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We have done this show last 3 yrs. Smaller solid show for us. Customers come to buy. We sell lapidary jewelry priced 30-300. It is well managed . Pull up to load..unload. Not a lot of frills but we look forward to it. They jury right away so you can get on with life. I believe they balance media. Quality artists. Hope to see you there...

Has anyone done this show?  It was recommended (strongly) to me by another artist who also owns a gallery.  I was accepted just 48 hours after mailing in my application which made me a little nervous - especially since it is the same week-end as a show that I trust but for which the jury has not yet met.

As a result of the St. Louis Mock Jury, I was introduced to two wonderfully helpful ladies, Cindy Lerick and Laura Miller.  They help run the St. Louis art show.  I got to know Cindy, thru contacting her with questions I had from the mock jury results.  Long story short, she had the idea to set up a Webinar with me, Cindy and Laura so they could look at my Zapp portfolio. Cindy sent me an email to connect to the Webinar, which was yesterday.  All went very smoothly and easily, especially with me being only slightly computer savvy! They looked at my images and between the two, they picked out 4 of my images that they thought would work best for applying to shows.  What an interesting and eye opening experience!

 They had seen many, many images before and their judgement was spot on.  I loved the combination they picked, as they explained why they worked together. They also gave more tips that were invaluable.  I highly recommend that you call them at the St. Louis art show number, 314-863-0278 and set up a conference of your own.

Both ladies stated that they love to help artists pick images.  And to me, doesn't it work better when someone else sees your artwork thru their eyes and have the training to help?  

It was a fantastic experience and I highly recommend you do this if you're having any difficulties.  Can't guarantee acceptance but you never know!

I'm not sure where to post this now that the discussion boards have changed, but I have a full set of 8' tall Buff knockdown propanels available for sale.  I have 15 total (three 25" and twelve 30").  They are in PERFECT condition.  Originally paid $2325.  Available for $1500, and will deliver up to 300 miles (I'm in Columbus Ohio), or meet midway for free. Contact me at britthallowell@gmail.com if interested. 

Bob and I want to give everyone a "heads up" about a new, exciting gated art show that will be coming to the banks of the" Flats "area in Cleveland, Ohio- as part of the Riverside Entertainment District! The show is named the Flats Festival of the Arts  and the dates are Aug 19-21, 2016. The show will have well know director Scott Huntley (Columbus Fine Arts Festival) and will be backed by a National real estate developer and a major Regional advertising agency. The show will be listed on Zapp next week. See you there!

June 25 & 26
Grand Haven, Michigan
Presented by: The Chamber of Commerce Grand Haven, Spring Lake, Ferrysburg
100 artists
Deadline:  February 15

Application Fee:  $30
Booth Fee:  $270

The Grand Haven Art Festival is a community event inviting 100 artists from the region and nation to transform Washington Avenue into a chic, outdoor art gallery complete with free admission, food vendors, kids' activities and live music.  Residents and visitors from Grand Rapids, Chicago, Detroit and more, visit the annual Grand Haven Art Festival looking to purchase that perfect piece for their homes, cottages and offices.

Artist Amenities:

• Awards: Best in Show, Jury's Choice and Excellence Award and Honorable Mention selected by onsite jury, invited to participate in the 2017 Grand Haven Art Festival. 
• Complimentary coffee and muffins Saturday and Sunday; snacks and water
• Roaming booth sitters to allow for artist breaks
• Boxed lunches available for purchase delivered directly to artist's booth 
• Artist-only parking reserved one block from the start of the show.  Each artist will have two parking spaces assigned to them, with drive up access for set up and take down
• Complimentary invitation postcards
• Extensive Festival marketing promotion
• Paid security Friday and Saturday nights throughout the Festival
• Grand Haven Art Festival Brochure including name, image, booth number and contact information of all participating artists 
• Information packet provided in April including lodging options, area information, event logistics, etc.
• A welcoming and excited community for the 55th Annual Grand Haven Art Festival

Wednesday - February 3, 5 pm ET 

It is application season! Anyone active in the art fair business is deep into preparing applications for jurying into the nation's art fairs. What are the odds you'll make the cut and get into your most desired festival?

