pay $300 to compensate.
4. To submit my postal mailing list to the Mail House by July 8.
5. To track the number of daily visitors and, when possible, their zip codes. This information will be collected in the evaluation and is used for marketing purposes
6. To submit my event evaluation by November 7, 2024. I recognize that my information is invaluable to Art Trails planning for the following year, and that by not turning in my Evaluation Form on time I will be suspended from Art Trails for the next year.
7. To be a current member of Sebastopol Center for the Arts. To be a positive and enthusiastic representative for Sonoma County Art Trails and the Sebastopol Center for the Arts in the larger community.
8. To secure adequate visitor liability insurance for my Art Trails studio.
9. To have a resale license. To collect, report, and pay sales tax to the CA Sales-Use Tax Administration. Some cities may also require a business license.
10. To attend the new artist orientation preceding the Kick-off meeting on June 20, if I am new to the program.
11. To provide an educational experience for the public in my studio during Art Trails. (The mentoring program is happy to offer suggestions as to how this can be done.)
12. I understand that to ensure professional standards and to provide feedback for artists, a Sebastopol Center for the Arts representative will visit my studio.
We are committed to strengthening our Art Trails community by sharing this information. Your commitment to these agreements ensures that Sonoma County Art Trails will remain a successful, professional, fun event, as it has been since 1985.