Summary
A Discussion about TAG's future
Tempe Artists Guild’s (TAG’s) Next Steps – A Discussion Over Dessert
Anshu Priya
Nearly thirty of us gathered last week (despite the heat wave) at our President Marie Provine’s beautiful home to discuss TAG’s next steps. Sitting around carefully arranged tables, with a range of desserts at hand, it was hard not to think about how seminal the last three years have been for TAG. While a lot of art organizations had to cut corners, go into hibernation, or even shut down during the pandemic, we, at Tempe Artists Guild somehow managed to channel all the chaos into strength, and continued to grow through it.
We reinvented a lot of our skills, our capacity, our vision. We wrote succinct proposals and leaned in to grants from the City of Tempe and Arizona. We nourished our hearts and our minds by continuing to exhibit at member shows and outside. When in-person shows were not possible, we staged virtual shows on our website. We focused on learning and instruction to become better artists – and for that we looked around energetically for wonderful guest speakers and instructors for our monthly speaker meetings and day-long workshops. We vastly expanded our digital footprint with the help of an efficient website, regular virtual shows, meetings on zoom, and being active on social media. Most importantly, we resumed our outreach efforts at the earliest possible juncture, whether it be our work with memory-care patients or providing scholarships to a local community college. We may be a relatively small group, but we have a mighty heart for art. And it is for this reason that we not only survived the last three years, but thrived.
But we are hungry for more. We find ourselves on firm footing. And would like to hone our skills further, expand our outreach efforts, and make our digital presence even more expansive. We want to help support artists in the area who are looking for kinship. Hobbyists who want to give art a real shot. Just people at large who want to fill their lives with art, or art instruction. We feel like we have a lot to offer, and it is the right time to explore our next steps. This ‘sweet’ meeting was an effort in that direction. Based on a vision document and resulting questions, we went around the room asking members about their take on various topics – TAG related. We are basking in the wealth of information that we now have, but we were happy about how most of us want the same things for TAG and from TAG. We will come back to you with those responses once we have fleshed them out a little more.
But for now, I will leave you with some beautiful responses we got when we asked our members this question right as our meeting started: “What is your favorite thing about TAG”. The responses were heartfelt, valuable and share worthy. We hope you will enjoy perusing them here.
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