Holiday Countdown: Scarves

24 Days left....

Nothing beats the perfect scarf during Wyoming winters so I thought I would share some tutorials on how to make and tie scarfs for the second day of the Holiday Countdown.

This DIY T-shirt scarf tutorial is my favorite (and I have seen many and even created one myself).  Some others I have made.


A scoody would be perfect for this holiday season.  If you want to make me one, I will be at WOW.

A circle scarf...


Now that you have several scarves, lets look at some ways to jazz them up a bit.  Here are 25 ways to tie a scarf in 5 minutes


Now that you know how to tie and make scarves, be sure to stop the gallery to buy and/or to sell some beautiful scarves.  We currently have several t-shirt scarves as well as some knitted beauties.  If you would like to attend an upcycled scarf making workshop, be sure to contact the gallery.  Email us, find us on Facebook or call at 307.742.6574.

We are open from 1 - 5 Monday - Friday and 1 - 4 on Saturdays.  Satuday December 3, we will open at 10 am.  Be sure to stop by Suite 271 in the Laramie Plains Civic Center.

Holiday Countdown: Our Tree

For the holiday season we will be posting 25 days of holiday gifts, DIY ideas, decorations, and creative projects for you, your family, and friends. The projects will include upcyled, craft, art, and other projects from our artists, clients and some other excellent online resources.

I figured I would get you started with a project that WOW has been working on for the past couple days. Gayle and our intern, along with our intern's family had a great time decorating the tree for the 18th Annual Festival of Trees and Silent Auction here in Laramie.  The auction and lighting ceremony will be held tonight from 6 - 8 pm at the UW Art Museum.  All proceeds will benefit the museum.

The tree titled Plains to Mountains was decorated using handmade holiday ornaments.  The two recipes were cinnamon dough ornaments from MarhaStewart.com borax ornaments using pipe cleaners and sagebrush from Food.com.

Affordable Art for the Holidays

WOW's annual Affordable Art show is a wonderful family shopping day activity. The open house will be the same time as the Civic Center Bazaar, Saturday, December 3 from 10am - 4pm. The show is a blast and there is a huge variety of work. This years show includes ceramics and glass work, upcycled projects, paintings, personalized drawings, scarves, jewelry, hats and dyed silk.

The artists are all from Wyoming, so it is an excellent opportunity to support local artists.

Artists in the show...

Jeanie Schlump 

Diana Kopalos 

Dan Roberts Metal Art 

Dona Fleming 

Bianca Allemani 

Cat Martin 

Cathy Carr-Lundfelt 

Kimberly Harris 

Rosemary Bratton 

Yekaterina Minaicheva 

Pat Butera 

Janice Bray 

Robert Martinez

Crystal Lawrence

Bren Lieske 

Ginny Madsen 

Jon Madsen 

Sandra Guzzo

Bill and Marsha Abbott

Marilee Manalo

Carlos Mellizo

Heather Storey

Joy Keown

Barry O'Riley

Jerry Glass

Felicia Follum

Alberto Alcantara

Lisa Edwards

As you can see there is a plethora of work and all of it is $100 or under.  Links to our member's sites can be found in the sidebar.  Be sure to stop by.  We are open Monday - Friday from 1 - 5 and Saturdays in December from 1 - 4.

Affordable Art for the Holidays

Once again Works of Wyoming will be having their annual Affordable Art for the Holidays event.  This event focuses on artwork that makes great Christmas gifts and is all priced under $100.  Get much of your holiday shopping done in one stop.  The gallery will be open during the Civic Center Holiday Bazaar on Saturday December 3 and there will be an open house with discounts on select work on December 16.

Final Call Black Friday Sale at WOW

Works of Wyoming is open!! 

We are currently offering handcrafted gifts.  All work will be at least 20% off and all gallery art will be on sale up to 60% off.  The work in the gallery will be up for one day only and will feature some artists new to WOW, so come and see who else is creating work.

We are open until 5pm today.

WOW Ranked #2 on Laramie Live

Works of Wyoming ranked number 2 in  Kari's Top 5 Best Black Friday Sales in Laramie!!! Go WOW!!!

Be sure to come in between 9 and 5 to score some amazing deals on local artwork and spread the word to all of your friends.  