Our guests are long time professionals from the business including Cindy Lerick, executive director of the Saint Louis Art Fair and Christine Berthiaume, Crafts Manager at the New Orleans Jazz Festival and Marguerite Esrock executive director of the St. James Court Show. 

We'll talk about:

1. As an intro we'll hear how each show prepares their jurors for jurying and the process of showing the jurors the applications
   
   
2. 10 worst things you can do to sabotage your chances of "getting in"

Have paper and pencil ready. This one is sure to bring you useful information applicable to your finding success exhibiting at art fairs large and small.

Comments welcome below -- what do you want to know? who would you like to have on the panel? A question you want me to ask? 

Hello Art Family! Here's a quick run down of Beaux Arts Festival on the University of Miami Campus and my last minute avoidance of Islamorada. 

Beaux-- I love this show. I've participated the last 5 or so years in jewelry or in sculpture.  I've done it when they moved the dates to early in January and when they moved the dates back to Martin Luther King's Holiday weekend.  I love the campus, the relaxed vibe, even the trailer port-o-let they drag in for the weekend.  I find the students to be young, vibrant and the future of our industry. Performance wise, sales have declined significantly. This year I made half of what I did in my initial showing at Beaux. Saturday had great energy and pizzazz, leaving me hopeful for a solid Sunday and a meet's expectations. However, Sunday was slow, strollers and kettle corn littering the campus. Who knows if it's Art Deco Weekend or other Miami events dragging customers and their buying energy away, but Sunday would have been a good day to clean the grout in my booth floor if I had a tile booth floor. 

Friday check in and set up weather was bad; sweeping lines of deluge Typhoon style rains and big, bad, black clouds. The volunteers were hunkered down in the organization's tent. Saturday morning was met with a Tornado watch on the drive into the show. Yikes! I saw 4 or 5 booths that had been smashed by the mature palm trees loosing their fronds in the high winds. Maintenance was working hard to remove additional questionable limbs, but for a few artists, it was much too late. Buying energy was good on Saturday- but not a frenzy. Sunday was a brilliantly sunny, sometimes windy day with no buying energy at all (for my work and in my opinion). The artist breakfast is really great-- love to snag a bagel to eat during the last minute jewelry set up-- and it's both days. The passing out of water seemed a bit anemic and I never did see a booth sitter. 

Love you Beaux, but I think I'm breaking up with you. 

Islmorada-- The revived show has all the right moves, with good potential, and an absolute failure to deliver. I was not a fan of the move to the beachfront, even if classic car shows are held there-- it's not great for glass jewelry cases. It's apparently also not great for terrible on shore winds and severe weather. Communication from the show was prolific, if not a bit arrogant and self serving, and got steadily worse as the storms barreled down on show weekend. Good meaning promoters don't mean professional- deliver what they promise promoters. They rearranged the show around the resort it was held on-- off the beach, but I'm a planner and I like to know where my booth is, what set up is going to be like, and what to expect.  Last minute scrambling on a shows part isn't horrific-- it shows poor prior planning to me. (I'm ex-military and live by the 7P's: proper prior planning prevents piss poor performance.) With the severe weather forecast on set up day (SEVERE), and 35 mph winds gusting to over 50 mph on Saturday, I decided to pull out. I don't mess with mother nature. The after action report from an artist friend said Saturday was indeed bad-- dangerous even. Sunday saw no buyers at all. Sad, it really is such a beautiful place to visit.

July 23 & 24 

Geneva, a chic and charming historic town located on the Fox River, will celebrate its 12th annual Fine Arts Fair in 2016. Its prestigious reputation of offering a superb selection of fine art by renowned artists and cutting edge newcomers attracts beginning and avid collectors. 

The show is tucked among 100+ specialty shops located in Victorian-style homes and century-old buildings. Awards for emerging and seasoned artists along with warm small-town hospitality, offer a picture-postcard setting for this juried art celebration.

FESTIVAL FACTS:

• Sunshine Artist's Top 200 for 2013 - ranked #62
• Jury Fee: $20
• Booth Fee: $350
• Ribbon Awards: $4,000
• Attendance: 20,000+

Learn more and apply, visit:  http://www.emevents.com

PLEASE NOTE: Prints, photography, digital art and computer generated art: Prints must be produced by traditional printmaking techniques. Giclee prints are allowed only in digital photography. Photography may be wet darkroom (chemicals) or digital darkroom. We define computer generated art as an art form created entirely with a computer.

