Letter to Storefront Owners -- Draft One!!!

Please comment your corrections! Thank you :) (also, please realize that this is a 1st draft for a reason :)


Dear Storefront Owners of Appleton,

My name is Sydney Pertl, and my collegues, Christopher Dorn, Krissy Rhyme, YeXue Li, and I would like to set forth a proposal which would allow for higher visibility of your property, increase foot traffic through your storefront, show off the potential of your space, and have a cultural impact in the Appleton community: all at no cost to you.

Our plan is to curate a “pop-up gallery,” an art exhibition space which uses for-rent areas in urban locations in order to promote the space and provide a platform for artists of said community to display their work. However, this would also allow us to showcase your space. In addition, we would be more than willing to repaint or clean, or whatever need be in order to demonstrate your property’s full potential. This gallery would be open only for a limited amount of time, or, until your space sells or is leased. At that time, we would potentially move on to aid another empty storefront.

Furthermore, Lawrence University will be providing insurance for the property so long as it is an art gallery, so the costs to you would be nonexistent.
Finally, in allowing us to make use of your empty space, you would be providing an invaluable service for the community. Artists from both Lawrence and the community would have a place to show their work and allow them to become part of the professional artistic practice. The gallery would also be open to the entire community for openings and specific times and days of the week where it will be closely monitored by either me or the other curators.

In short, you could effectively increase the amount of potential buyers by drawing them to the space, maximize your selling potential by showcasing your space’s potential, and allow for the cultural and artistic growth of your community. With no work needed on your part, this could be the chance you have been waiting for to successfully market your storefront!

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you might be interested in our plans, or should you have questions or concerns. I would be delighted to hear from you.

Thank you for your time,
Sincerely,


Sydney M. Pertl
Christopher Dorn
Krissy Rhyme
YeXue Li

Let's get started!

Chris, Sydney, Yexue and I are all very excited to embark on our journey into the realm of entrepreneurship! Our team will be working on establishing a pop-up gallery in downtown Appleton that will feature both work from local artists and students, hopefully setting up a place where the Lawrence campus and the Appleton community can be brought together. We will be approaching owners of empty storefronts, proposing our idea: in exchange for the use of the space as a gallery, we will be cleaning it up, ultimately allowing the public to have a better access and viewing experience of the space at little to no cost to the owner. There are a lot of great artists out there setting these up all over the country, but these articles and sites give a good overviews of the idea of a pop-up gallery, as well as interesting looks at the different artists who are contributing to them all around the world.

This week we are dealing with our first major obstacle--getting insurance from Lawrence to fund and cover the project, and sending out letters to business owners in the area. Without these two fundamental parts, we won't be able to actually set up a gallery in Appleton, but the responses so far have been extremely positive! We are all crossing our fingers as we go into next week, and we'll keep you updated as things move forward.