Kat's Blog: Clash Voting is Live-::-AFP Memberships Now $50-::-New Marketing and PR Program

Art For Progress Launches Clash of the Artists, a New Marketing/PR Program, and Reduces Artist Membership Fees to $50!

We're taking a huge leap! AFP's 4th Annual "Clash of the Artists" competitions have begun and we just launched a new marketing and PR program for artists. And if that wasn't enough for one day, we decided to reduce our artist membership fee to $50!!

Before we get into the details on this new program and the new membership pricing, let's begin with "Clash of the Artists 2010".

"Clash of the Artists" Voting is Live!

For the past two months emerging artists, designers, musicians, DJ's and creatives have been sending Art For Progress (AFP) their best, and now it's time for the virtual community to do its part. AFP's annual competition, Clash of the Artists, is the first of its kind, where artists in multiple categories compete in an interactive, international environment.

Over the next 5 weeks, people from across the globe will visit artforprogress.org and vote for their favorites. Our guests can vote once in each category and will have the opportunity to work their way through the various competitions in the coming weeks. You'll enjoy the quality and great diversity this year offers. And as always, we are very pleased to see a great international presence again this year.

Mark your calendars now. The top three artists in each category will compete on Saturday, March 27th at an exciting live finals event in New York City.

Also, we launched a new blog for "Clash of the Artists". You'll find features on participating artists and other information about the competitions. Click on the AFP logo on the top of the page for our new blog.

*The photograph on the right titled, "Ilko from the 3rd Floor" is from artist Michael Lorenzini.

Vote Here

AFP Launches a New Marketing/PR Program and Web Design Services for Artists

In an effort to expand on our mission and goals for the organization and our artist development program, we are launching a new marketing and PR program for artists. The program will be headed by publicist Staci Smith. Ms. Smith has been working with AFP since its inception in 2004 and we are confident in her abilities and successful track record.

The objective of the program is to not only offer affordable services, but also educate the artist community on self-promotion, PR, and marketing. Ms. Smith is offering one-on-one consultations and a do-it-yourself cheat sheet that outlines information regarding strategy, formats, and timelines. Various tiered packages are also available and offer exceptional value.

In addition to these new marketing and PR services, we are also launching a new web design service. Seiji Nakano, who has been working with AFP for many years and handling the maintenance for our site for the last year, will be handling the web design and programming for this service. Mr. Nakano has been a valuable resource for AFP and we are happy to share his talents with the artist community. The program offers various affordable options for anyone looking to launch a web site. Please click on the link below for all of the details.

We are excited to offer these new services, but there is one more piece to share with the community. We are dropping our artist membership fee to $50 through April 2010.

Artist Memberships are Now $50!

In response to the current economic problems everyone is experiencing, we are reducing the fee for artist memberships to $50. We want to expand our artist community and make it affordable for artists with limited budgets. So, we've reduced the fee by over 65%. Artists will still have to be approved for membership, but this reduction should open the door for many new artists.

We hope you're as pleased as we are with these new developments. Rest assured, we are working hard every day to improve our programs and to have a greater impact in the community. Where other organizations are pulling back in these difficult times, AFP continues to expand and grow.

Check Out Our New Programs!