Sue Beyer

Hi! I'm Sue Beyer, I am a visual artist living in Melbourne and my project is to create a set of affordable, professional artist studios and an international artist residency, that are partially funded by patrons and art lovers. I've been planning and working on this idea for about a year now. I'm very excited about this project and thought you would be too.

The society we are currently living in doesn't make it easy for artists. With support from our government drying up and now virtually non-existent, it is up to us to make sure that art gets made. I want to get patrons involved in a direct way with artist's day-to-day work. This could take many forms and some examples might be that the patron pays for the artist studio for the year, providing some mentoring and hopefully friendships will form. In return the artist might give some art to the patron, hold personal workshops with the patron and host studio visits maybe once a month. It would be an individual agreement between the two people.

At it's essence, it's really about the love of art, new friendships and making stuff happen.

As well as the studios we will hold workshops like drawing and painting from life and in the studio, drawing etc., as well as specialist intensives run by professional artists that live in Melbourne. We have so many fantastic artists in Melbourne with so many different skills to draw upon. This will also give artists the opportunity to earn some money.

Special events will be held a number of times a year where artists and patrons/art lovers can get together for an evening of good food, wine and conversation. This will be an opportunity to meet new people that you might not get to meet otherwise, in a relaxed social setting.

Other events will include open studios, artist talks and things like a bbq and film nights.

There will also be a gallery for artists to use to test work and experiment to their hearts content.

Finally an international artist residency is the ultimate goal. I have been on a few residencies in Australia and overseas. I believe they are invaluable to artists. It gives the artist a chance to step out of their own routine and paves the way for new experiences and time to refresh the art process. The goal is to host artists for a 1-6 month period, with an exhibition at the end of the residency.

The studios will have a board of 6 people that will make decisions on artists being selected for sponsored studios and the residency. I am very fortunate to know some wonderful people with extensive business and experience in the arts that have agreed to participate on the board.

You can get more information on the project at: www.sandboxstudios.com.au

And more information on me at: www.suebeyer.com.au 

Here goes!

This campaign aims to raise $10,000. But we'll need about $15,000 - $20,000 to build and paint stud walls, put in a very basic kitchen and bathroom, plus all of those unexpected expenses like planning permits.

Here is a pie chart showing how the campaign money will be spent.

Tradespeople are the biggest cost to set up the studios and we want to do it properly - 30%

Electrical work including an electrician to make sure each studio has enough power points and the gallery has some Decent LED directional lighting for the gallery - 25%

The building materials for the stud walls - 20%

Other materials like nails, screws, doors, hinges, putty, paint rollers etc it's quite a list - 15%

White paint everywhere! - 7.5%

Emergency, 'Just in case' money because there is always something that gets forgotten - 2.5%