As we prepare for the first annual VIA awards, I am becoming more excited to honor those chosen artists. These artists are pushing themselves to evolve and to step out of their comfort zone each day.
I am also learning much about the exposure opportunities we are offering. I already understood the importance of having a professional organization endorsing the artwork. What pleasantly surprised me is that the countless number of followers, friends, and viewers on all our marketing platforms are paying attention. Maybe I had become complacent to the social media algorithm idea that only a few people truly saw our exposure and posts. However, the more we market and expose our artists, the more feedback we are receiving.
One Saturday, a new visitor entered the gallery and announced exactly which art piece was desired to be purchased. This person had been following our website and posts. This person was from the Atlanta area, which was an even sweeter surprise. After all, it would be great for the local followers, friends, and connections to be paying attention to our promotions; but this person found us without hearing about us from next door neighbors. This person purchased the artwork that was previously chosen and purchased an additional item. We gained a fan that day, and a follower that will most likely still be paying attention in the future. And bonus ... will be back to purchase art in the future. Since that day we have had many other people from outside of Woodstock reach out to ask questions about the gallery, the artworks, and our services.
Note to self - the art collector and specialized art groups which we are becoming familiar are important and this to will take the gallery and our artists to the next level of exposure. We can already see these seeds are beginning to grow as well.
Back to you - We are receiving more and more feedback regarding our promotions, our posts, our cyber presence, and even regarding our personal information. For a country girl who was raised in North Georgia and who felt she was always invisible to others, this is an accomplishment.
Let me stop myself right there. I cannot take all the credit for two reasons. Reason number one - when you are obedient to our heavenly father's call on your life and truly put him first in all that you do, then the seeds that you plant will grow. It may take time, and it may not grow exactly how you had wanted, but they will grow. Reason number two - God has blessed us with a talented assistant who has worked very hard to promote our gallery and our artists. She too is an artist, and her talents are gaining recognition. We are very thankful for Bailey.
The VIA awards ceremony will be a small but classy event for the first execution. However, I can already see us growing the event and by the second annual VIA award ceremony I expect to have met many more exciting artists and people in the art community. We are already accepting submissions for the 2023 awards, and we have begun to research venues. I truly believe that once the official video of the 2022 award ceremony is viewed on our YouTube channel along with a variety of photos on all our platforms, people will begin to see what I already see. We are very blessed to have this opportunity to represent so many talented local and national artists.
This statement summarizes it best - "Keep Climbing."
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