From The Sweet Spot:
The Puget Sound region is rich with talent. After studying at the University of Puget Sound, in Tacoma, and being enriched by a city that brims with art, I was inspired by the passion to create and be heard. As an artist myself, I wanted those same things – opportunities to create and outlets to present. The arts, however, are often found on the cutting room floor when it comes to funding and recognition. Regardless, the arts remain an essential pinnacle of human expression and discovery. With this in mind, I created The Sweet Spot Online Gallery as a subsidiary of The Melon in 2008.
The Sweet Spot would be different. It was not tied to the same rules as a physical art gallery or magazine. The Sweet Spot could be timeless and affordable to maintain. It could reach even farther than a physical space and capture unseen essences of art and the artists. By creating The Sweet Spot Gallery as an online gallery gallery space we could offer something unique and perhaps not fully fleshed out before.
Featuring local artists through photo galleries was only part of the equation. The Sweet Spot needed something more. It needed to find an totally unique way to promote the arts. After all, I’ll be the first to acknowledge that while an online gallery may have a longer reach, being in the physical presence of art is absolutely crucial. That’s why we have all of those great galleries and museums. But to enhance The Sweet Spot, I decided I would create a companion mini-biographical documentary on each artist we were to feature. This notion came from watching a housemate’s dvd of “big name” artists being featured on some great national television program. This was great for the big name artists, but why not the local artists? Who would focus on them? The Sweet Spot would. This proved to be the key to success as soon, artists were knocking on our front door (figuratively speaking of course, they were actually just emailing) in hopes of being featured.
After our sixth show, I put The Sweet Spot on hiatus until further notice. I had recently graduated from school, was looking for work and moving to San Francisco. The trip was short lived, as was unemployment, but it wasn’t until moving up into Seattle and reconnecting with a friend, Clayton Weller, did The Sweet Spot begin to breathe again.
Clayton came to me with this idea of whizARTbang – a monthly variety show that would feature local artists of all types from comedy to dance to music in an excellent arts space provided by The Satori Group. After performing some poetry in the first show I noticed that although there were visual artists being featured (on a gallery wall in the back) they didn’t get the same stage as the live performers. This seemed like the perfect way to restart and enhance The Sweet Spot.
After a brief discussion with Clayton (who was enthusiastically on board), we met with who was to be the next whizARTbang artist, Jocelyn Skillman, filmed a new video and presented it (along with her work) at the next show, as we will for future shows. Now The Sweet Spot had come full circle. Not only do we have the same advantages of an online space, but now the further benefits of a physical space that art could be seen in person.
The goal of promoting local artists through online media hasn’t changed as we proudly relaunch The Sweet Spot Gallery with a new image, a new website, a new drive and a new outlet for celebrating the arts. Thank you for your interest, and please enjoy our excellent featured artists.
Best,
Elliot Trotter
Curator, The Sweet Spot Gallery