The Geneva Fine Arts Fair is one of a series of Chicago area art fairs managed by Erin Melloy of EM Events, a well-established promoter of art shows in the Chicago area. EM Events works closely with some of Chicagoland's most innovative and creative communities and organizations to produce premiere art festivals of distinction.

 

At EM Events, it's about the art. 

For additional information please contact:  

Erin Melloy, 630.536.8416, 

emelloy@emevents.com.

Well, Marcia and I are off soon for our annual trek to Florida. I haven't done an art fair since Naperville last September, so the bank account can use a little help right now. I spent the fall and winter preparing for my one-man show at the Holland Area Arts Council, and stockpiling tons of artwork for all the Florida art fairs. I played "Tetris" in my van, cramming in enough artwork and frames for two months and six shows in the Sunshine State. Amazingly, there is still room for our luggage.

I didn't get into Winter Park, my favorite Florida art fair, or Vero Beach, but I'll be doing Ft Myers, Arti Gras, Naples National, Lake Wales, Gasparilla and Leesburg before heading home again at the end of March. I'm a little fearful of El Nino and the havoc its been causing in Florida this year. I can't remember a worse string of weekend storms in any State. After reading post after post of art fair disasters, I spent a couple of days last week creating newer and heavier weights for my Trimline. You can see them in my van picture. They're in that custom-made wooden rack on the right. They look like depth charges. Hopefully they'll do the trick if this stormy Florida winter continues.

I'm a digital artist/printmaker and I really kept my Epson Printer humming this winter. I also created a lot of new artwork that I haven't yet exhibited at an art fair. I've made a lot of guesses about which pictures will be selling the best, but I know I'll be running out of something. As a printmaker, I can sell multiple copies of the same picture, and I do pretty well with most of my images. I'm very thankful for that. I can't imagine how artists who focus on traditional painting can plan and execute a trip like this. I'm full of admiration for painters who produce and sell one-of-a-kind images.

Anyway, heading South. And I'm itching to get into that first art fair in Fort Myers. 

Late in 2015, after I'd been rejected again from some of the top shows in the country, I was on a different forum, moaning about my plight. Someone said that the best insights I could have would be to sit in on an open jury. 

A few days later, the mock jury presentation opened in Zapp. I was one of the first 150 who applied, and so I was accepted. I could hit St. Louis with only a slight detour on my route to Arizona to visit my dad and participate in the Tubac Arts Festival. 

I went with some trepidation. I'm self-taught, started painting 10 years ago when I was 50, and so I am relatively new to the art festivals. I have self-doubt from those situations and from a lifetime of self-doubt, and so I was quite nervous about putting my work up for critique in such a public forum, while I was in the room. But this is the year I stop hesitating because I'm afraid, so off I went. 

The event was held in the conference room of a Budweiser distribution company. There was room for probably 50 attendees, but only 15 or 20 attended. About a dozen emerging artists attended, as well. Many of them, interestingly, were in their 50s and above. 

SLAF President and Executive Director Cindy Lerick and Deputy Director Laura Miller organized the presentation, greeted us cheerily and dealt with all the technological particularities (they were doing a webinar for the first time). 

In a typical SLAF jury, there are five jurors. For the mock jury, there were two - Steve Teczar,artist and retired professor of Art at Maryville University in St. Louis; and Peg Fetter, jewelry artist and metal smith. 

Typically, a SLAF jury would receive 1281 applications and choose 150 from them. The waiting list is another 11.7 percent of the total. Missouri applicant make up 8 percent of the total, Lerick said; first-time applicants make up 25 percent of the total. 

The SLAF jury process is three rounds, Lerick said. The first two are yes/no/maybe and it takes a unanimous five "no"s to drop an applicant. In the third round, jurors slow down a little, comment and wrangle. Peg said that when she participated as a juror, the process took 27 hours, and was more than a little contentious at many points. 

The mock jury presentation was set up as the SLAF jury is set up, i.e., five slides - four of work and one of the booth - are shown at the same time. In the regular jury process, they said, the jurors look at the work for about 10 seconds before voting. 

