Hacker Chronicles 2/HACKER2.BIN/453.SF018094.TXT

Text File | 1993-02-23 | 18KB | 417 lines

SF-LOVERS Digest          Wednesday, 10 Feb 1993       Volume 18 : Issue 94

Today's Topics:

                   Miscellaneous - Conventions (13 msgs)

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Date: 28 Jan 93 19:51:34 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Bryan J. Maloney)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Norwescon Art Show snobbery

[e-mail] (Russ Campbell ) writes:
>Excerpt from the Norwescon 16 Art Show rules (without permission):
>
>"Only Original art, Fine Art Prints and Hand Colored Prints may be made
>available for written bid and/or direct sale."
>
>"DEFINITIONS
>
>A fine art print is one where you have made the plate/s or screen/s and
>pulled the prints primarily by hand.  Examples are: woodcut, block print,
>etching, drypoint, engraving, serigraphs (silkscreening) and lithographs
>(not to be confused with lithoprints).
>
>Other types of reproductions such as laserprints, photoprints, xerox and
>lithoprints (or photo-offset lithography) do not qualify as fine art
>prints and may be sold only via direct sale or print shop."

What's the big deal?  So you can't hang up your color Xeroxes and sell them
for bid anymore?  So what?  My fiancee for years didn't like the idea of
doing what she saw at cons, which consisted of matting a bunch of
"laserprints" (aka color xeroxes) and selling them for bid.  Unfortunately,
the prices she had to charge for originals (which were on the low side for
originals) were simply pushing her work out of the fan market, especially
vs. the color xeroxes, which were scads cheaper, but still a several
hundred percent markup over the cost of the xerox.

Finally, she had to bow to market pressures and only makes a very small
number of originals and then xeroxes the hell out of them and mats that.
The suckers go for 'em like candy, especially if it's some cheap
anime-based knockoff.

We don't go to cons much, anymore, and she doesn't put much effort into
doing art to sell at cons anymore, either.

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jan 93 00:25:03 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Bill Roper)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Norwescon Art Show snobbery

I know of a number of conventions in the Midwest that only accept original
art and hand-colored prints.  The idea is simple - if it's mass-produced,
then it belongs in the hucksters' room, not in the art show, or maybe in a
print shop.

Art auctions can easily run too long.  The trick is to be able to knock off
pieces in less than 2 minutes each, while not cutting off bidding (like,
say, encouraging it...), being entertaining, and not being there all night.
If you want your art auction to run less than three hours, then you want no
more than about 90 pieces in the auction.

Requiring more than two (!) bids to go to auction is a great way to cause
people to pile up in the art show at closing, frantically bidding against
each other on the piece that they hoped to "steal" from the last bidder.
It's great fun if you're trying to defend more than one piece from
different artists.  Three bids (as at Norwescon this year) is a reasonable
compromise that avoids the Ghodawful panic that you get with higher numbers
(such as the 8 that the original poster suggested).

In short (which is impossible now), I believe that mechanically- produced
prints should generally be sold in a print shop or at a hucksters table at
a fixed price.  It is up to the artist to establish a price where he/she
will be satisfied and the prints will still sell.  It's a capitalist
society, and life is tough.

(By the way, I'm a filthy huckster, producer of filk tapes, sometimes
auctioneer, art collector, and former con-chair.  You can take my opinion
for whatever you think it's worth.)

Bill Roper
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jan 93 19:46:25 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Leif E. Harrison)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Norwescon Art Show snobbery

   Well Russ, *I* for one will miss seeing your stuff at Norwescon.  I
wholeheartedly agree with you and personally think this policy sucks.  More
than likely this means I will probably not be able to afford to purchase
anything at Norwescon.  I'm just glad there are other conventions n the
area at which I can still try and get fine art at good prices.

   I can understand why they instituted this policy, I suppose. But I
definitely do not agree with it.

Leif Harrison
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jan 93 11:43:58 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Brin McLaughlin)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Art Show Snobbery

I believe that the issue Russell Campbell was referring to was not so much
the *quality* of the reproduction - as long as it's not pink crayon on
corrugated cardboard, anybody who buys space should be allowed to display
whatever they want - but rather the issue of *censorship*.

If cheap color photocopies sell at cons, (mostly to fans who don't know how
to look for quality art) then, tough noogies. Blame it on the Reagan
administration if you have to, (economy-wise, cheaper is better)...On at
least two occasions, I have purchased color photocopies until such time as
I could afford an original piece of artwork from that same artist.  It's
not the sin that the Norwescon art show rules are trying to make it out to
be, and I am VERY discouraged that such snobbery is a part of an important
major regional convention.

As far as my personal tastes go, if it were my decision, I would allow
anything up on the panels of an art show I was in charge of, as long as it
didn't smell bad or wasn't moving.  Ditto artists' ghetto. If there was
adult oriented material, a sign at the front of the display area in large
friendly letters is plenty of warning.

