THANK YOU to all our blogger candidates. It was fascinating to read your perspectives on the museum experience. We really appreciate your willingness to participate and share.

THANK YOU to all of our blog readers that voted. The poll got record-breaking participation. In fact, on Wednesday, March 10, our Web site received the most  hits in a single day in IMA history. Votes were cast from as far away as the Netherlands (27 votes) and China (17 votes).  We even had 3 votes from Trinidad and Tobago.

OK, so that’s it for now! The NEW IMA blogger has been crowned. Ms. Neville will be joining the team this April and we’re looking forward to what she has to say. Until then, we’ll be working on a new blog contest…Stay tuned!

Oh, oh and Katie – Expect an email from the Blog Team today. We’re excited to have you on board!

THE CHALLENGE

On January 6, 2010 we announced that the IMA was searching for its next blogger and outlined the rules of the contest.

The IMA is searching for its next blogger and we want you! Interested in sharing your thoughts about the IMA from an “outsider’s” perspective? Not afraid to muse publicly about the museum’s programs and exhibitions? Able to attend IMA events and willing to submit 300-600 words once a month? Then you could be the blogger for the job.

THE FINALISTS

After receiving dozens of submissions, the IMA narrowed the field to 5. Over the course of the last 5 weeks, we posted the candidates blog entries. Each had to answer the following questions:

Tell us a little about yourself:
Tell us a story. We want to know how good your yarn-spinning skills are, so give your best anecdote involving an experience you’ve had at the museum.
Why should you be an IMA blogger?

Review the Finalist’s Posts…

• Katie Neville
• Heather McAlister
• Jenni Clarkson
• Crystal Hammon
• Jessica Hancock

THE VOTE

Whose voice do you want to hear on a monthly basis? Blog readers, it’s time for you to decide! From now until March 23 at 11:59 pm you can vote for your favorite finalist.  The winner will be announced on March 24. Don’t forget, what’s at stake – The IMA’s Next Top Blogger gets a free membership to the IMA, invitations to special events throughout the year, and the opportunity to share her thoughts about art, design, the natural environment, and the IMA with the world.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Summer Nights 2008

Now it’s time to mark your calendars for season #34 of Summer Nights, June 5-August 28. As one of the few art museums in the country with an amphitheater, the IMA offers a unique movie-going experience. All you need is a blanket, some friends and a picnic basket full of goodies. And, by popular demand, another special midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show is in the works.

VOTE NOW! Below are four categories of films. Vote for your favorite film in each of the categories as often as you like. Polls close at noon on February 25, and results, including the full Summer Nights schedule, will be announced in March on the IMA Blog.

VOTING IS NOW CLOSED.
STAY TUNED TO THE IMA BLOG FOR OFFICIAL RESULTS IN MARCH!

*Licensing fees and restrictions may prohibit certain selections from being screened. However, the IMA will do all that is possible to secure and show all winning films.

• “Blog your art out” by Eric
• “Future IMA Guest Blogger” by Despi (that’s me)
• “Like you have something better to do” by Henry
• Front “Ping” Back “www.imamuseum.org/blog” by Lindsey
• “When you need a good poll” by Despi (yep, two from me)

The poll winner was Eric, by a landslide.  So it is his slogan that made its way onto the t shirt.

Slogan conceived by Eric, design perfected by IMA

Designed by IMA Apps Team member and Web Designer, Matt Gipson, these tees are available for sale in the IMA gift shop ($20).  For those of you who submitted suggestions for the poll, you should have received an e-mail from the awesome Emily (also known as Demily) asking for your address.  If you responded a t-shirt is on its way to you right now!

So what should the next poll be?

Taking concepts from philanthropy and social activism, entrepreneurship, the Underground Railroad and the music of Naptown, to The Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Nascar, going green, public art, gas prices and a hypothetical mass transit system, artist Chakaia Booker has ignited conversation pieces on Indianapolis’s sidewalks. By cutting, twisting and weaving together rubber tires, Booker has fashioned a temporary urban art exhibition specifically for Indy, removing the road block between the city’s past and present.

Chakaia Booker: Mass Transit is a project of Public Art Indianapolis, which is managed by the Arts Council of Indianapolis. I asked Mindy Taylor Ross, Director of Public Art for the Arts Council, to share her favorite sculpture from the exhibition:

I have three works in the running at the moment – “Gridlock” at the Simon building, “Take Out” on Market Street and “Holler” at iMoca. I believe they are all good examples of the incredible texture and form artists can make with material. You can see Booker’s unique voice in the material. They are also interactive so you can look or move through elements of these pieces.

Pick your favorite work of art in the poll below, and share your connection to it in the comments section of this post. Be sure to visit iMoca to see Chakaia Booker: The Making of a Public Art Exhibition.

Photo credit: “Cross Over Effects” image courtesy of Marlborough Gallery, New York.

A couple weeks ago, Daniel gave you a prompt to submit ideas for a new IMA Blog t-shirt slogan. We had a couple dozen contributors, many of which are IMA employees. So before you get all worked up about the unfairness of our contest, we decided to go ahead and be the good guys and give every person who submitted a comment(by April 15th) a free t-shirt with the winning slogan.

That being said, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try harder next time. I mean, c’mon, 3 out of 5 of the best slogans were submitted by IMA employees, and 2 of them were mine! To be fair, we might have chosen some of the other submissions if we could have reconciled the concerns surrounding them. An IMA favorite was “Lose 30 pounds in 30 days,” submitted by Ben, but we figured there was no truth in that advertising. Another fan favorite mentioned some names in a certain CEO’s title. We feared this might leave those outside the IMA circle clueless and that we might have some explaining to do if we selected that one.

I expect that you are reading this post and thinking, “My submission was SO much better than what they picked!” and that is okay. You can disagree, but we just want you to know that we took this assignment really seriously, and had an hour-long meeting to argue about which slogans should be selected as finalists. So, without further ado, please have at it. Vote for your favorite slogan and we’ll make a t-shirt with the winning phrase.

The poll closes on May 5. You can only vote once (sorry, but it is the only fair way!).

We’ll be in touch soon to collect info to distribute free shirts.

There is and it’s simple. We’re making IMA Blog T-shirts and we want to hear from you. Specifically, we want you to sloganize, jinglelize, poeticize, jargonize, catch phrase our t-shirts. Need an example? How about – “I read the IMA Blog and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.”

What’s in it for the winner? Well – a few t-shirts for sure, lot’s of other swag and the opportunity to guest blog for the IMA (think of the fun!). We might even dig up some more goodies for you.

So put on your thinking t-shirts and leave your suggestions as comments (don’t forget to leave your e-mail in the comment field). We’ll post our favorite (5) slogans in a poll on the blog…then let you decide the winner!

Come on! This is better than doing work.

**new note – we’re accepting your submissions until April 15!