May 8, 2008

Artomatic is in a brand new building this year. We are really excited about the opportunities this has presented for us. We have also taken on construction responsibilities including providing electrical service beyond the building core which means providing service for all of the partition walls and program and event rooms. All of the outlets for the partitions and the overhead lighting were installed by Artomatic. The circuit breakers were configured for the number of artists we expected with an average usage of 200 watts or less. We do not have capacity for light usage beyond 200 watts of power for lighting spaces, including spaces for 3D work.

Last night's electrical issues were quickly acted upon by the volunteers who started working on a solution immediately. Electricians were at the site this morning installing additional circuits.

However, we are overloading the breakers even with the additional electrical work today and we need to reduce the overall wattage per artist.

1. Artists with plain fixtures must reduce their overall wattage to BELOW 200 watts. You must either replace the bulbs with compact florescent bulbs, lower wattage bulbs or reduce the number of lights or some combination of the above.

2. Artists with track systems with multiple mini transformers at 50 watts must reduce the number of fixtures to 4 or lower the per bulb light output.

3. Artists with industrial lights, multiple other energy uses (multi media etc) must adhere to the 200 wattage maximum.

Tonight volunteers will go through the entire building unplugging any lights that do not meet the above criteria. Any lights system that is below 200 watts will be left plugged in.

These light systems that are over wattage will remain unplugged until they comply. Artists may come in at any time that Artomatic is open throughout the event to change out their light bulbs. A large group of volunteers will be on site tonight until 10pm working to get the building ready so you may come down tonight as well.

The amount of power that is being consumed here is enormous given the number of artists and the number of newly installed lights. Please help us reduce this, help us cut back on our carbon footprint for this event, and maybe even go green yourself by changing out your current bulbs for compact florescent.

Thank you for your patience and your understanding.