Links to the relevant websites can be accessed on the Opportunities for Artists page.

1 May 2011 NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize
4 May 2011 Australian Academy of Design Photography Prize (theme “The Decisive Moment”)
8 May 2011 Mount Eyre Vineyards Art Prize
13 May 2011 The Waterhouse Art Prize (natural history art)
13 May 2011 St Michael’s Exhibition and Archangel Prize (Vic)
16 May 2011 Art on Paper Hazelhurst Art Award (biennial)
23 May 2011 Australian Academy of Design Poster Prize (theme “This is Me”)
29 May 2011 Brunswick Street Gallery Small Works Prize
27 May 2011 John  Fries Memorial Prize
27 May 2011 Live Life Villages
30 May 2011 The Ian Potter Cultural Trust. Closing date for applications for grants for project/travel after 9 September 31 May 2011 Caulfield Grammar School Society for the Arts (Vic)

June deadlines

3 June 2011  Waverley Art Prize
3 June 2011  Geelong Acquisitive Print Awards (biennial due 2011)
3 June 2011 Outback Open Art Prize (Broken Hill Regional Gallery)
10 June 2011 Silk Cut Award
12 June 2011 The Second Open International Contemporary Print Competition in South West Cornwall (UK)
13 June 2011 Fremantle  Arts Centre Print Awards
13 June 2011 Marie Ellis OAM Prize for Drawing
17 June 2011 Hutchins Art Prize 2011 (biennial)
22 June 2011 William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize
24 June 2011 Blake Prize
24 June 2011 Metro Art Award
24 June 2011 Basil Sellers Art Prize
24 June 2011 Flanagan Art Prize

In other art news:

Another of my favourite artists, Ambrose Reisch, has a new opening Saturday 28 May (3-5pm) at Stella Downer Fine Art.  The show runs from 24 May – 18 June 2011.

The Art Gallery NSW is holding an ‘open weekend’ 21/22 May.  This will be a good (although crowded) opportunity to see the Archibald/Wynne/Sulman Prizes.  The AGNSW will also open a floors which houses the John Kaldor Family Gallery.  This gallery includes works by Richard Long, Ugo Rondinone, Robert Rauschenberg, Christo, Sol LeWitt,  Thomas Demand, Gilbert & George, Tracey Moffatt, Bernd and Hilla Becher,  Jeff Koons, Thomas Struth, Rosemary Laing, Nam June Paik, Shaun Gladwell, Del Kathryn Barton, David Noonan, Callum Morton, Simryn Gill, Mike Parr, Doris  Salcedo and Janis Kounellis.

Check our Opportunities for Artists page for full details

1 April 2011 City of Hobart Art Prize (works in wood or works on or of paper or cardboard)
1 April 2011 Archibald Portrait Prize
1 April 2011 Sulman Prize
1 April 2011 Wynne Prize
1 April 2011 8th Biennial International Miniature Print Exhibition (Canada)
15 April 2011 The Churchie National Emerging Art Award
15 April 2011 Hunters Hill Art Prize
29 April 2011 Lethbridge 10000 Small Scale Art Award
23 April 2011 Lethbridge Small Scale Art Award
27 April 2011 Cliftons Art Prize
30 April 2011 Innovate/Curate.  Tin Sheds is pleased to announce the second round of the Curate/Innovate Grant, offered to help encourage curatorial practice in Australia. It is open to any individual or collective who has a curatorial idea they would like to explore

The long lay off has been due to the loss of my “artistic mojo”… or “post exhibition blues”. I started to write about my ‘post exhibition blues‘ a few weeks ago and this week finished off the article and posted it.  Hopefully that’s the end of those..

For those of you with Facebook Business or Fan Pages, Facebook has made some great functionality changes.  Read more here. Basically you can now interact as your Business Page as opposed to yourself.  Great I say.

And finally……some snippets of art this week  …..

Ivan Goodacre’s latest show, “Small Towns of NSW & Victoria” opens this week (17 Feb) at the Charles Hewitt Gallery.  I’m a biiig Ivan Goodacre fan.  Those familiar with my recent work will probably see why.  All those telegraph poles!

Defiance Gallery Summer Show 2011 opens this week (17 Feb until 19 March).   Featuring work by Phillip King, Andew Southall, (swoon worthy drawings) Tim Allen, Ayako Saito, Andre Bowen, John Reid, Ivor Fabok & Angus Ademeitis.

The National Photographic Portrait prize 2010 is now on display at the Mosman Art Gallery. Open until 20 March 2011.

Thought of the week from Louise Bourgeois via my artist friend Nicola Clarke “Art is a guarantee of sanity”.  Couldn’t agree more Louise (R.I.P).

