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This is my wrap-up post, the previous two are just behind this, start at the beginning if you are new to the thread.  To all, thanks for following it, give me some feedback.

THE NOW--2013 

Well, last year was an improvement over 2012.

In 2012, I had open heart surgery with a bunch of by-passes and new valves.  It kinda put a crimp on my art-making and sales.

In 2013 I was a lot stronger and healthier.  I passed out at a couple of shows, while setting up, from that pesky atrial fibrillation.  Got that fixed in August and it has been smooth sailing since.

Here are some of the lessons and trends I gathered from last year. (Don't forget I am a 2-D guy so my observations are swayed that way.}

People loosened up with their spending in the early year, the winter months in Florida.  Shows in Jupiter, Bonita, not Naples though, New Smyrna Beach and others improved.

People were quicker to come out with the credit cards.  Still, most wanted a deal, most were not content to just pay the listed price, especially if they were buying more than one item.

I saw a pleasant uptick in the $100-$200 price range.  Nearly doubled 2011 results.

High end sales were better.

In Florida they have big,tall walls, they need big work.  Heck, a 26"x36" piece is a dink on most walls.  So people with the right work did very well.

Most of my friendly competitor photographers sold large panoramics on canvas and did well.

Painters with tropical themes, and wildlife, flourished.

The trouble is that there are too many shows in Florida on any given weekend and it dampens the need to buy, now, at the show.

Naples has a ton of shows, and most of them suck.  Lots of wealth there, but they treat us as a pleasant day out walking the dog at the show.

Speaking of wealth, the middle class of America has been savagely wounded, and their spending may never come back with the way our economy is going.

This does not bode well for us.  We need them.  We need to fill their walls with art.

The housing industry in Florida is slowly waking up, but way too slowly.

Now, at any given show, there may be a few good whales walking and looking to buy.  The competition and price points are enormous.  There are only so many of them to go around.  So a few, artists, prosper, and the rest go home with diminished profits.

Face it, most of us sell to the middle class.  Not many of us get to sell to the uber-rich. We need those middle class people and they are evaporating in front of our eyes.

In May, when I headed north for the summer, I started strong, but by late September, it was poor-city for me.

I live in Saugatuck,MI for five months and do the midwest shows.

June shows were a mixed bag, Cincinnatti was a passable show, Columbus was its usual killer, and Boston Mills is slowly sinking into "who-cares" territory.

July brought South Haven, a pleasant one-dayer, then a very down Krasl.  This usually always is strong for most of us.  Last year, it stunk.  Then came Ann Arbor, another show slipping in oblivion.

August brought several small shows where I barely made a paycheck.

September brought the one-dayer at Upper Arlington (it is slipping badly) and then a great-killer Saint Louis.

Then it was back to home in Ybor City,Fl.

My fall ended up being one of the worst in the last 12 years.  I barely survived.

OK, so what did I learn from all this.

First, you gotta keep coming up with fresh, new work.  I had a new body of work for 2012, it got me into great shows, but did not necessarily translate into great sales. I hope to build on that.

I think a photographer needs to have 40-60 marketable images working for him in at least three price points.  Of course, the bulk of your sales will come from the top 30 per cent.

The trend in photo right now definitely leans towards canvas work, with work on aluminum starting to catch on fast.  Work on paper under glass is considered old school.

Once they learned to put a white undercoating base on aluminum it made the color image so much brighter.  The process is costly, so you end up with a lot of money tied up in the inventory til you move it.  A certain number of people love it.

The people who come to shows anymore are not as savvy as we saw in the 80's and 90's.

Part of this has to do with the lack of art education in our country.  People have no history, and thus no passion for art.  It is mostly a design market.  That is not going to change.

To illustrate that, think about this scenario.  Two women show up at Naples and I have a great photo of the second Coming of Christ, on canvas.  They start swooning over it.  One women reaches for her credit card and then her friend does the "kill-the-sale-move."  "Margaret, you can't buy that, there is no purple or gold in your room."  End of story, end of sale.

I encounter people all the time who ask what those numbers are on the mat below an image.  They have no concept of a limited edition.  Many don't know that 1/1 means a one-of-a-kind.

The shows have learned to use us as a marketing diversion to bring in a x-number of patrons who they can market expensive vehicles, cellphone plans and real estate to.  Many times these people get the prime booth locations and we are relegated to lesser places.

The hand-held device works against us.

Too many are engrossed in looking at it while not really looking at the art.  It is hard to have a sustained conversation with a patron because of constant blips and alerts on their cell-screens.  Kids are the worst.  They are our future and it doesn't look good.  They would rather photograph your art with their phone, to share with friends, rather than buy anything.

With the advent of digital cameras and ones on phones, everyone is a photographer now.  It is not as easy to "wow" them with great original art.  Most, don't care.  They would rather have big screen TV up on the wall.

When I visit most people's houses, I see very little art ever hanging on the walls.

Couple this with the increase of buy-sell booths showing up at our shows and it portends a tough future making a living in this biz.

Too many show promoters will gladly take the booth fee even if it is BS.  They don't want open spaces.  Too many of the shows are way too large.  When you have 250 artist show at a mid to small location that means a lot of artists are only going to get little slice of the pie.

