New Blog – ART MATTERS!
Posted By Editor on March 5, 2010
Just in time for the opening reception to Jacksonville artist Addi Black’s exhibition, “Haiti,” at the Lithia Springs Inn and the 6th Annual Oregon Chocolate Festival at the Ashland Springs Hotel, both in Ashland, we’ve launched our new blog, ART MATTERS!
You can look forward to calls to artists, news and announcements and more, but for now, it’s all about the weekend’s coverage of these two events, so if we don’t see you there, you can enjoy them vicariously here.
New Classified Page!
Posted By Editor on February 20, 2010
In response to a suggestion from one of our listed artists, we’ve added a classified page in the “Services & Supplies” section. What a great idea for artists to make excess supplies and equipment from their studios available to fellow artists! Classifieds are free to listed members of the site, just send an email with the text of your ad to: soar@soartists.com. Have art supplies to sell, but not listed yet? It’s a great deal – check out the Listing page for more information and to get started.
Technorati Tags: art supplies, classified ads,new features
Farewell to Irelock
Posted By Editor on February 16, 2010
Artists who want to send the Irelock Imaging crew off to begin their new lives with a “shot of love” have organized a going away party. Please join us at Irelock’s location to fare them well on Saturday, March 13 from 11am – 3:30pm. If you’d like to add this to your electronic calendar, you can easily add it from ours. It’s a potluck, so please bring something tasty to share, but do be aware that Olivia is very allergic to anything citrus, so best to save the duck a l’orange for another occasion.
You may also be interested to know that Irelock is selling all their equipment. If they have anything that might be helpful to you, this would be a good time to contact them with your inquiries. They will be leaving the area shortly after the send-off party, so don’t wait too long.
Technorati Tags: printing, art event calendar, Irelock Imaging
Good to Go!
Posted By Editor on February 16, 2010
Thanks to those who submitted events for our March calendar to be published in the Jacksonville Review. We made the deadline with a full complement of art events! This will be the first opportunity for many residents within the Review’s readership area to discover SOAR, so if you’ve been waiting for a good time to get your listing, this is it! The form can be finicky sometimes, so if it acts up on you when you try to submit it, just write something in any field you had left empty and you’ll be good to go.
Technorati Tags: Arts, Events, Calendar, Southern Oregon, Jacksonville Review
Art Event Deadline
Posted By Editor on February 7, 2010
As you may know, in addition to the online calendar at SOAR, we also publish an Art Event calendar in the Jacksonville Review. March will be the first issue that includes our calendar and my deadline is Feb 15th. If there is an event you’d like to see included, please send me a link, email or contact number so I can get the information I need to write it in before the weekend! Thanks…
Technorati Tags: Arts, Events, Calendar, Southern Oregon, Jacksonville Review
Features and Benefits of a listing in the SOAR Directory
Posted By Editor on February 1, 2010
The Southern Oregon Artists Resource endeavors to become a comprehensive directory of the Southern Oregon art community, its events and activities, where fans of arts & culture near and far can learn more about us online from one convenient site. It’s designed to drive traffic to your website, gallery and events and promote your online presence by associating you with our art community as a whole, boosting your search result ranking and relevance. The more activity between links, the better, and directories and online calendars which link to websites, blogs and social networking pages are ideal, as information is easily processed by search engines.
Sharing through social networking and sharing services is a powerful way to spread information. SOAR is a venue where all your online networking connections can be represented together, and pages can be shared with virtually any service.
* Listings include contact info, links to your website, blog and networking pages, a logo or image of artwork tagged with your keywords, and a brief description. You can have multiple descriptions targeted to the categories in which your listing appears.
* Your email address is protected from spam bots, yet can be used to email you directly from your listing.
* Each listing includes placement in as many spots as suit your specialty plus the alphabetical list.
* Gallery, supplies/services, organization, educational and annual events listings include posting of events to our online calendar. As many events as space allows will also be published monthly in our art events calendar, which just made its debut appearance in the Jacksonville Review’s March 1st issue. Our deadline is the 15th of each month…if you have events you’d like included, please send them to us before then.
* Art community leaders with blogs can (and should!) be linked into SOAR’s blogroll. Please contribute your valuable thoughts and insights to the SOAR community’s content.
* The Google custom search engine is set to search only SOAR and any additional websites we approve. With a listing on SOAR, your website is added to the approved list and your pages will be displayed in the results of any search that matches them.