Generally, in my opinion, the work that was submitted was good, though I have to say that I found only a handful of the entries actually exciting. The jewelry category had the best work overall, in my opinion. To my eyes, the sculpture category was the most uneven, with many artists making similar work (small, eccentric, amusing pieces made with reclaimed materials). The sculptors who made different work stood out astonishingly - to me, at least. 

Over the course of the day, several themes emerged. In general, the booth shots were where much of the focus was directed. I was amazed at the many booth shots that were just horrible. EZUps put up crookedly, with the sides open, junk piled in front and a standing fan in the middle. Sagging walls with drooping fabric on them. "Booth shots" that were just tables set up in a gymnasium - or basement, or garage - with chairs and boxes visible in the backgrounds. Booth shots with sunshine slicing across the ground and up the wall, obscuring the work. Booth shots obviously (to the experts' eye) photoshopped. 

Like everyone, I've wondered at the stress that's placed on the booth shot, and now, I understand it a little better. It's incredibly difficult to cut 1281 entries down to 150. I think that the standout work declares itself - at least it did, to my eyes, during the presentation. The truly bad work - and there was some of it, in my opinion, in the presentation - also declares itself.

And then there's the rest of it. If a lot of the work is sort of typical, middling, seen before, this is where the jury shot makes the difference. 

So, people, don't send terrible booth photos to juries. Set up your booth in the back yard, in the driveway, somewhere where you can find even light without bright sunlight or dark shadows. Don't clutter your booth with too much work. That was one of the themes. Again and again and again, the jurors said the booths were cluttered. They wanted to booths to be elegant, spare. "Galleristic" is the word they used. Put up the work then take a third of it down. 

They hated nearly all the booths with brown as the background. Oatmeal-colored backgrounds often got "anemic" comments from the jurors. Peg did not respond well to white or black backgrounds generally, though there were many exceptions; she was not just against white or black, but to her eyes, these colors either washed out the work or were too bleak for the work. A medium gray was what these two jurors suggested repeatedly. A number of times, Steve suggested using a color - not red! - on one wall. 

A few random observations...

• The jurors - and even the audience, after seeing about 50 entries - could tell professional photography from homemade shots, especially in the jewelry category. 
• Do not include frames in your images. 
• Surprisingly, at least to me, the jurors were accepting of some shots I'd not have expected they're like. Jewelers who sent photos with multiple pieces in the same shot, that was OK. One sculptor sent a shot of a couple pieces on the wall, and included the edges of two chairs, to give a sense of scale. That was fine. One box-maker had a photo that showed the box at the top, and a detail of the box at the bottom. And re the recent discussion here about detail shots, these two jurors were OK with several detail shots that artists entered. 
• Work on your 100- or 200- or 300-character descriptions. The SLAF jury reads these out loud, on the third round (I believe). Just because Zapp implies that you should be giving technical details of the work, that doesn't mean you must. And if you enter two bodies of work, tweak your description. Don't just send in the same one for both bodies of work.
• If your booth shot is photoshopped, and the jurors realize that, they will toss you out. 

As for my own work, I got no life-changing comments from the jurors, but that was OK. I got a lot of ideas over the course of the day, and understand much better now how to make my entries stand out from the pack. 

The most important thing I took away from this event came from Cindy and Laura, the organizers. They stressed that we, the artists, are the stakeholders, and that they, the show organizers, are happy to help. We should call with questions about our art, our application, our booth, anything. They are there to help us! 

So, thank you, SLAF. You have definitely helped me see my art in a different light. 

Above, the jury looks at work by jeweler Cynthia Battista

Had a good show despite the weather.  Set up 9-12pm Friday night - no thank you - decided to wait until morning.  Got in at 7 checked in and drove straight to booth site.  Unloaded and finished by 8:30.  Saturday was a beautiful day with the sun shining.  I handcraft paper beads and make earrings, bracelets, and necklaces.  Hours were 10 - 6.  Sold 64 pair of earrings and took an order for a custom necklace. $1280 in sales of earrings.

