I am a professional artist that attended the Naples National Show as a patron a few weeks back.
I do fine art festivals for a living. Upon entering the festival, as I was giving my donation, the woman taking the money and giving out the stickers said to me, without me asking so much as how are you, "I'll tell you a little secret. Come back tomorrow if you're looking for a great bargain. The artists are desperate to sell because they don't want to have to haul their artwork around anymore. Believe me it works, I've done it!" Not only was this said to me, but as I entered the show, I overheard her saying it to another group behing her.
I was/am incredibly offended by this. Not only was this woman chosen as the first point of contact to represent your show, but right upon entry, without my even asking for "secrets" she's advising people to barter with us hard-working artists simply based on her skewed belief that we would rather not be paid fairly for our artwork than have to handle it again. We're "desperate" in fact. Also, it was Saturday morning. She was turning patrons away from purchasing that day. Most artists need strong sales both days to make costs/profit for a high end show such as this one.
This was very disappointing, because I drove an hour from Cape Coral expecting to enjoy what I have heard to be a quality event, run by an artist-friendly organization who claims to support arts/artists. To be greeted by this upsetting statement was unacceptable and needs to be addressed.
Hopefully this has brought some awareness or sparked some dialogue about the relationship/communication between show representatives and art festival patrons. We trust them to represent us in a favorable light, and encourage adding value to us and our work, not taking it away by broadcasting that we are desperate, easy to sneak a deal out of and well. lazy.
Replies
Kathleen, I know you and really like you, having had conversations with you in the past at the Naples National show. Many artists think that the Von Liepzig group does not care much about the artists. This is what I have been hearing and that this incident fits in with what they think. My biggest problem with Naples, is that your group puts on way too many shows and that there is no excitement for the Naples National. It's only one of many. What happens is that artists don't know which weekend is going to be the good one, so, they end up signing up for more than one or maybe all of them. You think you are giving artists more opportunities to sell and what is really happening is that it is costing artists more in booth fees and expenses to gross the same amount. If your group was serious about making it profitable for the artists, they would cut out half of the shows or more. If it was up to me, there would only be one spring show and that would be Naples National because people would once again look forward to the show with the best artists. Cutting out half the shows is the only way you could do this because saying that Naples National has the best work of all your shows would imply that your other shows have inferior work and you can't do that.
Barry, respectfully, I agree that there are way too many shows in the southwest Florida area - I did a show a few weeks ago when where were 2 other major shows within about 30 miles. But - most of the people who buy from me at those shows are tourists, or people who come down for a few weeks or a month at a time. At one point in one show, there were 4 people in my booth at the same time, all from the Twin Cities area - none of whom knew each other. I can go to the area over and over and only have a small number of repeat local customers stop by. I can see where people from out of town would be far more likely to buy jewelry and smaller items than larger 2D or 3D. Ideally the show producers would cooperate with each other and not overlap shows, but I guess that will never happen. The upside is that having more shows allows more artists to participate and allows more of the transient people to attend a show. But - I do still think everyone would benefit if the area weren't quite so oversaturated.
Thank you for your comments, and I remember you from last year as well! The situation you describe is a tough one indeed. I've personally thought a lot about it, and the toughest part for me is that even if we didn't present the art show in Naples on a given weekend, someone else would. We've remained constant in our number of art festivals since 2010, even as more shows have sprung up all around us. Not sure how to put those genies back in the bottle...
One good thing is that on the weekends when our nonprofit presents two-day fine art festivals in Naples, we're keeping any funds raised local in support of programs for artists and promoting a spirit of creativity within our community, even outside of festivals themselves. Obviously, when a statement is made that is not in line with who we are, and we know about it, we'll do all we can to stop it from reoccurring and reinforce the message that Art and Artists matter and deserve respect.
Like I had explained, the comment had me taken aback. I also remember an automatic thought not to blow my "undercover status" in hopes of hearing any more "tips" she had. It's very important to me how non-artists view the whole art festival scene. I like to be in the know so at least I can try to prepare/defend myself when I encounter a customer with these false perceptions such as the "show-close bargain" - an artist's worst nightmare. I always assumed they developed from the artists that ruin it for all of us by gratefully accepting these bargain offers, so obviously there are two to blame in this mess. Further explaination why I didn't confront at the fair is (whether it makes sense to others or not) is that this was the first show in a year I was able to attend as a patron due to the heavy show load I carry and was prepared to relax and enjoy myself (not have to worry about set-up tear down or sales all weekend for once!) also not to mention after an hour drive, parking, trolley ride and paying to get in, the last thing I was set out to do was further my discomfort by hunting down the show director amongst a sea of people and volunteers and complain, or confront the volunteer in front of her peers and the big group of show-goers behind me (I'm from Minnesota, where self-sacrificing nice is very much the way) Something tells me she wouldn't have understood or cared anyways..
I hear you. You were just there to relax and check things out. Then this comes up. I'm sorry that this happened to you, and we've taken it to heart. Please know that this isn't something we've ever condoned, nor will we wait for it to happen again before taking corrective action.
Hi Rachelle Thank you for sharing this. I think you are correct in bringing it to the attention of the show director. Hopefully this was just one bad apple at the show and not representative of a group mentality. I have to say that if I overheard this while working at a show, I think I would immediately confront the person and bring it to the attention of the show director. The whole statement is so incorrect and offensive. Personally, I would rather haul around my work all year than give it away to some cheapskate/greedy a****le. As for being desperate, HA. I know very few "starving artists" these days.
Elle, we agree with you. The comment at the gate was out of line and the attitude was out of sync with the reality of how we feel about the work that artists do. We respect your work, and only wish that we had known about it during the festival. We would have addressed it right then and there.
Hi Kathleen Thank you so much for posting here and addressing these concerns in a professional and timely manner. I am impressed!! I don't usually do Florida shows, but I will be applying to yours next year!! :-)
That's great to hear, Elle. Our organization is very responsive to artists, and we like to find ways to continually improve. Our calls to artist festival opportunities come up in the spring-to-summer (posted on Juried Art Services). If you have any questions, please feel free to give us a call at 239-262-6517 or email our festival director personally at Marianne.Megela@naplesart.org.
Hi Rachelle, I just saw that you'd also posted this as a discussion, and wanted to let people on this thread know as well that we're addressing the situation. Again, I am the Marketing and PR Director of the Naples Art Association. Thank you for emailing Executive Director Aimee Schlehr about this today, and we are immediately addressing it. We were grateful that you made us aware of the volunteer’s behavior, as we certainly do not condone it. As you would expect, we were incredibly dismayed to hear that this happened, and wish we would have been told sooner. Thank you again for letting us know, and the NAA takes this concern very seriously. We'll be further adapting our volunteer training to prevent it from happening in the future.
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