Anchorage Community Fired Arts May Meeting

This Meetup Group is not meeting until ski season is over sometime in March 2008.

Our first meeting was a small group of three people. Hopefully more interested community members can come to meetings. If a different day would work better for the members of this group, please indicate what day & time would be best.
Again we'll start with introductions, sharing what medium you work with, and what kind of place or organization you think Anchorage needs to develop in order to support artists using clay, glass or metal. Feel free to bring a snack/drink to share if you'd like to.

Ideas presented in the first meeting included:
* create a co-op gallery
* provide art classes for kids & special needs groups
* work towards gaining land or buildings to create spaces for studio artists and educational purposes

Grant writing/research is a skill that this group needs to obtain funding to develop these ideas.
Artists with practical business sense or business managers with a desire to encourage artists are needed as well to develop a plan. What role can you fulfill to help develop an arts organization? Could you be an officer on a board? What skills can you share? Do you know of an existing organization or arts movement that is similar in Anchorage?

Perhaps this could become a state-wide organization, giving member support to (clay, glass, metal) artists in Alaska, instead of just Anchorage, especially since a couple meetup members are in Fairbanks. How does the AK Metal Arts Guild operate statewide? Can anyone point us to an existing model organization on the web to guide the setup, planning, & other stuff? How much collaboration can be done via the web?

Hopefully we can answer some of these questions and continue development of ideas in the spring. In the meantime, feel free to join this group, submit comments & information, or whatever is pertinent.