Alexander and Associates Inc.

Alexander and Associates is very pleased to be assisting Craig Carter at The Agency on the upcoming Boise performances of Alegria. Our agency’s job is the grunt work of traditional public relations: Calling back to the media to arrange interviews, tours and reviews while the show is in town from Nov. 4 to Nov. 7. This takes persistence, knowledge of the local media and a high level of organization.

Cirque du Soleil has a very professional PR apparatus and they require close documentation of press contacts and their procedures are quite specific. In Boise, the PR culture is more relaxed, so it’s challenging and rewarding to work with such a well-developed PR department like Cirque’s. We’re also promoting the event on our company’s Twitter and Facebook pages.

If you are a media professional or journalist and stumbled across this post, give me a call! For all Southern Idaho journalists, I look forward to seeing you at the performances.

These days, it seems like all PR is going to social media. Traditional media, however, still matter.

We’ve been doing it all for one of our clients, Edie Martin Stained Glass Studio in Eagle, Idaho. We set up a YouTube channel and help maintain their Facebook page. We’re also doing traditional news media, including the release pasted below. Last Sunday, the Idaho Press Tribune in Nampa published a story about Martin’s 30 years making stained glass art and we are pleased at this success. We’ll keep you posted on this blog regarding further progress on this account.

Boise artist Edie Martin blends art and faith
Stained glass creations find niches in local galleries, churches and homes

For more information,
Edie Martin, 939-9618
Martin Johncox, 658-9100
www.ediemartingstainedglass.com
www.facebook.com/ediemartinstainedglass
www.youtube.com/ediemartinstudio

Some people take artistic journeys, while others take spiritual journeys. For Boise artist Edie Martin, the past 35 years have been a lot of both.

Martin’s stained glass art – encompassing the Bible, Egyptian influences, Art Nouveau and Americana – has been found in Idaho homes, galleries and churches for decades. One of her works, “The Demise of Enmity” has this month been accepted for exhibition at the prestigious 3rd Nationwide Catholic Arts Competition and Exhibition at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa. (one of the judges is Sister Wendy Beckett, art expert who attained some fame from PBS).

Martin liked art classes as far back as Star Elementary School and also took art at Meridian High School Eagle Junior High School and in college while studying for a degree in education.

“I have always liked to make things and have one or more projects on the table, with a few more incubating in my mind,” Martin said. “My stained glass artwork is a passion for me and the meaning is very important to me, whether it’s honoring God or making a window that someone will enjoy for a lifetime. Stained glass is a great medium for that.”

Martin got her start in stained glass while living in Kansas City in the 1970s. She moved into a home that had hideous plastic sidelights with orange and aqua bubbles around the door.

“I wanted to put in some nice stained glass and dared to think that I could learn to do it,” Martin said. “I took some stained glass classes at Maple Woods Community College and made the sidelights my first project.”

Martin returned with her family to Boise in 1981and sold her first work in the early 1980s to a remodeling company that needed some door sidelights for a project. In 1988, she began selling at a shop called Homespun Gifts at the Westgate Mall and later sold in the Old Town Antique Mall in Nampa and has sold at numerous local Art In The Park and Beaux Art events. She now exhibits at the new Gaia Gallery in Eagle, Art Source Gallery in downtown Boise/Boise Airport and has always sold things directly from her Web site and studio.

In addition to creating, Martin devotes considerable time and effort to study. In 1999, she earned a second bachelor’s degree from Boise State University with a degree in visual art. She’s also taken classes at the renowned Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle and frequently travels to trade shows for more instruction. She is a member of the Stained Glass association of America, which is over 100 years old. The constant training has taught her many techniques, some obscure and some common, such as lead and foil construction, sandblasting, etching, fusing, slumping and glass painting.

“Glass art is a huge field and there’s so much to learn – geometry, chemistry, technique and tradition,” Martin said. “The constant study is rewarding and allows me to offer more to my clients.”

Faith in God is important to Martin and for many years she had a desire to create church windows, intrigued by the ancient relationship between stained glass and churches. She took some classes in glass painting, to learn to create figures, faces and other details not possible with glass alone.

“I had always wanted to do church windows and when the church I belonged to, Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran, built a new sanctuary, I volunteered to do it,” Martin said. “It took several months to design on paper and over a year to complete and install.”

Martin’s windows were part of an expansion, started in 1998, that doubled the size of the church and provided a new sanctuary. Martin donated all her work and materials and another member donated all the fine custom woodwork in the sanctuary.

The Shepherd of the Valley project, finished in 2003, consisted of 8 windows, each about 6½ feet tall by 3 ½ feet wide. The windows depict various Old and New Testament stories. In keeping with an ancient practice, the Old Testament windows are on one side of the church and the New Testament stories are on the other side.  An amber ribbon of glass moves through all the windows to represent the presence of God and the windows are called “The Spirit Moves Through Time and Space.”

“The windows create a special sense of sanctity and holiness in the space. It was an amazing gift of love to the church,” said Pastor Jim Grunow of Shepherd of the Valley.  “I’ve been a pastor for 37 years and I’ve never gathered in a worship space like this. She’s very humble about it and a gifted child of God.”

From beginning to end, the windows accurately tell a compressed story of the Bible. Once a month during chapel time, the Pastor brings the preschool children before a window, so the cycle is completed in one year.

“One of the children pointed out each window has a cross in it – the supporting metal frame – but I had overlooked that before,” Grunow said. “People see new things in the windows all the time. You don’t encounter a lot of lay people who have this level of theological sophistication.”

After the high-profile Shepherd of the Valley project, Martin began developing a name among the religious community as a glass artist. In 2006, Martin completed seven windows for the Southside United Methodist Church in Nampa. Each window was a little larger than 6’ by 2’ and they are done around a Creation theme.

