Support CityWide Open Studios!

If you've ever been to CityWide Open Studios, it's the best ways to spend October in New Haven. Watch the above video to learn more about their fundraising efforts for this year's event!

This short film shows you the perspective of Open Studios from the words of artists, community activists, and many others. To put it in the phrase best said by Semi Semi-Dikoko: "It needs to be experienced."

Experience it yourself by watching the video above! And donate to CityWide Open Studios. Follow +NhvOrg (@NHVORG on Twitter) to find out more about how you can participate as a supporter of Artspace and CWOS. There are many different rewards.

From their posting:

City-Wide Open Studios brings artists living and working in Connecticut together in an exhibition that spreads out across the City of New Haven over mutiple weekends. From recent graduates of the area's fine arts programs, to distinguished artists with international reputations, to nascent collectives, social-justice oriented public art and self-taught artists, CWOS celebrates the ideas and process of a dynamic and generous creative community.

We're celebrating our 19th year with our first-ever Kickstarter because we need your support. This event is for you--the artist, the visitor, the citizen, the explorer, but we can't do it without your help.

We're best known for finding and rehabbing empty historic buildings and securing them for the pop-up installations by artists that inspire and create pride in our unusual built environment. Our overall budget is $185,000. This covers all the clean up, rehabilitation, coordination, printing, website, security, insurance, fees for guest curators, signage, and special projects.  And much more. We keep our fees to artists as low as possible--way lower than other Open Studios across the US-- and most events are free to attend. The good news is that we do have grant funds that cover a good chunk of our budget. We're $25,000 short.

Visitors and friends: Every dollar you give helps us get closer to being able to fully fund this program that is so eagerly anticipated by so many. Your support also keeps it free so that all can enjoy it.

Participating artists: please show your support by standing with us and opening up your studio and space--this year you can sign up right here at Kickstarter. Every artist who signs up gets us closer to being able to present the CWOS festival. And the sooner you sign up, the longer your work is on view on the CWOS.org website for audiences to see.

With your backing, we will also be able, for the very first time, to advertise in two national arts publications--HyperAllergic and Two Coats of Paint--so that we can attract many more people from the region to come and raise our national profile.

We also need your help to enrich the experience for all who are new to the visual arts. In response to requests from community leaders and educators, we've adopted a theme of Game On! to engage many more artists and citizens in playful, kinetic, and interactive public art.  We need your help to connect these projects to community-based groups, neighbors, and other  stakeholders of the huge, empty, Goffe Street Armory.

Check out their rewards! Some of the things they're offering are pretty neat.