An offer for Artists/Artisans and Vendors
The Dream
What if you were invited to live in a village that was populated with fellow artists and artisans. A place made beautiful by the craftwork of its populace. An off grid, green community, custom designed to offer you not only a comfortable modern apartment, but a workshop, storage areas and a storefront? What if the operational personnel of this community took care of the grounds, provided access to specialized vendor services and even food, and best of all invited your customers to visit the community on a regular basis?
Well this is your invitation….
Currently a group in Colorado is finishing up designs for a community created to cater to artisans and host festivals. The site will feature various themed festivals throughout the year. You as an artisan are welcome to participate in the festival as a vendor or if the theme does not interest you, to sublet your storefront to others. In addition to the festivals on site, the community will feature your artistry throughout the site itself, and will, if you are interested, arrange for paying students to visit and learn from you, and will help you get exposure at festivals all over the world. Lastly the site features a specialized staff of professionals who are there to help take the non artistic parts of your business off of your hands, leaving you to focus on the art you love.
Artisans may choose to rent storefronts only, or storefronts with lodging above. The rental rates include utilities. Internet and satellite tv is also available on the site for a small fee. All of this is offered to you at less than $1 per square foot, which is well below state averages. And when one takes into account how much more is rolled into this offer, above and beyond the square footage, this offer is unbelievable, but we advise you to believe it, and if interested, to let us know so that we can put you on the mailing list for updates, and as they become available, vacancies.
Perks included in rent
Staff
Purchasing Agent – This staff resource will do all of your raw material purchases, arrange for shipping and delivery. As appropriate the Purchasing Agent will also deal with storage of stockpiled supplies and work on pursuing best prices, and when possible, bulk discounts.
Shipping Agent – Will arrange for the pick up and shipping of any of your outgoing product and recovery of any returns. This will include collection/packaging of mailing of anything from a small order up to and including the handling of a shipment to an art show or festival that your product is to be featured at. Additionally, when possible the Shipping Agent will attempt to combine large product shipments to save costs for all involved.
Event Agent – The event agent seeks out festivals, faires and conventions that are appropriate for your product, contacts these opportunities for you, and presents you with the specifics for each opportunity. You decide which to accept, the agent arranges for contracts with the events, gets your signature, and archives all info on all shows that your product attends. As this agent is also arranging for similar contracts with other artisans he/she will often be able to negotiate a better deal in bulk.
Education Liaison – This individual will interface with Colorado School Districts to arrange for student visits to the sites. Students will be exposed to not only your products but your skills. These visits will be during the school year, on week days, and are your opportunity to touch young minds and create new clientele.
The Education Liaison is also the contact point for those artisans who are interested in being a part of the Crafter Colleges. Crafter Colleges are week long camps for adults who want to learn more about the arts hands on from experts in the various fiends. Participating Artisans will be responsible for a week worth of workshoppes and in return will earn $250 per student. Students will stay on site for the duration of the week long session. Based on instructor and student interest we will look to run up to 26 weeks of classes. For those who want more information on how all this will work, please visit our friends at http://www.lapidaryschool.org/ They run 29 weeks a year with upwards of 18 unique class offerings each week, and the design of our Crafter Colleges is based very much on their model and their success.
Webmaster – The webmaster will build your site and update it as needed, ensure that you have a web portal for purchases and ensure that all of the income from web sales is directed to the accounts you request. The Webmaster will also undertake efforts to aggressively market your site to help it appear high on search lists.
Additional Perks
Consignment floor – In addition to your storefront and web presence, your product, as appropriate, will be on display throughout the site. For example, a Glassblower’s work might be used at the Pub, while a Carpenter or Potter’s work could be used at the Inn and Bed & Breakfasts on site. Site visitors will be advised that everything they see on site is for sale, as such, the more your product is used to adorn public areas, the more exposure, and thus sales, you open yourself up for.
Group Credit rates – We will be aggressively pursuing group Credit Card rates. For many vendors, by joining this coalition of artisans you will gain 1-2% points of charges back, thus increasing your total income accordingly
Insurance – We will be securing a group policy that will be available for purchase by all artisans and their family. By getting a group plan we will be able to get better options and rates then are available to an individual artisan. (The perk is dependent upon the success of National Health Care, i.e. if it withstands the challenges and is enacted for all citizens we will not be seeking a group health policy.)
Community – Probably the biggest perk is that you become a member of a community comprised of fellow artisans, peers with whom you can collaborate and commiserate.
In Closing
We will be offering additional perks for participants who commit before the ground breaking. We are beginning to reserve space in the village now, if you or an artist or artisan you know has questions that wer not answered above, or would like to be on the mailing list for updates please let us know. You can mail us at sovereignsprings@gmail.com and also feel free to join our Facebook group – Sovereign Springs
Thanks for your time!
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