Martin also made a 2½’ by 6’ window for the entryway of the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Boise, commissioned to honor an esteemed member of the church who passed away. The window depicts one of the member’s favorite passages, John 15:5, “I am the vine; you are the branches……..” One of Martin’s hanging panels is in a Methodist Church in Farmington, New Mexico, and another is at the Fra Angelico Art Foundation in Chicago, a center for Judeo-Christian spiritual art.

Martin has recently finished another religious piece, showing a woman holding a lamp and comparing the word of God to light. These days, she concentrates more on gallery pieces, and she currently has about a dozen hanging panels at the downtown Boise Art Source gallery, and several more at the airport Art Source and Gaia Galleries.

Martin’s studio is in her Eagle home, which is equipped with kilns, air compressor, grinding wheels, ventilation shafts, a sandblasting booth, hundreds of types of glass, work tables, tools, and display area. Martin also keeps herself busy with sidelights and windows for construction and remodeling projects.

While Martin is capable of doing just about anything with stained glass, “I sometimes think it would be nice to return to the home in Kansas City I used to live in and photograph that first job I did.”

“I love the moment when I lift the piece from my work table and see it with the light coming through it for the first time as an assembled art piece.  Viewing the artwork during the process of being made does not begin to compare with seeing it when the light shines through it.  I could go on and on about the metaphors about light bringing the work to life.  Suffice it to say that I want to create pieces that draw the eye and hold the eye of the viewers enough to take in the details, see the beauty, and “read” the meaning.”

“I love your salon! Great prices and employees.”

“Thanks for being there when I needed you. I am a huge fan of your auto shop.”

“I feel much better now after my treatment. Thanks for taking care of me!”

These are great comments on the Facebook pages of businesses in Boise and elsewhere. Unfortunately, it is very unlikely anyone will see them.

That’s because the business Facebook page had its default view setting at “only posts by page.” In other words, when visitors come to the page, all the wall has are posts by the business (page admin). In order to see comments from fans, visitors have to click on the small box at the top of the page that says “Business page + others.” Many don’t know to do this, or don’t bother. As a result, the love from fans is hidden and largely unnoticed. As public relations and social media consultants, we administer dozens of Facebook pages and we always set them to display comments by fans and the page.

If you’re concerned about getting too many customer complaints on your wall, get off of Facebook entirely until you fix your customer satisfaction problems. To do well on Facebook, a business needs a fan base of people who love its brand. If people don’t like your business, you’ve got much deeper problems. You shouldn’t mind an occasional customer complaint or concern, and indeed, it will make your business seem authentic and engaged if you handle it correctly. Only delete comments that are obscene or in bad taste.

I think Facebook should make “posts by page + posts by others” as the default. Until then, Facebook page admins will need to make sure the page landing setting is at “Business page + others.” To do this, the page admin needs to go to the top of the page posts (below the comment box) and click “settings” to the right. Under “default view for wall,” make sure the setting is “all posts.”

The Boise City Design Review Committee’s treatment of the Simplot family and its proposed 7-acre downtown project is appalling. Besides showing the city’s over-regulation of a good proposal, the delays also highlight the city’s complete ignorance of the 95 percent of Boise that is not downtown.

The JUMP project (for Jack’s Urban Meeting Place), announced in May 2008, is a $100 dvelopment to include a foundation building and new headquarters for Simplot Co. between Front/Myrtle streets and 9th/11th streets. It is intended to be an arts center, meeting space and tribute to J.R. Simplot. In my opinion, it is an inclusive, sensitively designed project that would bring jobs and vitality to downtown Boise. As a public relations consultant for nearly a decade in Boise, and a newspaper reporter for 12 years before that, I saw cases where local governments were helpful and on-the-ball regarding development proposals, as well as obstructionist. This case appears to fall into the latter category.

But what do I know? According to the Idaho Statesman, delays by the city of Boise have reached a point where the Simplots are considering pulling their project, and I can’t say I blame them. After a meeting with Mayor David Beiter (one of over 100 meetings the Simplots have had with city officials), the Simplots completely redesigned the project. After that, the commission came back with a list of 60 changes, all but two of which the Simplots have adopted.

Meanwhile, in the 95 percent of Boise that is not downtown, the city’s lack of interest in redevelopment and good urban design is astounding. The city routinely allows developers to build parking lots between buildings and the street – perhaps the biggest no-no in urban design – and huge tracts of abandoned school sites grow weeds and become eyesores. Thousands of low-income residents remain at risk of eviction from rickety trailer parks, yet the city has studiously ignored them while it obstructs the Simplot project. The Bench’s few remaining historical buildings are routinely razed while Boise City and its historic preservation department show little interest outside of downtown.  The Design Review Commission does a good job at the minutiae of sapling caliper sizes but is utterly unable to see the vital relationships between buildings, streets, affordable housing and people.

The abandoned school sites are good examples of Boise not getting it. Supposedly, the school district was supposed to work with the city to find uses for these properties that would add value to the neighborhoods. At this point, they’re going to become mostly parking lots, with some strip development at the rear. Besides its toothless comprehensive plan, the city shows no interest or vision on the Bench and is overconcerned about Downtown.Children routinely walk to school without sidewalks, yet the city is far, far behind the curve in getting sidewalks in these neighborhoods.

My advice: Defer to the Simplots much more (it really is a good design) and roll up your sleeves and focus on the pressing needs for safe routes to school, urban decay, historical preservation and low-income housing in the rest of the city. This won’t be nearly as much fun as sticking your fingers in a $100 million mega-project, but it will mean so much more to Boiseans.