Well, first off, your bad-boy got flagged again (must be a career trait) by the anal fire department at Uppper arlington, that is NW of downtown Columbus,OH.
God forbid!
They tell us how we must set up our booths with anchors in zee ground. All stakes must be at precisely 45-degrees into the ground--perpetrators will be shot at dawn.
The Fire guy came along to me and yanked my tent-peg out of the soggy ground. I said, "I could put my 45-pound John Deere weight on it." He did not want that. Wind could make the weight dance around on the ground. I was flagged. I put a dog-thether on it.
An hour later the Committee came by and said, "the Fire Dept. Failed you." Oh no! I replied.
They checked my dog-ties and found them adequate. No flies on my stakes.
Geez! Don't these guys have better things to do, like putting out fires on over-zealous gas grilles that do wings too long.
This show used to be one of the best one-day shows in the midwest.
No longer.
Too much beads and non-descript jewelry. Not much original art there, let alone any of the many good regulars I used to see on the circuit.
They mostly bought little precious pieces of paper. Real low, real slow--sales-wise, not worth the eight hour drive to and from.
Don't do this show unless you live close enough not to have to stay at a hotel--it is a shadow of its former self.
And, that is me being nice about it.
Comments
hah! yep, it's an original :-) I always had issues with the terminology on this stuff. I know that plates and stones don't last forever and the first ones look better than the later ones. The same argument can even apply to negatives as a few of mine that used to have heavy use wound up getting scratches and slight damage over time. Digital images are going to look exactly the same from print #1 out to print #999,999, assumimg the printer is in good shape. Not that I ever entertain the thought of one of my pieces selling that many, as that would be a sure sign of the impending Apocalypse. I'm just happy the judge didn't ask me about numbered editions.
Hmmm. . .to quote you, Robert, from your previous post "With a little luck, I'll get 6-7 pieces that I've not shown before framed and have a flip bin copy also." Isn't that "copy" an original?
One more thing; the on-site judging. One of the judges asked me about the proportions of reproductions in the booth. WTH? I looked at her straight in the eye, raised an eyebrow, and told her that the work was photography and therefore all pieces were originals. I did point out some xerographic transfers on hand made paper, and said those were different in that they were monoprints and not a repeatable process. That was a good explanations as she nodded her head and left without any more questions.. BTW, my next door neighbor was a photographer also, but she didn't get asked the reproduction number question.
I was there last year also. Last year some schmuck across the aisle from me had some dinky 20-25 pound weights on the corners and that was it. I cautioned them on Sunday about the dog tie-downs, and they blew me off. Next morning when Fire Marshal Bill walked around, and spotted that, he told them they had 30 minutes to correct it or they were packing up. The guy's wife did a mach schnell trip to Wally World and got back just in time to keep from getting the boot.
I noticed this year they were a little buggy about the boat batteries, stating they weren't allowed and then saying if you had electricity, you had to have the fire extinguisher. I had no problems, step one was to show the fire retardant label in the corner of the John Mee canopy, and then showed him the fire extinguisher. The battery was under cover, he didn't ask, and I didn't tell, so what the hell. He gave the tie down strap a flick and it vibrated, so it was taut and wasn't going to pull out. I use a hammer as a lever to screw the things in all the way so there's no way they're coming out short of a tornado.
Sales started off with a bang at 9:30 with a sale of a B&W nude that hadn't moved for a while, and the sales were brisk with people lined up to buy stuff at times. I thought for a moment that this might be a record breaker show the way things were going. I should have kept that thought under a tighter mental lock. About 12:30-1:00 O'clock, I ran out of the things that were selling, and as Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen sang, 'That's all there is and there ain't no more". I might as well have packed it up early and gone home at that point as I didn't sell a diddly-damned thing for the rest of the day. I was off the mark from last year by $80 low. It wasn't spectacular, but there was some profit after all expenses and materials were taken care off. It won't make a house payment, and it's a hell of a lot of work for the return.
I'm restocking now and have some new pieces to get done for Penrod, and this time plan to have multiple copies of the thing that sold. With a little luck, I'll get 6-7 pieces that I've not shown before framed and have a flip bin copy also.
Gee Lynn, just telling it like it was, an apt description by someone with 38 years experience in the biz passing on observations. We did not jump on you. But, when you see a preponderance of basic jewelry and beadwork at a show like this--it tells you a lot of how the mighty have fallen. That's all.
I am getting VERY tired of everyone jumping on JEWELRY!!! I am actually tired of painters and their attitude with some us when we have a fabulous show, when they sell nothing! We then hear...oh, you are just jewelry. ARGHHHHH!!!
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