2012 saw an increase of shows who allowed their deadline for submission to pass, and then extended it.  Why? To grab more fees.  This will only get worse unless we can shame them and call attention to this practice on social forums. If they want us to adhere to their prospectus then they have to do, likewise.

2012 has seen the continuing rise in the price of the booth fee.  Trouble is sales are not increasing.  We are in a biz with increasing costs and diminishing sales--this is a poor business model and most cannot survive doing it.

Social media is probably a boon for most of us.  We can now stay in touch with friends instantly.  We can help, pronto.  Need to know about where to ask for a boothspace--get on the internet.  We are able to put new work out on sites and gather attention to it.  Possibly even sell some of it.  We can get instant feedback about any given show now.  No need to wait for results to be printed.  Just ask those who you trust.

The process of our biz has made our lives one continual journey of applying and paying for shows.  There no quiet times anymore.

Everybody wants results now!  We live in the era of instant-gratification.  The lust for it is insatiable.

This biz tends to favor the richer artist.  If you have plenty of moola, you can buy your booth first day it is available.  Prime spots go fast.  Double booths are scooped up quickly.  Tough shit if you are waiting for that last sale to clear in your account before you can buy your booth.  Heck, a lot of us have to wait til the last moment to buy a space because money is so tight.

I had a tough dilemma in December.  Good thing was I got accepted into some really good shows like Gasparilla, Winter Park and Main Street Fort Worth.  Bad thing was, all these booth fees were due by Dec. 15 at the latest.  December is my worst month of the year.  My holiday sales and shows always suck.  It is the worst time to have to come up with $3400 in booth fees.

I am quite sure I was not alone in this dilemma.

With the increase in booth fees rising, it inhibits new people from entering into our biz.  It is now very costly and not for the faint of heart.  That is not a good trend.

It is becoming increasingly harder for an artist to make a real living in this biz and pay all the bills that come due.

With that said, here is what I see coming in the future.  Some of this is happening now, others are coming, later.

FUTURE TRENDS

Booth fees will continue to escalate.

The day of the $50 jury fee is coming, sooner than we want.

Many promoters will politely continue to turn a blind eye to buy-sell.  They want all spaces filled no matter what it does to a show.

More and more, the "Square-type application" will come to the forefront.

With it will come embeded chips in the cards, no more magnetic strips.

This of course means a new generation of card readers, probably at higher costs.

The Biggart-Waters flood insurance act will have a profound effect on sales in homes near water in Florida, especially.  Thus, a diminished market of walls to be filled with art.  This is not good.

Travel costs per mile for artists will escalate when Congress finally addresses the revenue  shortfall for highways in America.  Right now, it comes out as a small per cent of every gallon sale of gas in America.  If they come up with a user fee, where you are taxed by the distance you drive in a year, we all will be severely affected.  Won't see as many long road trips to shows.  Sausilito, forget about it, same with Cherry Creek.  Only the very rich will afford it. Which leaves the majority of us out of it.  Artists will have to be more regionible.

Fewer young artists are drawn to our biz anymore.  We are an aging group.  Your health will be a major issue for you in the next decade.

Staying on top of blood pressure, eating lowfat and low salt will become imperative to living well.  A weekly exercise program where one achieves a steady aerobic workout for at least 45 minutes, three times a week is a must.  Maybe cutting back on eating so much of that show food will help.  Forget the fries, eat kettle corn, it is better for you.  You must keep yourself strong and supple.  The show setup and teardown is an arduous task.  You are only as good as your back and legs are.

I just don't know how well one can live off sales from their website.  This is one dicey area, I see very few who are successful at it.  The website is a valuable tool, but is not an end itself.

WRAP UP

I want to end on a most positive note.

Can you hear the explosion of fireworks in the air?  The big bands are playing.

If not, take another hit.

Swallow some Jack and listen on for a few more lines.

I am 68 and hope to be doing this when I am 78.  My goal is to evolve from being a photographer to being a painter by age 72.  It is a daunting goal--but I am goal-oriented.

I had open heart surgery and got a second chance.  I take my health very seriously, and I want all of you to do the same.

As I said in the first blog, WE ARE IN THE GREATEST PROFESSION IN THE WORLD--PEOPLE ENVY US.

I wake up every morning of my life with purpose.  There are never enough hours in the day, I could always use more.  I have a burning passion to create new work and it propels me.  As long as it can sustain me, I will die a happy man.

I love this site, and the blog especially.  It re-awoke a passion for writing in me that I kind of repressed in my twenties.

Hope you all got good things out of this series.  I think it has been a unique experience explaining our business.  It is one hell of a life's journey.

Aloha, and much success to all in 2014.  Nels Johnson

PS.  To date, I know of nobody who has done a comprehensive, analytical look at our industry like I have just published.

June 6-8 
Columbus, Ohio

Riverfront
250 Artists
Deadline: January 17
Patron Attendance 400,000+

The Columbus Arts Festival presented by Time Warner Cable and produced by the Greater Columbus Arts Council, is the city's welcome-to-summer event, pairing the finest artists and craftspeople with continuous entertainment including hands-on art activities, musical performances and food from the area's finest restaurants.  