We are located in the Laramie Plains Civic Center in Suite 271.

Black Friday at WOW

Works of Wyoming will be open this Black Friday!! 

We will be offering handmade gifts, artwork, jewelry, soaps, and more with excellent sales.  All work will be at least 20% off and select gallery artists will have work up to 60% off.  The work will be up for one day only, so be sure to stop by to see what local artists are creating.

Finish your Christmas shopping this Black Friday at WOW. 

We will be open from 9am until 5pm.

Create Lists on FB

When using your personal page, it is likely that there is more going on than what you can actually follow. To organize who you follow, you can create what is called a list.  If you look at the image, Art under Favorites is my art list.  I have all of the art pages I follow and friends who are working artists in my art list.

The number across from
Art tells me that I have one new
art announcement since
I last checked the list.***

Here's How
1. If you go to the bottom of the left toolbar, there should be a section that says lists.  Click this link to your lists (the words "Lists" and "More" should both get you to a listing of your lists).

2. Once all of your lists pop up there will be a link at the top right of the page that says "Create a List."  Click this button.  A box asking you to name your list will pop up.  I named my list “Art.”

3. On the top right there will be a “Manage list” tab. Select it and go down to “Add/Remove Friends.” From here you can select friends. There is another tab on the top left of this box. This tab will allow you to select pages as well.

Congratulations your have finished you Art list on Facebook.

To use this list, you can go back to the bottom of the left toolbar. Click on lists, click the pencil image to the left of your list and select “add to favorites.” Your list will now appear just below your profile image, events, and pages (since you already have an art page as discussed in 5 Reasons Artist Should Have a Facebook Page) on your home page (where your personal feed is displayed).

Come set up your social media marketing consultation today! Members, you get two hours or free (or two lessons which could be a bit longer if you are not familiar with Facebook).

***This is my personal page and I don't add people I don't know.  If you want to like my art page (Felicia Follum art and Design), go for it.  You can also contact me via WOW's Facebook page.

Who Should You Be Following on FB?

Pages on my art list.

We all know that there a lot of people and pages out there on Facebook.  This post will address who to follow more closely and which pages to like (one a page is liked you are following them). In a future post we will discuss how to organize those that you are following, so it is simple to find what you care about and weed out the informaiton that is less relevant to your life and/or arts career.

Of course you should follow and like these WOW artists with FB pages.

Barry O’Riley
Bethels Beadwork
Denise’s Wyoming Artists
Felicia Follum Art + Design
Western Landscape
and WOW.

But who else should you be following on Facebook?  You can search FB for artists you like as well as museums, galleries, or government organizations.  You can also follow pages that inspire your work.  If you like art history, you could find an art historian to follow.  Of course if there are some friends that you have who are really inspiring or tend to offer wisdom filled inspiration via their FB pages, by all means follow them.  Keep in mind you can create lists (I will show you how to create a list next week) for your BFFs and fun people as well, they do not all need to be on your art list.  I think I have around 5 friends and have around 100 pages on my art list.

Here are some of the pages I follow.

TED - TED Talks provide wonderful inspiration for me while I am creating artwork.
Graphic Competitions
MoMA
InLiquid
An Art Historian - Afro Art Nerd actually went to the University of Wyoming.
Works of Wyoming (You can contact us here, if you have any questions, comments or concerns)

As mentioned above, in our next post I will show you how to organize all of these pages you are now following.   This will keep them from getting lost in conversations about what your brother’s ex-girlfriend had for breakfast or what your best friend from elementary school said to her cousin yesterday.  There is a simple way to log on and check your important pages in less than 10 minuets and avoid all of the unimportant drivel.  Stay tuned!

Three tips for Facebook Efficiency

Now that we have discussed some good reasons to have a Facebook page for your artwork, let's also look at some ways to make your new Facebook page more effective.  Facebook pages are unique in that even though they can function as a website, they are more likely to be viewed from a fans news stream.  This means that once someone has liked your page, they may seldom return,  but rather view your page from their own Facebook home page.  Knowing this will allow us to alter the way that we manage our own Facebook pages.

