Community Arts

The artistic goals for Spring 2016 Art 4 All pop up were simple -- to give the community in and around Maplewood Mall a convenient place to drop in and create interesting, varied, challenging art pieces in a family-friendly setting. We want to help people of all ages understand that their lives can be improved and made more joyful by exposure to and experiences in the arts. This concept in a shopping mall environment is quite unique and many mall patrons noted that having Art 4 All in the mall made the mall a better place -- especially for families. The strengths of Art 4 All is that it is convenient and accessible for all. There is no need to sign up for specific classes or time frames. It is set up as a drop in experience which makes it very accessible for passers-by and thus the percentage of new guests is higher than returning guests. As a business model, however, this flexibility for customers makes it more difficult to project income from day to day. The varied project types and mediums worked well. We always offered at least 5 different project options for guests on our monthly rotating menu. Over the 3 month period we offered numerous canvas painting projects, junk sculpture, mixed media self-portrait, organic abstract sculpture, mini box assemblage, Kandinsky-inspired watercolor, button bouquets, foil and alcohol ink, and tie dye among others. With all these choices, patrons could come as often as once a week and not run out of new project options. One of our goals was to achieve 90% positive feedback from participants. Our survey showed the following results: 1. Overall Experience - 95% Wonderful/4% Good/1% Average/0% Poor. 2. Satisfaction with Quality of Art Project - 92% Wonderful/7% Good/1% Average/0% Poor. 3. Value of Experience for the Money Spent - 81% Wonderful/16% Good/3% Average/0% Poor. 4. Do you plan to come back? 84% Yes/14% Probably/2% Maybe/0% No. 5. Did you enjoy your experience? 0% Less than I expected/25% About as much as I expected/75% More than I expected. Overall we reached our goal of 90% positive feedback! I feel the only struggle with the concept is how to bring in consistent cash flow in order to maintain the business. In the future, we may have to focus more energy on booking larger groups on a regular basis and promote more heavily the party option (both of which would give more steady income). Our goal for our spring 2016 Art 4 All pop up was to reach at least 500 new customers with positive, accessible art experiences with at least 50% of those being people of color. Our results? We reached 714 people total. 292 new Caucasians and 276 new people of color. 146 returning customers. So overall we reached 568 new people. 51% white and 49% people of color. Goal was nearly perfectly achieved! In order to maintain the Art 4 All business, we must charge $6-$12 per project (depending upon the cost of the materials used). Though this is a very reasonable fee, it is still too much for some who would like to participate. In the future, with more and larger grants, we may be able to have all projects be $5 or make a sliding fee scale of some kind. This would open the door even more and make it truly Art 4 All! Art 4 All reached over 700 people with high quality, hands-on art experiences in our 3 month pop up. 49% of the new customers reached were people of color. Audience surveys showed that 75% of guests enjoyed their art experience "more than I expected" which means that minds were opened to the arts and lives were changed.