Ladies and germs, at last the time has come for me to announce an amazing development in the life of your favorite inside-out art museum:
ArtAround is about to expand. Although we’ll continue to sow the art-rich soil in DC (and, in fact, will be expanding our work here), within the next few months, we’ll also have open door to public art all over the country – starting with San Francisco.
Background: In the winter of 2011, I began to reach out to folks working on online, interactive platforms for public art, including then-current Code for America fellow, Anna Bloom. Anna had worked with developers across the country on a public art mapper, and when we reconnected in February 2012, she expressed interest in expanding her work through the Bay Area by way of ArtAround. Several months of scheming later, Anna brought a Kickstarter campaign to life, and 206 folks helped us raise almost $10,000 – an amazing feat that, sadly, was not enough for us to make our goal.
It was, however, enough for an angel donor to take notice.
With only 10 hours left on the Kickstarter clock, we were contacted by Converse, Inc – yes, that Converse – and informed that they would like to help. The conditions? No co-branding, no sneaker-spots, no advertising, no browser cookies…Only that we reward the people who tried to support us at the pledge level they contributed, and that we make ArtAround San Francisco happen.
And that’s just want we’re going to do.
It’s with great pride that Anna and I unveil that ArtAround San Francisco will be a reality. We’ll be spending the next few months in development and look forward to keeping you up to date on our progress here on the blog and through Twitter and Facebook.
It has been over three years since I first had the idea for ArtAround, and about two years and change since the idea came into (virtual) reality in DC. Although it’s always been a dream to expand this project outside of the District (and, in fact, we’ve long had the technical framework for it), we took our time doing so because we wanted to make sure that we could deliver a solid creative platform locally before trying to figure out how to sustainably expand and offer the same top-quality experience elsewhere.
That’s why bringing San Francisco into the ArtAround family is such a “BFD” for us. This development marks a huge step forward for our bootstrapping “organization,”* and we couldn’t be more grateful to the folks at Converse and to everyone who contributed their enthusiasm, pledge dollars, social media shares, and energy to help us get here. (And to those of you who helped us via the Kickstarter campaign, we especially thank you (and you will be receiving evidence of that thanks in a short time).)
We’ll have more updates on San Francisco and other developments as we get into gear, but for now, I want to take a minute to thank some of the major players and partners who have made substantial contributions to this project.
*Kudos to…
- The DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities, our DC partner and sponsor
- Eric Mill, our all-star Ruby/Rails dev who has been a great technical advisor throughout this project
- Caitlin Weber, the creative mind behind all things ArtAround design
- Brian Singer and Brandon Jones, without whom there would be no iPhone app
- Evelina Vrabie, the Android dev who got us started on mobile
- Anna Bloom, San Francisco’s community manager and our dreamer and doer on the West Coast
Interested in getting involved? Give me a shout: laurenellen@theartaround.us
–Laurenellen
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