Bravo, Russell. Thank you for taking the time to speak out.

Brin McLaughlin
Tater Tot News & Mail System
San Francisco, CA
+1.415.255.8340
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 30 Jan 93 16:47:39 GMT
From: [e-mail] (David Dyer-bennet)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Norwescon Art Show Snobbery

Russ Campbell wrote:
> Excerpt from the Norwescon 16 Art Show rules (without permission): >
>
>"Only Original art, Fine Art Prints and Hand Colored Prints may be made >
>available for written bid and/or direct sale."
>
> "DEFINITIONS
>
>A fine art print is one where you have made the plate/s or screen/s and
>pulled the prints primarily by hand.  Examples are: woodcut, block print,
>etching, drypoint, engraving, serigraphs (silkscreening) and lithographs
>(not to be confused with lithoprints).
>
>Other types of reproductions such as laserprints, photoprints, xerox and
>lithoprints (or photo-offset lithography) do not qualify as fine art
>prints and may be sold only via direct sale or print shop."

Good for them.  Con art-shows have been taken over in the last 10 or 15
years by cheap prints of mediocre art selling at exorbitant prices.  If you
want to buy prints, go to the hucksters room where there are usually one or
more dealers, generally selling rather better stuff than you find in the
art show.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Feb 93 03:04:38 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Nancy Lebovitz)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Why not split the art into lots for auction?

All this about the running of art shows and keeping the auction to a
manageable length reminds me of something I've wondered about. It would
certainly be easier on the bidders if the art that was going to auction
were divided into groups so that you didn't have to sit through the auction
from the beginning in order not to miss the piece(s) you're interested in.

Since I've never worked on an art show, there may be some very good reason
for _not_ dividing the art into auction lots, but in that case, I'm quite
curious to learn what it is.

Nancy Lebovitz
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 2 Feb 93 06:24:43 GMT
From: [e-mail] (joe markovic)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Norwescon Art Show snobbery

Quoting Bill Roper, [e-mail]:

>I know of a number of conventions in the Midwest that only accept original
>art and hand-colored prints.  The idea is simple - if it's mass-produced,
>then it belongs in the hucksters' room, not in the art show, or maybe in a
>print shop.

I'll accept that position once you manage to convince Art Galleries to stop
displaying PRINTS.  Frankly this is often better "art" then a lot of the
stuff that meets the criteria you mention.

>Art auctions can easily run too long.  The trick is to be able to knock
>off pieces in less than 2 minutes each, while not cutting off bidding
>(like, say, encouraging it...), being entertaining, and not being there
>all night.  If you want your art auction to run less than three hours,
>then you want no more than about 90 pieces in the auction.

You also need an auctioneer who can do the job.

>Requiring more than two (!) bids to go to auction is a great way to cause
>people to pile up in the art show at closing, frantically bidding against
>each other on the piece that they hoped to "steal" from the last bidder.
>It's great fun if you're trying to defend more than one piece from
>different artists.  Three bids (as at Norwescon this year) is a reasonable
>compromise that avoids the Ghodawful panic that you get with higher
>numbers (such as the 8 that the original poster suggested).

That does sound like a good idea.

>In short (which is impossible now), I believe that mechanically- produced
>prints should generally be sold in a print shop or at a hucksters table at
>a fixed price.  It is up to the artist to establish a price where he/she
>will be satisfied and the prints will still sell.  It's a capitalist
>society, and life is tough.

It may be tough, but that doesn't mean an anchor chain should be placed on
the artist(s) neck.

Joe

------------------------------

Date: 3 Feb 93 02:30:51 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Seth Breidbart)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Why not split the art into lots for auction?

[e-mail] (Nancy Lebovitz) writes:
>All this about the running of art shows and keeping the auction to a
>manageable length reminds me of something I've wondered about. It would
>certainly be easier on the bidders if the art that was going to auction
>were divided into groups so that you didn't have to sit through the
>auction from the beginning in order not to miss the piece(s) you're
>interested in.

It has been done, when there were a lot of pieces going to auction.  Some
long conventions (worldcons, Westercons, ...) have multiple auctions;
pieces that get enough bids before time T go to the first auction (and get
a sticker of Color1 placed on them to denote this), pieces that get that
many bids later go into the second auction (with a different color
sticker).  It's a lot of work to split the pieces into groups, and then
what do you do when the first group is disposed of faster than you
estimated?  (Not an unsolvable problem, but an annoying one.)

Seth

------------------------------

Date: 2 Feb 93 18:17:37 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Janice Gelb)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Why not split the art into lots for auction

[e-mail] (Nancy Lebovitz) writes:
>All this about the running of art shows and keeping the auction to a
>manageable length reminds me of something I've wondered about. It would
>certainly be easier on the bidders if the art that was going to auction
>were divided into groups so that you didn't have to sit through the
>auction from the beginning in order not to miss the piece(s) you're
>interested in.
>
>Since I've never worked on an art show, there may be some very good reason
>for _not_ dividing the art into auction lots, but in that case, I'm quite
>curious to learn what it is.

