Jo O'Brien

Yesterday we had a brainstorming session over at bubble HQ about some ways to make RedBubble geographical groups really awesome. As one of the hosts of the Melbourne Group I was beside myself with my hand in the air ready to be a guinea pig. So to the group, you’re about to have a bunch of crazy ideas ideas tested out of you :)

Later that afternoon I had a rough plan together for some secret missions to kick things into gear. The first of which was to give group members a chance at seeing their work hanging in a real life gallery. I got out my pen and paper like in the old fashioned days and I started jotting down how I could see it working, and what sorts of terms and conditions would need to be applied to make things run smoothly. I put my ramblings into an email and sent it out to all the group hosts. (we’re a cute little team of 5)

While I impatiently waited for their feedback I did the typical Jo thing and presumed they’d love it and so got to work! I drafted up some conditions on entry, a welcome post, and fleshed out a proposal to take to venues who might be able to exhibit some work. Then I made myself go to bed or I wouldn’t have been fit for human interaction today.

Upon getting to work I got stuck into finding a location to host the first exhibition. Following my gut instinct and common sense, I approached Brunswick Street Gallery. I place that has exhibited the works of several RedBubble artists in the recent past and happens to have a really nice guy that runs the place, Mark Jamieson.

Much to my thrill, Mark was happy to not just give us a temporary tiny space for a handful of works (as I’d gone in requesting) but the entire ground floor on an ongoing basis. In fact, minus a few things he already had booked in, he was happy for the Melbourne Group to curate that space for several fortnights. How awesome is that!

So then I ran back to work and proceeded to post about the competition and send out a special group bubblemail with dodgy formatting because I was too excited to wait another second! By lunchtime, the competition was launched and group members were submitting their works for consideration and by April 25th they will be on the walls for the general public to browse at and buy.

I’m keeping a track of how it all goes and what to do differently next time with the hope that other groups might like to do something equally cool. (And isn’t great when you can start with a template?)

Anyway, I’m still on a high but dinner is calling me :)