* The Calendar is public so it can be indexed by search engines and calendar sharing sites. Users can subscribe and share in multiple ways from their desktop or browser to track Southern Oregon art events. Online calendars are quickly becoming the next information sharing “thing,” and venues to share them are increasing, so we’ll be able to surf this new wave of internet marketing together.
* Green hosting by iPower. All their data centers and offices are now powered by 100% wind energy. Click any “This site is eco-friendly” link for more information.
* Benefits will expand as more members of the arts community add their listings, creating new opportunities to promote the website.
* It’s only 25.00 for a year! To add your listing now, go to our listing page
Technorati Tags: benefits SOAR directory listing
Welcome to the Southern Oregon Artists Resource
Posted By Editor on January 27, 2010
Finally, my first post. Looking around here, I have to say that I wish my non-virtual blotter looked as nice as this one! On my real-world desk, there are piles of business cards, brochures, flyers, scrawled hand-written notes, postcards and gallery guides strewn all over the place. How’s an art lover supposed to keep up with all this stuff? So many wonderful artists to meet, galleries to explore and festivals to attend, wine trails to follow, organizations to support and classes to take. Can’t we have a central online resource that has all this information about our active arts and culture community so we can toss the mess and never have to scribble on a scrap of paper that will immediately get lost again? Oh right…that’s my job. The piles of paper are a bit overwhelming sometimes…
But you see what I mean. Southern Oregon is a beautiful treasure trove of “secret spots,” many of which have been discovered by artists of every imaginable type looking for a peaceful place to create. Which is great, and not so great, because it can be hard to find them. Not just for someone who wants to know who’s doing what, but for event organizers scouting for talent to include in their presentations. Even some of our premier creators, known throughout the country and the world for their innovative and award-winning creations, can be hard to track down. How to find all their websites, blogs and social networking presences? It takes forever to search and sort through them all. I’ve talked to lots of locals who have no idea that our area is host to festivals that feature world-class cheesemakers, chocolatiers and winemakers. The events I attended over the last year have done a great job showcasing artistic talent across a broad range of specialties, but there’s plenty of room for more.
Keeping track of these events can be challenging, too. A close friend of mine told me recently that she had intended to go to the “Empty Bowls” show for the past two years, but when the time came for the event she’d lost track of the notes, the location, the date…event came and went without her knowing til it was all over. Another good friend missed Jacksonville’s Art Jubilee last year. JOBA and Art Presence worked so hard to promote it effectively, but his comment to me was “how is someone supposed to hear about things like this?” That’s what our calendar is for. With your help, I’ll do my best to have any and all arts-related events available there, so from your browser you can check it at our site, subscribe to it with a feed or from your Google account, or subscribe to it from the iCal in your computer. This should be handy for locals to stay on top of events they want to attend and for those planning visits to Southern Oregon who want to include art events in their itineraries. Soon I’ll be adding another blog so those who list their events on the calendar can introduce themselves and describe their events in more detail. To back it up, we’ll be publishing an Art Events calendar in the Jacksonville Review every month.
Speaking of blogs, you’ll soon be seeing links to more of them here, some “domestic” blogs within the Southern Oregon Artists Resource, some linked to those published by members of the arts community who have listings here. That should be fun!
I went to the Rogue Gallery and Art Center’s 50th Anniversary celebration last week and walked in to a standing-room-only crowd. Awesome. Naturally, as I have been since September, I talked to as many of them as I could about SOAR. I’m so pleased that I have yet to hear anyone say “don’t bother.” I spoke with the RGAC’s new Executive Director, Jules Masterjohn, and co-founder Eugene Bennett, who’s put 50 years of work into developing and encouraging the arts around here, and, happily, got lots of heart-warming encouragement to stay with it. Everyone feels the concept is good, the service is necessary and that it will be helpful to many. It’s a lot of work, and so far its been a labor of love which steals too much time from my bank account and my work as a web designer. Which does pay my bills, so I can’t quit my “day job” yet! Yet I am completely enamored with our lovely and talented arts community and don’t see why I shouldn’t leap in with no backing or sponsorship to do what I can to promote them. They have certainly done their part to make Southern Oregon such a great place to live, work and play.
So, while the site is in its infancy and it’s not time to throw away all the piles of paper just yet, I hope you’ll enjoy hanging out and watching it come to life as I add new features and more events to the calendar, and as more artists, galleries, organizations and events add their listings to the directory. This is a great time to make suggestions, so don’t be shy. And, you know, spread the word!
I’ll try to keep my posts shorter in the future!
