Institution Outreach Project: Museum Curator Letters

2023 Institution Outreach Project: TFAO letters to Museum Curators

Traditional Fine Arts Organization (TFAO) aims to have staff curators working at selected museums avail themselves of content in TFAO's website, thereby allowing them to freely gather information helpful in creating future exhibits.

This project involves a freelancer (1) linking to each targeted* museum's website, (2) finding the highest ranking curator** with a personal email address, and (3) sending an email letter*** to that person, identifying the freelancer by her or his true name.. The same form letter will be sent to each addressee. A blind cc will be sent to johnphazeltine@gmail.com.

*See covered institutions here: A-C D-G H-L M-Q R-S T-Z. Targeted museums for this project starts at A-C. The freelancer will start with the first named museum and continue down the list in alphabetical order until 100 letters are sent to qualified curators at museums. Only one curator at each museum will receive an email. In the rare event of a curator responding to a letter, Freelancer will forward the email to info@tfaoi.org for follow up.

**Qualified curators in order of priority are Chief Curator, then American Art Curator or Curator of American Art, then Curator. If there is not the first and last name of a curator available with a specified email address for that curator, freelancer will move on to the next museum in the list of museums.

***The email letter, with a .jpg image embedded in it, plus links to the two indicated pages, will say:

The subject line for the letter is:

Curator's in-depth information source for future exhibitions' topics

The body of the letter is:

(First and last name of curator)

(Curator's title)

(Name of museum)

Are you curious about topics of special exhibits held by hundreds of museums around the country?

Since 1997, Traditional Fine Arts Organization has researched tens of thousands of exhibits for you. Popular topics are those focused on ethnic and racial groups including African American, Asian American and Hispanic American artists. Searches by country name, e.g. [name of race, country or ethnicity] - [American] reveal many more.

All in all, there are over 200 topics covering thousands of exhibits within TFAO's online Topics in American Art catalog. Within each topic, curators find gems of information useful in planning future shows: featured artworks and lenders through narratives and checklists, related images, names of venues, dates, and much more.

Curators at museums and writers for publications have mined Topics in American Art for decades. I hope you find useful information for your upcoming exhibits.

Best regards,

(freelancer's first and last name)

Institutional Outreach Team

Traditional Fine Arts Organization

Note:

The following screenshot is part of a page from a section of the well-developed topic "California Art History" within the 200+ topics within the Topics in American Art catalog. This "California Art History" topic section has internal links to information on 104 exhibits covered in articles from TFAO's publication Resource Library. In addition, other sections within the topic contain links to 103 essays published by Resource Library and links to museum websites covering 31 other exhibits.

end of lettter

The amount of money paid for each email sent by the freelancer to a curator at a museum will be 60 cents USD, so the amount of money escrowed for the project will be $60 USD. The time limit for this project is 30 calendar days

Ttips for freelancer:

URL for Traditional Fine Arts Organization is https://tfaoi.org/index.htm

URL for Topics in American Art is https://tfaoi.org/aa/6aa/6aa99.htm

JPEG image for the letters may be obtained by copying the image from this page, then pasting it to each new email.

A quick way to find curators on museum sites is to click on the "About Us" pull down tab and then click on the "Staff" tab.

When you find a curator name and title but no email address specific to that person, it's ok to send the email to the curatorial department if it is identified. If you do that, please remember to still include the curator name, title and museum name in the letter.

When a letter bounces back to you because the email address is invalid, you will still be paid for the letter. Just forward the bounce notice to info@tfaoi.org so TFAO can keep track of rejects for research purposes.

Please don't spend too much time hunting on a museum website for a qualified name. Sometimes names are in there but tucked away in not so obvious places. it's just not worth it to fruitlessly go through a huge bunch of tabs. You'll get the hang of it once you have gone through 20-30 museums.

Opportunity for follow up contract

After the first contract with 100 letters is complete, the freelancer may be asked if he or she wishes to continue sending letters. If 100 more museums are chosen as the second contract goal and there are not 100 qualifying museums left, the freelancer will be paid sixty cents USD per letter sent.

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Links to sources of information outside of our web site are provided only as referrals for your further consideration. Please use due diligence in judging the quality of information contained in these and all other web sites. Information from linked sources may be inaccurate or out of date. TFAO neither recommends or endorses these referenced organizations. Although TFAO includes links to other web sites, it takes no responsibility for the content or information contained on those other sites, nor exerts any editorial or other control over them. For more information on evaluating web pages see TFAO's General Resources section in Online Resources for Collectors and Students of Art History.

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