Best In Show

I just attended a very cool museum show that featured the work of one of my very talented friends, Katherine Glover www.katherineglover.com. Kathleen is an absolute inspiration. At 58 she has already led the lives of pre-med student, wife, mother, Harvard MBA, management consultant and finally ... in the last five years ... as the artist she was meant to be all along. She fought her creativity her whole life and now she embraces it 211%. Better a late bloomer than not a bloomer at all!
I am working with Kathleen to develop and communicate her continually evolving brand. This is one of the most engaging, thrilling and terrifying projects I've ever tackled. I have branded software, financial products, and companies -- but never a person and never something as enormous, intangible and amorphous as art. It is almost ovewhelming. I know our work together has been sent to me as a step in discovering and communicating my own creativity and voice. For this, I am grateful.

As Kath and I walk the exhibit together, she tells me about the artists', 'backstories and the incredible, painstaking processes they have for creating their pieces. I am in awe and I am completely intimidated. While I love the pieces, I always feel like there's some big cosmic joke I just don't get. I nod and contemplate the descriptions of each piece while feeling utterly simple-minded.
Some descriptions are unassuming and straight-forward -- others are fantastical, dripping with symbolisym, irony and layered context. "This vessel symbolizes the eternal struggle of good and evil, of all that is male and female and highlights the identity masks we all wear in our lives." Acutally, I paraphrase, since the actual description used many more 75 cent words. As I stood there contemplating the work -- all I could think was, "Gee, it looks like a basket made from clay and glass beads ...I'm not sure where good and evil come in, but I guess that's just me. "
I began to worry, that without a good Thesauras and a cosmic joke translation guide, I may not be cut out for this branding.

Then I remembered ... I can do this. I have branded art before!

As a student, I took several art classes. Since the college I attended could best be decribed as a business trade school -- it was amazing there were any art classes to be had. I guess Bentley's art program provided all those future accountants, economists and investment managers a brief shining moment to flex their right brain muscles before they were to be forever atrophied under a pile of Excel spreadsheets.

At the end of the semester, there was a big gallery showing in the student union. I remember attempting a challenging acrylic triptych which left me thankful for all those left-brain day-job skills. I was feeling badly until I walked the show preview with my best friend Violet. We were immediately struck by a really awful, dopey piece painted by a colossal jerk we both had the misfortune of being involved with at one point.

Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder - but this particular painting was obviously thrown together by a dumb Frat boy who only took art to bolster his Accounting GPA. There was no effort whatsoever in either the work, or the title, "My Room". Since this particular frat boy had crossed us both, Violet and I decided to bestow a little art-show payback.

The next day, the show would be open to the public and the professors would tour the gallery to judge the work and assign grades. Since our imagination-challenged fraternity boy had struggled so mightily with a name, we decided to help -- swapping the original card for an upgrade of our making.

At the opening, we followed the judges as they moved from work-to-work interviewing each artist about their technique and their intent. Soon we came to "My Room" Which had been helpfully renamed "An angry young Rastafarian rebells against the inequities of daily life in Post Modern Jamaica." The professors looked at the painting of a triangle, a gym sock and a beer can and tried to find the deep symbolism promised by the title.
"Have you ever been to Jamaica?" they asked.

"Uh - no, why?" asked Frat boy.

"Well, you seem to feel strongly about the plight of the Rastafarians," they replied.

At this point, Frat boy looked at the picture and title card and then spied us in the group -- winking at one another as if in a Disney teen movie (picture Hillary Duff and Lindsey Lohan (when they were cute) high-fiving each other and skipping away).

Since Frat boy's only connection with Jamaica came in a ziplock bag, he was at a total loss. The best part was - rather than out us - he tried to play it out.

"Uh, I have never been to Jamaica ... but there is so much poverty there ... I felt it was important to show what they face every day."

"What is the significance of the gym sock?"

"They are so poor ... they don't even have socks?"

"Ok, thanks ... let's move on to the next piece."

That was my art branding finest moment...so far. Rule #1 ... no bullshit and make sure your audience gets the cosmic joke. Who better to brand art than a comedienne?