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High School of A&D Alumni Association Art Exhibit Success Story Challenge New York City’s High School of Art & Design has an alumni association comprised of artists practicing in many disciplines and media. The school’s building has a gallery on it’s first floor used for student exhibits. It was decided by the alumni association that an exhibit showcasing not just the present art works of its alumni but also displaying alongside work from their high school classes, would be a valuable educational tool for the students. The show was titled “Then & Now”.  Along with one alumni as curator, many other alumni artists took on the task of creating the show logo and planning the show. However, in order to create excitement about the concept and obtain sufficient entries to fill the gallery space, promotional materials needed to be created. Except for the president of the association who had experience writing press releases and the webmaster in creating announcements for the web, no alumni had the background to fully execute a cohesive PR campaign.  A brief, but dull e-mail was sent to the alumni list, and time was running out if something more exciting was not created to motivate artists to submit their work. Solution As a member of this organization I stepped up to the plate offering my writing expertise pro bono to create a unified enticing voice to promote the show. Starting with the title’s concept, I came up with a tag line "From Classroom to Professional: Alumni Artists – 64 Years of Artwork" that more fully explained what the exhibit was trying to accomplish. Working with the President I edited and rewrote press releases and e-mail communications so that they promoted the benefits of exhibiting in this show. (Alumni would have to search closets and attics to find their high school work, so there had to be unique selling points) Working with the webmaster, I designed content for this event. Since the event was too important to be buried on the website’s “events” page, I created home page copy, a landing page and for when the show closed, an opening night review, and wrote up the show itself. Results The response to this show was overwhelming. Many now famous alumni submitted their works. The submissions not only filled the gallery walls, but extra display space had to be set up for the entries. Opening night was a success with many of the artists attending, some revealing that this show had motivated them to return to the school after many years absence. The show was so well received by the school principal that he extended the date for 10 days so that parents to an open house could view the artwork. The art department chair was impressed, and wants to make this an annual event. And the students, who have very little knowledge of what the art world was like many years ago, had a chance to see different styles from over the last 60 years! It was a unique opportunity for them to understand how an art education at this special high school provided these alumni artists with the background to become the successful professionals they are today.  “There are very few special moments in our lives that we can truly be thankful for. Participating in an alumni event is a great tribute to our beloved school, faculty and fellow classmates. Heartfelt thanks to all the alumni who helped organize the Then & Now show. And heartfelt thanks to all the alumni who exhibited their works of art. The exhibition was a great success.” Gladys Martinez Owens, ’71-72 “I felt very happy to be included in a group of such talented, diverse artists. I had a certain sense of pride being able to participate in a mid-town Manhattan gallery show in our very own High School.” Diana Ponce ‘85