FLAG NOTES May 2009

First let me congratulate Ahlin on her successful term of office as President of FLAG. You've set the stage for our continued success as a great artist's organization.

And secondly congratulations to Cheryl Day-Swallow and her crew of Area 4 workers for putting on a wonderful Symposium. The warm hospitality by Area IV and the Leepa-Rattner museum were really wonderful and the exhibition and reception was outstanding. The museum enjoyed hosting us and invited us to return on a continuing rotation of 7 years.
Cheryl Anne is going to follow up on the Leepa-Rattner's invitation to return and will set a definite date for that.

Thanks to everyone who stayed over for the Board Meeting on Sunday morning. I appreciate your support and look forward to working with all of our fine Area Chairs and the rest of the Board during my term as President. I wanted to touch base again and review the decisions we made.

Our secretary, Joan Lyon, will supply us with minutes of the board meeting from Friday, May 1, the general meeting Saturday, May 2, and our Board meeting Sunday, May 3.
Treasurer Roberta Schofield will supply us with a treasurer's report as soon as all transactions for the Tarpon Springs Symposium are finalized.

I asked all Board Members in attendance for an evaluation of the Symposium. What did we do especially well and what could we improve. Roberta agreed to put a request for an evaluation from the entire membership n the next newsletter if I provide the wording.

We asked Joan Klutch to go ahead and see about arrangements with BIG Arts on Sanibel Island to host the 2010 symposium. Joan took us at our word and has already confirmed with BIG Arts the exhibition dates and opening and has a hotel lined up. So we are a BIG GO for the 2010 symposium 9 months from now on January 8 and 9 on Sanibel Island. Joan checked with Howard Cowdrick about the negotiations with Longboat Key. He says Longboat Key has not yet responded. The BIG Arts facility is apparently a really nice venue, but in order to ensure that there is enough space for everyone we're going to limit the size to a maximum of 36" wide by 36 " tall including framing for 2D and 36"x36"x36" for 3 D Joan already has talked with Dan Welden about being our juror. This is tentative. Joan even has recruited a volunteer to deal with the jpeg entries. Good work Joan! Roberta Schofiled agreed to supply Joan with the budgets for the past two Symposiums.

We asked Ahlin to find out about the status of our request for an exhibition at the Maitland Museum of Art. I think I'm supposed to follow up about the Appleton Museum in Ocala on our earlier inquiries with them about exhibitions. If anyone has any ideas or contacts for other good venues for future years please investigate. Remember my # 1 priority is to have Symposiums set for 5 years or more in the future.

In our general meeting we agreed that we would have a statement of our policy about exhibiting digital art work and in the board meeting we agreed that Robert York would research what is being done in museums around the country. Joan Klutch gave us a handout with a policy statement from Women Contemporary Artists. We also agreed that Robert and I would develop a statement and have it in place for the Armory show and then it could be adopted formally at our next Symposium. It was suggested we consult with Keith Theriot on this issue. Robert and I will, of course, make the statement available to the Board members for comment before finalizing it.

We also agreed that we would include a page in our Symposium book a page outlining the awards we give including the dedications and the donors, subject to the approval of the various donors (some may prefer to remain anonymous).

We agreed to go ahead with the registration on Artist Registry. Mindy Colton, Area V chair, agreed to do the internet sign up and Roberta Schofield will write the $100. check that will be required. Roberta Schofield will also put a link on our website to Artists Registry.


Foks, we accomplished a lot and are off to a fine start. I'm really excited about Sanibel and our future growth. Hope all of you have a great summer making art, but keep in touch and I'll do likewise! See you in September in West Palm Beach!

Blessings, Barre Barrett