I went to Artisans’ Guild Gallery (AGG) today and luckily got a chance to talk to Rick Beardsley, one of the founder of AGG. He has been here for 45 years. He talked about how their committee vote to approve an artist to join their group. AGG is founded first to gather artists to decrease their costs in selling their art pieces.

Some of the artists eventually broke out with them to set up their own studios and some stuck with them and keep contributing to the gallery. I saw a bunch of interesting art pieces there and bought three greeting cards designed by Mandy. I first ran into Abe the wood artist and he recommended several artists that I could talk to. They are:

1. Pete Senesac jewelry
2. Anne Seraphine painting
3. Anne Gilroy painting
4. Harriet Huss painting
5. Candace McCaffery quilting
6. Sandra Matasick jewelry
7. Kana Handel painting
8. Eleanor Blair painting

As they told me, every artist likes to talk about their arts. Dick said probably sometime I could bring him a copy of Business Report.

I came up with some questions to ask about the artists in the AGG:

1. How they decide to join the group and what the process of it?
2. Do they sell art pieces at their studios also? What percentage of their arts has been contributed to the gallery?
3. How they cooperate with the gallery?
4. Do they use other agent? Do they contact other sources to promote their work?

According to Dick, artists in AGG only need to contribute 4 hours per month. They take shifts. Around holidays like Christmas, they have about 8 hours. Still, they get plenty of time to do the art.

Finish today’s work then, hoping for a better tomorrow.

—Momo Jin