Artists wanted for our new art gallery in Bedfordshire

Dear Artist, I would like to introduce myself and my new Art Gallery to you. I am proud to announce that I am opening Franklins Art Gallery in Haynes in Bedfordshire. I am also opening a website to run along side it. I am looking for artists to exhibit their original works within the Gallery and on the Website. A little about the reason Franklins is opening. My step son is a fantastic artist, even though he is only just 14, his passion for the arts and the way he paints just blows me away. He wanted me to look into exhibiting his work with local gallery's, firstly they are few and far between in the Bedfordshire area, when I did track down a couple I was astonished how expensive it was, the displaying costs and the commission taken. So when I went back to my office where I run an exhibition company, I started to think about all the other artists like my step son who turn out the most amazing works but can not afford to display them in a gallery. I contacted Southill Estate to see if they had any property to rent which would suit an art gallery, they said not really just a barn in Haynes but its not a white box! Well that's good I said its not a white box I am looking for I want a building with Character, and that's what I have now got, the most amazing 3500 square foot barn full of character, and resident spiders at the moment due to standing empty for so long. I want to run the gallery in a different way than the contemporary galleries. I will have artwork on display for a 3 week viewing period followed by a live auction on all the artwork. So this way the artwork is continuously moving every month. As the artist you will have a reserve price on your pieces of art and we would then start the auction at that price and hopefully get you more money than you expected. The gallery will be open for anyone who wishes to view the artwork, if they chose a piece of work that they wish to bid on but cannot make the live auction they can leave a commission bid on that piece of art when it goes to auction. You can display artwork at any value you wish whether it be £30 or £3000. Like I say the Barn is in need of some work to get it to the Gallery Standard I am looking for. To raise some extra monies to do this we are going to run some rustic auctions, rustic as in the barn, not the artwork! It will be run in the same way as it will when the Gallery is refurbished, 3 week viewing and then the auction. Your artwork will be displayed and then sent to auction. Our official website is under construction, so we have put together a temporary site www.franklinsartgallery.co.uk please take a look. We are looking for around 700 pieces of art for our first auction. We are offering very low rates for the first three auctions, if you display your artwork for one or all of the 3 auctions, we would honour these rates to you for the rest of the year. The rates we intend on charging for displaying in the gallery is 1p per square inch, so, for example a 12" x 10" canvass would cost you £1.20 for 3 weeks, then if your artwork is sold in auction we would take 22% of the final selling price. If your artwork is not sold you can either, put it on our website free of charge with a buy it now price or put it back into the gallery at the same charges as before. We do ask that your display costs to be a minimum of £5.00, simple due to administration costs. So for example 4 paintings sized 12" x 12" would be £5.76. The website is a buy it now site only, no bidding. It is free to display additional artwork on the website, and when your artwork is sold we take an 18% commission. All this information is explained in more depth on the website. This is a brand new venture with the backing of Exhibit Direct Ltd. We are planning our first auction for the middle of July, viewing starting mid June, so we are looking for artwork immediately so we can get the ball rolling, for both the Gallery and the Website. If you would like to submit your artwork please contact me directly on 0845 388 2910 or my mobile 07961 665642. If you wanted to come and see the barn as it stands and see the future plans that is not a problem, we welcome everyone. Thank you for your time and we hope to be working with you soon. Kindest Regards Karen Franklin Company Director Exhibit Direct Ltd C/O Franklins Art Gallery Tel. 0845 388 2875 [email protected] www.exhibitdirect.co.uk www.thewowshow.co.uk www.franklinsartgallery.co.uk - 0845 388 2910 Barn 2, Summerfields Hammer Hill Haynes Bedford Bedfordshire MK45 3BH "Connecting you with the right people"