The reason I've always been given is the hope that even if someone is there
to bid for a specific piece, s/he may be attracted to some other piece
earlier in the auction and bid on it, too. The more audience the better as
far as the auctioneer/art show is concerned.

Janice Gelb
[phone]
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 4 Feb 93 08:12:42 GMT
From: [e-mail] (L.A.Z. Smith)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Norwescon Art Show snobbery

[e-mail] (Russ Campbell ) writes:
>1. Putting such limits on what can and cannot be sold by bid limits
>   artists.  It limits what an artist will display, especially
>   local/regional level artists 90% of whom can barely afford the expense
>   of producing quality photoprints in runs of less than 100.  They now
>   cannot hang these for bids at Norwescon.  Such prints may only be sold
>   at a fixed price.  This puts the artists at that level in a bind - do
>   they lower prices to assure *some* sales of prints at *maybe* break
>   even price or do the not display anything but original art which they
>   must price high to make anything off of?  [...]  the average fan buyer
>   will purchase much less than they might have if they could try to snag
>   a photoprint or lithoprint at minimum bid or at least something less
>   than the direct sale price.

I am getting awfully tired of people who think fandom owes them a living.

Personally, I'd like to see the entire present system of convention art
shows and art auctions dumped in favor of something more like an art fair
(or an art huckster room, if you will).  Let the artists hang their own
stuff, sit by it all weekend, handle their own security, etc.  Then they
can sell whatever they want to.

Really cons are putting an awful lot of time, effort, and staffing into
running artshows for artists who don't appreciate them.

What if the hucksters demanded equal consideration?  "Let me put this book
into the auction - there are only 50,000 more copies of it...."

LAZ Smith
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 4 Feb 93 23:44:28 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Chris Marble)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Where gaming at ConFrancisco?

Just got PR 5 for ConFrancisco.  Lots of good stuff including the Hotel
Reservation Form.  There's 21 hotels listed where we've got rooms blocked.
All hotels are shown on a reasonable map with BART stations and Cable Car
Lines identified.
  One question, where's gaming and filking going to be?  Convention Center
activies are usually during the day only.  If so, at what hotel(s) will
after hours stuff be at?  First guess would be Parc Fifty-Five because it's
the main party hotel and the Con Suite will be there.

Chris Marble

------------------------------

Date: 4 Feb 93 17:39:32 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Janice Gelb)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Norwescon Art Show snobbery

[e-mail] (L.A.Z. Smith) writes:
>Personally, I'd like to see the entire present system of convention art
>shows and art auctions dumped in favor of something more like an art fair
>(or an art huckster room, if you will).  Let the artists hang their own
>stuff, sit by it all weekend, handle their own security, etc.  Then they
>can sell whatever they want to.

My favorite fantasy of reorganizing convention art shows it to segregate
similar art by aisle; so, for example, there would be the "Bad Star Trek
Art" aisle, the "Astronomical Art" aisle, the "Fuzzy Animals with Tits"
aisle, the "Unicorns and Dragons" aisle, the "Cute Cat" aisle, and so on.
That way, you could skip the stuff you didn't want to see...

Janice Gelb
[phone]
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 4 Feb 93 16:30:19 GMT
From: [e-mail] (David Dyer-bennet)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Why Not Split The Art Into Lots For Auction?

Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>All this about the running of art shows and keeping the auction to a
>manageable length reminds me of something I've wondered about. It would
>certainly be easier on the bidders if the art that was going to auction
>were divided into groups so that you didn't have to sit through the
>auction from the beginning in order not to miss the piece(s) you're
>interested in.
>
>Since I've never worked on an art show, there may be some very good
>reason for _not_ dividing the art into auction lots, but in that case,
>I'm quite curious to learn what it is.

It's extra work.  It's also an extra way to screw up and annoy a buyer.
The list couldn't be available until some time after the show closed; at
Minicon, the show closes only 3 or 4 hours before the auction, so the list
could barely be available before the auction started.  I doubt we could
predict auction speed well enough to have chunks smaller than an hour, and
our auction only runs two hours anyway (we raise number of bid requirements
as needed to keep that roughly true).  In fact, since it will make the
auction as a whole take longer, if you end up with pieces in all the lots
you'll spend MORE time at the auction.  It restricts the flexibility of the
auctioneers to arrange the order in which pieces are sold for maximum
effect (depending on whether the auctioneers actually know how to achieve
maximum effect, this may not matter :-).

There was a time when Minicon had two auctions and the first bidder on a
piece got to specify which auction the piece went into.  That sort of faded
quite a while ago, and I remember it causing considerable confusion and
complaints (from people who ended up having to attend both auctions; most
serious buyers would end up having to do so).

On the other hand, for Worldcon art shows I've seen it done; it may even be
common, I don't go to many worldcons these days.

------------------------------

End of SF-LOVERS Digest
***********************