Win Ratz
Fired enamel on copper

Frequency > Quantity
Frequency is one of the best ways that we can utilize our Facebook pages.  The more often we post, the more people will see our wall content from their news feeds.  One way to post more often is to post less. If you have 10 images for an album, you upload one or two a day.  This gives you content for 5 - 10 posts rather than one.  Keep in mind that you don't want to post garbage, you want to post information that your fans care about not spam.  Spam will only get you unliked.

Interaction
Something that Facebook offers, which a standard website does not is the ability to interact.  A post about your new work may get a like or two, but a post asking viewers to tell you which of your new images is their favorite may get people to actually look at your work.  You can also create polls and invite your personal friends to participate.  Are there others ways to create a call to action on Facebook?

Variety is the Spice of Life
Everyone viewing your Facebook page is unique and will respond differently to different types of posts.  Some people may be interested in following your blog, videos, quotes, or a new photo album.  I like videos a lot, but my mother-in-law seems to like quotes.  Knowing this should encourage us to post a variety on our page walls to encourage more people to interact.

There are many more tips and practices that can be implemented in your administration of Facebook pages.  What are some tricks that have worked or not worked for you?

Write About Your Work

It is important to always be writing about our work.  It will help us, as artists, to communicate about our work as well as exercise our creativity.  For many creatives journaling is a common practice.  For others it is something we force ourselves to practice.  Either way it never hurts to have some ideas to write about.  Here are a couple prompts for when you do not know what to write about your work.

If you need something to write in, here are some handmade
journals, crafted by our artists.  Come pick one up!

1. Make a list of words. Some ideas for lists include tools you use and why, media you like to work with, work that inspires you, media/techniques you would like to try, colors, emotions, or reasons you create work.  These lists can be thought out or completely random.

2. Free Write.  Write for 5 minutes. It does not need to be perfect. Don't think. Just write. You could select any word from the list above and expand on it. Some other free write topics could include why you create work, your process, your inspiration, or your future goals.

3. Write about someone else's work.  This is a task that was assigned in professional development class I attended a while back.  Writing about other work helps us to relax and not be so hard on our selves.  It also tends to help us work through and develop our artistic vocabulary.  If you are looking for art to write about we would love to have you write about a work in the gallery or gift shop.  You could even be a guest blogger for us and write about one of our artists.

What do you write or journal about in regard to your art?  Do you practice writing regularly? If not, why? If you do, how has it improved your overall art practice.

Marketing Tip: Alternative Art Venues

Barry O'Riley "Gaia"  

One important factor about being a successful artist is finding ways to get our work out into the community.  Of course there are high scale art galleries that a select few can get into, but there are many other opportunities outside of a traditional gallery or museum.  One term for places such as these is an alternative art venue.  Some alternative art venues include but are not limited to restaurants, hair salons, coffee shops, vacant business windows and other small businesses.  

1. Coffee Shops - Coal Creek Coffee Company and The Grounds in Laramie both display local artists work.

2. Farmers Markets - Farmers markets often have specific requirements and fees but some do enjoy having artists and crafts people.

3. The street - This is not for everyone, but some artists enjoy going to a downtown area in a large city to create and sell work.  Last Thursday in Portland is a perfect example.  I went this past summer, made a couple sales, and still have people contacting me who met someone who saw me there.

4. Laramie Main street - Organizations such as Laramie Main Street will often times hang photographs in empty store front windows.

5. Arts guilds or clubs - Artist organizations have relationships with businesses that lease, sell or hang work.  Laramie Art Guild blog

6. Restaurants - There are a variety of restaurants that want changing artwork created by locals.  Sweet Melissa's is one example in Laramie.
7. Apartments or rooms - Motel rooms can be rented for one night shows.  A loft could also be rented by a group of artists for a month long show.  University of Wyoming students have been known to have successful one night house shows.
8. WOW - Your very own WOW gallery can even be considered an alternative venue.  Although Works of Wyoming is a not-for-profit gallery space, WOW's atmosphere is a little different than that of a more traditional gallery space.  During an interview with WOW member Barry O'Riley, he was asked how Works of Wyoming had helped him and his response included that "WOW has provided an open and liberal, alternative gallery space for his work."

What are some other alternative spaces that you can share?