Jesslyn Wijaya is a 7 year old Sydney artist who this week opened an exhibition of 60 of her paintings at Tap Gallery.  Yes I did say 7 years old and 60 paintings. I was interested in the Sydney Morning Herald article about Jesslyn quoting art critic John McDonald “‘They are certainly pretty good for a seven-year-old. They have a very mature grasp of colour and composition  ……” the article went on “Nevertheless, he (McDonald) disputed the notion of artistic child prodigies. ”Prodigies only exist in music, maths and chess,” he said. ”No matter what their technical ability, a seven-year-old cannot paint a masterpiece. They don’t have what it takes to turn competence into greatness.””.  I thought the last statement was an interesting take on what it takes to produce “greatness”.  Why can’t a 7 year old create a masterpiece ?  Anyway….

Speaking of John McDonald, he opens the exhibition “Hard Sleeper: Australian Artists in China” this week at Damien Minton Gallery.

Via the Social networking site for professionals, LinkedIn, I am a member of the group “Artist Marketing Resources”.  Members of the group put together this slideshow featuring a number of works from artists worldwide.  The slideshow feature is a nifty way to showcase your work.   I will look at posting something about that in future updates.

I do love discovering “new” artists (ie new for me).  Today I came across the work of Mexican artist Bestabee Romero.  I am completely in love with her prints made from carved tyres.  This video is from Philagrafika 2010.

May the art be with you…

I did have intentions of creating art all day and also visiting a local Artist Run Initiative, Gone Fishing Gallery.  All I’ve managed to do is fiddle on the computer and upload some new images to my website and mess about on that perennial timewaster, Facebook.

I have however written 2 new ‘how to” articles for this blog, they are How to straighten photographs of artworks using Photoshop and How to create a deckle edge using Photoshop.

And in other artistic news this week which may be of interest to you…..

Hardware Gallery at Enmore this week issued a call out for their “Medium: Vinyl 2011″ show .  This show is all about creating art on a vinyl record.  This is an annual event and quite popular by all accounts.

Tin Sheds Gallery is accepting proposals for their 2012 progam.

The Art Month Sydney 2011 website has been launched.  Looks like some great events and open studios again this year.  Art Month runs through March 2011.

This week I’m going to see Sophie Cape’s first show with Tim Olsen Gallery.  Sophie’s work was one of the stand outs at the 2010 NAS Grad show, so I’m looking forward to that.  She received an armload of NAS prizes, including the John Olsen Prize for drawing.  Deservedly so based on the work I saw.

One of my (favourite!) former teachers, Margaret Ackland has a new show called “Histories” at the Flinders Lane Gallery in Melbourne.  The show opens on 22 Feb.  Margaret’s work over the last few years has looked at identity through the examination of clothing.   Gorgeous work (in my opinion !).

A-Space on Cleveland in Surry Hills is closing down.  They are having a stockroom sale from 5 March – 12 March if you are in the market for some artwork.

NAS public programs is now up. The 2 days Cockatoo Island (7-8 May) workshop is tempting, very tempting.

I have updated the Artist Opportunities page with even more artistic opportunities – I just bought the Art Almanac and found more, more, more !

Check out the Opportunities for Artists page for more information and links to application forms.

1 Feb 2011 2011 Guanlan international Print Biennial (China)
1 Feb 2011 Closing date for grants applications for Artist Run Initiatives – Visual Arts.
4 Feb 2011 Port Stephens Art Prize (NSW)
6 Feb 2011 BSGallery Works on paper prize (Vic)
7 Feb 2011 The City of Monash Sculpture Prize (Vic)
7 Feb 2011 Toyota Community Spirit Emerging Artist Award
9 Feb 2011 Sydney Royal Arts & Crafts Show
11 Feb 2011 Rick Amor Print Prize (Vic) (2011 is inaugural year)
11 Feb 2011 Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship
18 Feb 2011 Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award
25 Feb 2011 Willoughby Sculpture prize (NSW)

The Paper Mill is seeking volunteers and directors for 2011.  The Paper Mill is a not for profit artist run space in Angel Place in the City.  Applications close 14 Feb 2011.

Another Artist Run space, ESP Gallery in Marrickville, has also issued a call out to join their volunteer crew for 2011.

Both the Paper Mill and ESP are also seeking expressions of interest for group or solo shoes in 2011.   The Paper Mill closing date for applications is 31 Jan 2011.  Get your skates on !

Also, entries for the Sydney Royal Arts & Crafts show close on 9 Feb 2011 at 5pm.

“I don’t take days off … because to be good at something you have to work at it.”