Saturday night the rain came down.  Our tent was fine - trimline with 65lbs on each corner.  The tent across from us landed behind us in the plaza area where they were putting on live music.  Thankfully no other tents or work was damaged.  They managed to get their tent back up.  We got to the show at 9:30 for a free pancake breakfast.  They posted a delayed opening from 11 until 1:00 due to high winds. 25mph winds ugh!  We kept the sides down and didn't open up until about 1:00.  Weather was cold, windy, and cloudy.  Sold only 22 pair of earrings from 1pm to 6 pm for $440.  So total sales were $1,720.  Break down easy - tore down and brought small trailer right to booth site.  We were out of there at 6:45.  After I got home I had three emails for earrings totaling another $260. $1980 for two days works for me.  I'm currently making a stockpile of bracelets which take much longer but will be $50 - 80 price point.  We normally average $100 - $240 and hour for our earrings depending upon the show.  We stay away from buy-sell and do shows for Fine Art & Craft.  Loving it!  Orange Beach Festival of Art is our next one followed by Eastern Shore Art Center that runs alongside Fairhope's Art Festival.  Life is good!

A friend tipped me off that Nels Johnson, in his Sanibel post, was accusing me of consorting with ponies or some such, on Sanibel. So I figured I had better weigh in, in case authorities were alerted. ;-)

It was a rough weekend, but as Nels points out, other shows had it far worse.  Of course, if you were one of the four artists whose tents flipped on Sanibel, your viewpoint probably differs.

We spent Friday morning huddled in the solidly-built community center, drank coffee, paced, told war stories, paced again, and mostly peered out the windows at the storm.  Weird, like an out-of-body experience, to see rain and wind pelting tents, raising flaps (if you were lucky!), roofs and tents (if you weren't).  Promoter Richard Sullivan mentioned that it was a Godsend to have the building there, as few wanted to take their chances waiting out this monster storm in a high-profile vehicle, and "it is a lot easier to communicate when everybody's in the same room, instead of trying to track people down in their vehicles," he said. 

I offered help to a couple of artists who were checking their tents outside, then left on Friday (day one) after the severe thunderstorm warning was extended to 5 PM and the show was called.  Made a delivery to a customer about four miles from my home in S Fort Myers, and learned that an F0 tornado had touched down briefly earlier in the day, less than a mile away from my customer's home.  I made my delivery, then went home for the night. 

When I got back on Saturday, I began pulling 16x20 matted prints out of their travel bin and immediately knew I was in trouble: the bottoms of the mats had gotten soaked through their Clear-bags. I pulled everything out of the bin and flipped it over to find a hairline crack that I'd never noticed: when the ground flooded overnight, the water breached the crack and got in.  A few were OK; most weren't.  And when the customers began arriving, thankfully they bought several Gallery Wraps off the walls, which made it an OK day for me...but nothing like a usual Sanibel show in season.  Load-out was muddier than usual, but went smoothly since I took my time, and because artists were helping each other out any way they could.  I joined several others to assist Nels when, apparently, the Hovercraft option on his white van failed to engage and he wound up stuck in the mud behind our tents.  (Key takeaway: Never stand behind the rear tire in the mud. And Nels, the dry cleaner bill is on its way to you! ;-)  ) 

The next day, I got lucky: My source of custom-cut and (in this case) emergency mats, The Great Frame Up in S. Fort Myers, is right across the street from my home.  And when I told the story of the weekend, the owner ordered up some matboard stock and cut me a couple of dozen on Wednesday at their cost.  I'm very grateful for their generosity!

That day, I tossed out about a recycling bin's worth of soggy matboard and maybe 15 damaged photos, but was able to re-mat about 40 pieces, safe and dry, just in time for my scheduled setup day--Friday--at the Art Fest Naples show.  

And you probably are learning already what has gone on at THAT show--rain nearly all day Friday, and (on Saturday)  winds over 35 mph (gusts over 50) that were so strong that at least one artist, on the windward side, couldn't even set up his tent.  As of this writing, on Saturday morning, the story of that show is still being written.  But it won't be written by me: I cancelled at 7:30 am Friday.  

In my eight years in the biz, I've never seen a prolonged stretch of weather like this, and folks with far longer memories than I say they haven't either.  One of my best buds on the circuit--a jeweler--keeps a "Suck it Up Straw" in her booth, reminding her to stay resolved in the face of adversity.  This season, I'm gonna need a boxful!

Can anyone out there recommend good shows in July and August in Florida, Georgia or South Carolina? I make things out of wine bottle corks. You may visit my facebook page to view some of my work.

Unique Cork Creations

Bob