Operations: The Project Summary (draft)

The idea of a pop-up gallery in Appleton is to benefit both the Lawrence University art students who could sell their art and the community who would sell the space. It gives opportunities for presenting the rentable space and for increasing interest in students and local artists’ art works.

We first started to look for properties in the Appleton downtown area. There were a lot of business closed in the last few months so it was not a big issue to talk to the landowners about borrowing and helping show the space. In addition, the farmers’ market is opening next month, it will be a great advertising chance for the audience to walk in see the art and the property.

However, the insurance was a big problem we have met so far. We have been trying to talk to Lawrence University for an umbrella policy to cover the insurance of the property that we might decide to use in a later time. An umbrella policy refers to a liability insurance policy that protects the assets and future income of the policyholder above and beyond the standard limits set on their primary policies. It is necessary to cover both the art works and the safety of audience for a gallery which opens to the public. We have sent letters but never heard back from the people who were supposed to be in charge. This is a learning progress and it takes time and energy to negotiate, and this is where we left.

Even though our Appleton’s own pop-up gallery does not come true, but we would like to share what we have prepared with people who would be interested and take on in the future. We have finished a couple of very thorough budget statements, with the potential exhibition time lines from one week to one month. We have a shopping list ready of what we need to put up a show from zero. We have a list of rentable spaces for people to walk in and look at, including the all the address information and phone numbers. We have a few advertising ways that are already set up, including a blog, a Facebook page (maybe?), a (potential) website for updates.

Dropping the idea of actually putting up a show has been painful, because we love our idea of creating this pop-up gallery for the Lawrence students and the community. However, it takes more than what we expected, negotiating with landowners and trying to find connections have become the biggest part of our concern. We hope that one day our idea would come true, that there’s a place for local and students artists to show their works to a bigger population of audience, a place for the landowners who know who they should talk with to present their properties.