”
I feel I’ve been catapulted into success,
”
said a Hollister artist after returning from ArtExpo
International in New York City last week.
By Herman Wrede
Hollister – “I feel I’ve been catapulted into success,” said a Hollister artist after returning from ArtExpo International in New York City last week.
Shannon Grissom, who recently returned from the March 3-6 show, was among the nominees presented to the thousands of artists, gallery owners, media and publishers at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on 34th Street.
Grissom and nine others are in competition in the oil painting category for ARTV with the winner to be announced at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas Oct. 28. It will be the first event of its kind and will be televised.
“I made some valuable contacts at ArtExpo 2004, the first I attended,” she said. “This year I was ushered right to the ARTV booth and introduced to other artists and the general public. They showed my video entry on a movie-sized screen, and on Saturday they played one of my TV ‘Give Your Walls Some Soul’ episodes in its entirety.”
She also checked in with Haddad’s Publishing, which sells reproductions of urns she had painted. Haddad’s Publishing, with whom she signed a contract last year, is among the best-known distributors of artwork in the nation.
McKenzie Rice, a fellow nominee whose work has been picked up by Fox Television, befriended Grissom. Coke Buchanan, who writes for Philanthropy Magazine, talked to her about getting her television show aired in Dallas and asked if she would consider being flown there for charity events.
“Then to top it off, Zella Jackson, the art marketing guru, gave a lecture on Saturday using me as an example in her class,” Grissom said. “The other nominees and I were taken by limousine to the press party at Progressive Art Gallery on Fifth Avenue, where we were formally introduced. All the attention we received almost made us feel like royalty.”
Grissom acknowledged that although it was a change to be interviewed by the press, she said she was ready to come home “and put out the garbage cans, I’m glad to be back at my easel again.”
She expects to spend the next few months following up on some offers made at ArtExpo. Grissom is already at work taping a show about local artists to be shown March 19 on Community Media Access Partnership channel 17, and will participate in the Marin Art Festival in June.
“I am excited about my career,” she said. “It’s all coming together for me.”
