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Wow, where do I start? My head is swimming with art business thoughts and to-do lists since returning from the two day conference. Pile on top of that I will teach 120 kids art lessons this week and have my last outdoor art show is this weekend and I am one overwhelmed yet energized artist.  

First off, thank you Connie Mettler and AFI for providing the opportunity for me to attend this event. As a young (career) artist with a very meagre budget, the cost of attending would have been prohibitive for me. I understand this conference is focused on ZAPP's client, the show promoters, and as an artist I appreciate that artists are a part of the mix. Perhaps if ZAPP would like more artist participation at their future conferences they could consider a different price point for artists to make it more feasible? 

So, I will attempt give a little background on me and why I wanted to attend the ZAPP conference in Louisville, KY. I've been participating Louisville region art fairs since 2008 and feel there is a huge learning curve the first few years unless you are fortunate to have a mentor. My mentors have been generous artists at the shows sharing the wealth of experience in those slow hours at shows (and sites like AFI!!). I typically do 3-5 regional shows each year currently. I also sell my work two local galleries, do a great deal of commission work, teach art classes and sell some art online (although I don't have an online cart on my website).

Switching from an engineering career then stay at home mother to a full time artist has been a blessing. Of course creating art is why we are in this field, the business side is where most of us struggle. So I was excited to see where this conference could build my knowledge of fine art fairs by meeting the show promoters and being engaged in the discussions. What I really learned was much much more than that. I just hope I can touch on a few relevant topics for other artists.

I had reviewed the session list online and knew I would get the most out of two: the Artist Track: Reaching Your Intended Audience and Jury Duty: Public Portfolio Critique. The first session actually turned out to be a very compacted session that was both about the intended audience and a discussion on Money 101 for artists. Sheryl Kosovski did a great job covering such broad topics in such a small window of time. I learned if I am to grow my business I need to do a better job of forecasting my expenses, not just throwing receipts in a file for taxes. She shared a great software product called www.moneyminderonline.com which forces you to consider every transaction. For only $60 a year, I think this tool will be very helpful used next to something like Quickbooks.

She also hit a sore spot for me about the mind set of being an under-earner and how to challenge ourselves to push our earning potential and price our artwork based on our goal income. Having an economic evaluator/engineer husband, I know this should have already been set in place but I now have a new perspective on how to approach my potential. Sheryl's second part of the session on intended audience was useful but familiar. I have listened to the radio segments on AFI that have covered how to market to niches and how to target certain demographics. I think hearing it again in this setting while with other artists discussing our experiences is very valuable.

The session on a mock art fair jury was eye opening for me! I noted in my paragraph for the AFI contest for the ZAPP conference that I have tried to get into St. James but I've only been wait listed. My dear husband is encouraging me to apply to shows with fine art as the primary focus, within a 10 hour drive. I have been resisting applying to other "Go big or go home" shows because I have been using St. James as my barometer. First, I am guilty of having a booth shot taken at a fair that I thought looked nice.

I had no idea that jurors primarily want to see three walls with a gallery style hanging with no other distractions. In the back of my mind I knew some shows do not allow reproductions therefore print bins in the photo might be a strike. Items to make sure are not visible: chairs, desks, dolly, tubs peeking under the walls are all a distraction to the juror. Basically consider photographing your booth like you do your artwork: well lit, staged and very sterile. I also learned the sequence of the images can be a distraction. The submitted images need to be sequenced so that they are balanced in design, color and orientation.

Second, and this one caught me by surprise, some shows have open jury sessions! So an artist can attend and learn from the process. I don't yet know how to find which are open but that is on my to-do list. Third, the facilitator was the St. Louis art fair director and she said if you have questions about what a show is looking for in a booth shot or the type of work they focus on in their jury process - call the director and ask! For a painter like myself, I intend to make a list of shows I think suit my work and make some contacts before the application deadlines start rolling around for next year.

Other unexpected benefits to attending: I found a potentially new and cheaper insurance provider that covers artists, even at unpredictable weather outdoor events. I knew it was very important to protect our images by having watermarks or low res images online, but the Symposium- Imitation vs. Inspiration, I learned that the copyright protection laws are not guaranteed to protect us in this digital era. In this same session I gleaned, there are lots of differing opinions from those who make a living on the backs of artists about what is ethically acceptable in arenas of promoting and selling. 

There were many other sessions that were more geared to the show promoters (both for profit and non-profit) yet they had much for an artist to absorb. We, as artists, are a part of a larger community effort in each of these fairs and it is up to us to decide if it fits our goals. Do you want to be at a huge festival where art is a small part of the experience but draws thousands? Maybe you want to focus on shows that where fine art is the focus.

