This is a one day show in september in conjunction with fall fest. the lady who runs it is so unbelievably nice that its hard to write anything bad about the show, but Garden city is a shitbox. the town is all grain elevators and feed lots and depending on the wind direction smells like rotting cow flesh. I was there for about 30 hours and that was far too long. There are a few people from what I've heard who have lots of cattle or oil money but i saw no evidence of it. I mostly sold cheap prints. I'd say if its geographically super convenient to do, maybe do it. the jury fee is only $10 and $60 for the booth fee which i actually didnt even pay til i was at the show. and they had prize money! not a ton but compared to the booth fee it was okay. I got 2nd prize which was $200 so that was nice.
Just a little info for anyone considering this show.
Although the jewelers near me seemed to be really busy, but i dont know how well they did.
garden (3)
Not too long ago I traveled to Washington DC to visit my youngest son. Jay and I went to see everything we could. He really wanted to go to the Art Museum and the Sculpture Garden. I had no idea that he even cared about seeing This kind of an exhibit. He surprised me, although I raised my kids to appreciate the art of making things with their hands.
Well, I was a little surprised at the things I saw in the Sculpture Garden. I have been to the Sculpture Garden in Minneapolis and was blown away at the quality of art displayed there. I truly thought that the Garden in Washington DC had to be far better than the one in Minneapolis. Well, the very first piece had me taken aback.
I hope nobody here made this because I don't want to insult anyone, but anyone could have created this thing. What is it? I guess it is up to the viewer to decide that. It looked like a giant slate. Am I out of it? Is this really that great?
There was a tree that was made out of silver and had no leaves on it. It gleamed in the sun. It was stunning.
There were several other weird pieces, but the worst one was the plain slate.
Do I need an art appreciation class?
As most of you know, I'm in Australia. And that the art fair/show scene is rather different here - there are very few art shows in my area as most artists sell their work through galleries, shops or exhibitions. Shows (art & craft style) that restrict to handmade are not around me either. Consequently I have to find other venues to sell my work at and this past weekend attended:
* a preschool "shopping night" fundraiser
* an open garden weekend on a rural property 20km out of a town.
Firstly, the preschool fundraiser. I'm all for supporting local groups and having been a past board member of our local preschool thought I'd help by going along with my jewellery to this one. It was more like a 'table' show - in a large hall with poor lighting and tables crammed together and went for 3 hours. Wine and cheese was available to purchase. 55 people/businesses took a 'table' about half of which ws handmade. They had pre-sold 200 tickets and sold more on the night. The hall was poorly situated in town but at least parking was available.
Of the handmade contingent there were two artists - one doing framed work and one doing cards and the rest of 'handmade' fell into the crafts category (children's wear, children's accessories, toys, fabric bags amongst the decent items - candles, decorated small glass items and decorated stubby holders (for keeping a beer can cold, in case you don't have them) etc., amonst the lower end. ) There were 3 others there with jewellery but mine was higher end than the others. The poor lighting actually helped me - I was the only one to request power, so had been put adjacent to a power switch to which I connected my lights and bingo - it was like moths to a flame!
Attendees had to pay to get in - there was live entertainment as well (although I'm very glad I wasn't up that end as there were so many people milling around no one 'shopping' could get into their stalls!)
The cost of a table was low . It was about 150km away and I didn't stay the night, so the only other cost was fuel. I sold about 25x table fee and had lots of enquiries for custom work.
The second event was an 'open garden'. If you don't have those over there either, these are when keen gardeners open their garden to the public to come and view. Overseen by the Open Garden Scheme Australia, there is only local publicity and gate takings (around $6pp) are donated to a charity of choice who also runs the gate and usually the food availablity too. I knew the owner and she asked me to come along. Only one other person was there selling and that was a garden stall with plants and garden accessories.
Cost was a donation to the charity (I gave $100) and I gave a gift to the garden owner as a thank you. It was about 50min drive from home. I knew about 10% of the people that came past since it was close to local for me.
Traffic varied from a trickle to I don't know as I was too busy to see! I took around 20x booth fee. In fact, the second day felt like "the good old days" when people used to buy without thinking about the price too much! The garden stall also did well.
Unfortunately, events like this are only once a year for me, but they are definitely worthwhile.
Perhaps you don't have many shows where you live either. Or perhaps shows aren't giving you the returns you need. If so, where do you go with your work that aren't the usual sort of "art fairs" or similar ?