(John Malkovich speaking to Alex Lalak Jan 18 2011)

Interesting….. and inspiring…. and daunting !

In Part 2 of this series of tips, I will show you how creating Friend Lists can help you manage what you see in your Facebook News Feed.

Tip 2       Using ‘Friend Lists’

The benefit of Friend Lists is twofold.   First you can filter your newsfeed to show only post/updates from particular groups of people.

For example, if I create a Friend List called “Art Galleries” and add all the Art Galleries I am Facebook Friends with and/or with Facebook Business Pages I “Like”.  I can filter my News Feed to only show posts/updates from those Galleries.  This is great if you want to check out just exhibition news for example.

Secondly, by using Friend Lists you can limit your own posts/updates to be made available to particular friends.  For example, I have a list called ‘Art Crew’.  This List contains friends that have an interest in Art.  If I want to share a post/update that would only be of interest to those friends, I can share my post, change the security of the post so that only my “Art Crew” List sees it.  That way I’m not clogging up all my other friends’ News Feed with information they have no interest in.

How to create a Friend List in Facebook

Click the Account link on the top right of the Facebook page

Select Edit Friends

A list of all your friends will appear. Click the button labelled + Create a List which is just at the top of the friends list.

Enter a Name for your list (in this example (see image) I’ve used Galleries)

Your list of Friends and Business pages you “Like” will be displayed. Simply scroll through the list and click once each of the names you would like to include in your list.

Click Create List and you are done.

Now to put those lists to good use !

Tip 3 Filter your Facebook News Feed to see post/updates only from your Friend Lists

Once you have created a Friend List, you can now filter your News Feed to only show posts/updates from people in that List.

From your Facebook News Feed

Simply click the down arrow Most Recent, then select the name of the Friend List you want to see

Tip 4 Sharing posts/updates only with your Friend Lists

The other great use of Friend Lists is share your posts/updates with selected Friends.

In this example, I will create a Facebook Status update, but only share it with the people on my Friend List called “Art Crew”

Type your status update, notice that under the Status update box is a closed padlock.  Click this and from the drop down menu select Customize (sic).

Under Make this visible to select “Specific People…”

Then in the box provided, type the name of your Friend List, select it.

Click Save Setting

Then you are complete.  Your status update will be visible only to the people on your Friend List.

Note that your Friend List can include Friends and also Business pages that you like.  Only your friends will see your status update, Business pages will not see it as they are not ‘Friends’ with you.

I recently gave a seminar about online social networking for artists.  During the seminar a few questions were asked about how to manage the volume of information that  appears in Facebook News Feeds.  This post is the first of a series providing tips on managing your Facebook News Feed.

The Facebook News Feed is a great feature.  However, sometimes the amount of information listed can become a little overwhelming.   Let’s be honest, some of your Facebook friends or the owners of the business pages you ‘Like’ can update their status, upload photos or share links a little too often.  You have a couple of choices here:

Choice  A             “unfriend” the friend or “unlike” the page.

This option may be a bit drastic, or you may be uncomfortable de-friending someone….In that case you need

Choice B               Learn some tips to manage your Facebook News Feed.    Coincidentally, I just so happen to have some of these tips!

Tip 1      Hiding status updates and posts from the News Feed

It is possible to ‘hide’ the posts/status updates of certain friends/businesses from the Facebook News Feed.  The following sets out the quickest way to hide posts from the News Feed:

1. From your Facebook News Feed, move your mouse pointer over twoards the right hand side of post belonging to someone you wish to hide.  This will display a blue X (see image below)
2. Click the X
3. From the pop up menu select Hide this Post, or  Hide all by [name]

 
Selecting Hide All will remove all posts from that person/business from your News Feed from that point forward. 

The person/business will not be made aware you have hidden their posts.

‘Unhiding’ posts from News Feed

If you have elected to hide posts from a person/business and but wish to reverse this, follow these steps

1. Click the down arrow next to Most Recent (see image below)
2. Select Edit Options

A listing of all the Friends/Pages you have hidden will appear (see image below)

Simply press the x next to any of the Friends/Pages updates you wish reinstate,  then click the Save button.

In our next post, Tips for Managing your Facebook News Feed  Part 2 I will explain how to use Friend Lists to keep control of your Facebook News Feed.

I’m looking forward to seeing King Street Gallery on William‘s first exhibition for 2011  ‘On This Island’.

This is a group show inspired by New Zealand and featuring some of my favourite artists Idris Murphy, Euan Macleod and Steve Lopes.   Works by Julie Harris, David Keeling, Jan Senbergs, Peter Simpson, Ann Thomson & Judith Van Heeran also feature.

The show runs 11 January – 05 February 2011.