For the seasoned artist who already has figured out their best shows and travels the entire country, maybe this conference would be a yawn for you. For emerging artists, I found there was much to absorb both from business development and the what future may hold for art fairs.

I met so many talented artists and people with a passion for creatives and I hope to stay in contact with them. I learned about new shows that may be a fit for my work. I found new resources to help me research fairs and grow my business. Thank you to all who  put this conference together and thank you again Connie for the opportunity!

All the best,

Amy Welborn

www.paintingsbyamywelborn.com

Apparently this is the second year that Cherry Creek Arts Festival has done the Colorado Artist Image Review Workshop. I missed any announcement of it last year and thought it might be of value to sign up. I've seen on this Blog that other festivals are also hosting this type of review. I hope the trend continues with other festivals as well!

Terry Adams of the Cherry Creek show was there with his support team, a representative of Zapplication and I especially enjoyed meeting Jerry Gilmore who acted as the juror/review person for this event. He seems to be popping up quite a bit as of late, just heard him on the BlogTalkRadio presentation as well. He was very gracious and generous with his time answering questions for this event.

To say the least, as Jerry pointed out, if you haven't seen your slides projected before an audience, or even projected them on your own, it is WELL worth it. Terry told of one artist last year who stormed out of a presentation. He followed him out and asked what the problem was. The artist reported being quite embarrassed at the quality of his work when presented this way and he was on his way home to fix it! Although I didn't storm out I too was disconcerted about how one of my images presented when projected. Had I not been in this presentation I might never have known that this one image (out of the 40 or so I have on Zapp) was formatted differently and thus showed up washed out and lifeless. It is one that I have used quite frequently as-of-late so I was concerned about the impression I was making! I too immediately went home and went about the business of finding out what was wrong. I dropped an email to Larry Berman about it and he was quite gracious about helping me as well. It was only after reviewing all of my stored images (not the ones stored on Zapps website) that I found the problem with this culprit. Zapp requests that images be stored in sRGB mode and wouldn't you know it, this was the only one that wasn't.

Although no guarantee of how your images will appear when projected one of the things you might do is preview them in a browser window. When I did the "Preview As a Juror" on Zapp this inconsistency in image quality did NOT show up.

So back to the issue at hand. The other eye opener was the difference in quality of images depicting people's booths. I've done a lot of work this year myself to make the best presentation possible after getting some useful feedback from Jim DeLutes and was rewarded with a complement by Jerry saying that my presentation was very professional. Some of the others at the review had a long way to go. And cropping of your booth shot. I thought that I had it pretty tight but got some feedback suggesting that I crop it even tighter!

Pre-review Booth Shot: Review Booth Shot

I'm especially sensitive to the idea of large blobs of white in an image, especially when you consider that the jurors are sitting in a dark room for long periods of time and a big white area will tend to blind you when it comes up on the wall/screen. I tried to bring down the brightness in the second image but it started to turn to grey so I left well enough alone. You can see in my second image that I removed the bins and really cropped the booth down very close. It should be noted that some shows want to see everything that you will have in your booth including the bins and chairs!

Some things that struck me about some other booth shots were, browse bins that were pointed into the light so that they looked like shining beacons in the sun (see mine above left), bins that obscured what was in the booth, chairs that obscured what was in the booth, etc. Jerry pointed out how backgrounds can tend to swallow the art, there needs to be contrast between your background and your art. For jewelers, especially if your work is small, it's nice to see professional display cases but if you can't see the jewelery, hanging large photo posters on the back wall is better than the lovely swag fabric. Also, it is a good way for people on the street who can't get through the crowd to preview your work. Oh, and by the way, lose the posters with your name or the company name in the background, jury's are not supposed to see names, the same goes for paintings, etc. use a photo editing program and get rid of the signatures or names.

As for cropping those art images, I know this seems quite elementary, but if you have 2D work lose the frame, unless...it is an integral part of the art. It is easier for a photographer to have images of their work especially in these days of digital capture but if you are taking pictures of your 2D work for gosh sakes make sure it is square to the frame! There were several images in this presentation that looked like they were taken from the side which created a distorted perspective (like looking down a tunnel).

Finally, bodies of work, I struggled with this one myself. Juries want to see a cohesive body of work. At first I thought it better to show a range of work, uh uh. Tis better to show that you have an ongoing theme rather than a smattering of this and that. One artist at the review was arguing this point and still insisted that their body of work was ALL of their work, good luck with that. I appreciate that they like to take images of whatever, I like diversity also, but when it comes to a jury I put my best foot forward and show a cohesive body of work, whatever it is.

All-in-all it was really instructive to participate in this kind of event both for what needs help as well as what looks good. If you have the opportunity to go to a show preview do so.