Join us on the Scioto Mile June 6, 7 & 8 for great art, music, food and fun!

Expect:

I started Part 1 of this blog yesterday, if you are new to this thread you may want to start with it first.

Two new technologies ushered the art show scene into the late 1990's.

CELLPHONES AND STANDARDIZED PRE-MADE ARTIST'S BOOTHS.

In old school days you had to either wait til you got home to use a land-line, or feed phonebooths with lots of quarters or have a telephone credit card number to use anywhere.

Old school days, it was harder to keep up with buds at shows and see how they were doing. Getting approvals for all those credit card transactions was very labor-intensive.  Then came the cellphone.

Things changed overnight.  I remember seeing artists with their new phones gabbing away while at a show, usually in their downtime.  You could multi-task at a show now: order inventory, set up hotel reservations, order food, it opened up new horizons and made our biz a bit easier.

Of course, if we had phones, so did our patrons.  This was good and bad.  The good being they could call the missing mate when they wanted approval to buy from you.  I bet hundreds of husbands just loved being able to sit home watch football while the little lady shopped.  Heck, as long as she didn't buy a $10K painting they were OK with the process.

Nowadays, good luck finding a working telephone booth.  Some day, little kids will go to a museum and see one displayed and ask mommy,"Is that where I was born?"  Others will say, "What dude?  You put in a quarter and no screen pops up, what good are they?"

The bad side of telephones and today's multiple handheld digital devices is that it competes with us trying to sell our art.  When people are forever engrossed in the God-Almighty lit-up screen, it is pretty hard to close them.  When you are reeling in a sale and their screen lights up, it disrupts many a sale, and you lose out.

The mid-eighties and nineties were, for the first time,where  an artist could buy a premade booth.  It was the era of the KD canopy--the first popup.  Pull it out of the bag, expand it and voila!  You had an instant shelter.  Early ones did not fare well in heavy winds or rains.

I remember once in downtown Charlotte,NC , I came to my booth early on Sunday morn.  A big storm with winds had whipped thru earlier--and, lo and behold, there was a KD flipped over and sitting atop my booth.  I did not have a stinking KD.  I had a Newton.

It took a while to reinvent the wheel to make sturdier booths that could go up in a hour or less.  Newton Canopies, out of Ft. Myers made one of the best ones.  It was called a "Porta-canopy."

It was really strong, it shed water and it looked good.  I bought their fifth canopy made in 1986.  I still use it, with its original aluminum trusses.  I have only blown over once in 33 years with that canopy.  That was when a freak hurricane hit the Vero Beach show, in spring, in the early 90's.  My booth went down, so did everybody else's.

Newton sold to Flourish and the rest is history.  About this time, Trimlines debuted along with Show-Offs and the Light Dome.  KDs, and rival design knock-offs, got better.

People figured out you could stick hula-hoops in all four corners of a KD to keep water from collecting in buckets.  Extra heavy-duty frames replaced the thin aluminum.  Shows had a more consistent look.  It now was a novelty to see a home-made booth.  The Hippie-era of shows was toast.

One other development came out of all this. Now artists could have display walls made out of fabric, or premade panels.  The Booth was more compact to store.  So, less artists traveled with the racks bungied down, atop their roofs.  It became, more and more, an inside job.  Or, many started buying trailers to hook up to their vans.  You could store so much more inventory.

Premade booths also made it now easier to have a double-booth.

With a number of best-seller artists now using the double, it meant their were fewer spaces available at an art show.  Their doubles also looked very impressive and many times over-shadowed their neighbors.  Sales got bigger, and booth fees got bigger.  We will talk about that later.

The early to mid-ninties ushered in the all-time game-changer for selling at art shows.

THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION:  CAMERAS AND ART REPROS, THE APPLICATION PROCESS, RECORDING SALES ,AND ARTIST" WEBSITES

The digital era brought on some of the most profound changes to our industry at the close of the Twenty-ith Century. Where is Jim Morrison when we need him.

It was the era of instant gratification.

For a photographer, you no longer did it in the dark, you did it in the light.  On a photo-shoot you no longer put a rush order on for newly shot work.  Results were instantaneous.  You could edit now.  No waiting for images to come back from the lab.

It also democratized the whole photography profession. Image programs like Adobe Photoshop made everybody look good.  

In old school, if you were shooting slides and were off by more than a quarter-stop (I know, people are shaking their heads and wondering,"What's a stop, let alone a quarter-stop?"), the work would look like shit.  It separated the ones who were real good from the average.  Nowadays, it is hard to tell average from the real good.

The number of photographers applying to shows nearly doubled.  Press a button, edit, save in computer, press another button and you had a finished color photo.

Also, the new technology was more forgiving.  Once photographers could print on canvas, their work looked better.

Inkjet prints.  Lots of people know them as Giclees.  It not only transformed photographers, but all 2-D art. BTW.  Giclee is French for," spray  ink on my brioche."  Only kidding, everyone knows you spray it on...caviar!

Now painters and a lot of printmakers no longer  did expensive lithograph or offset print editions.  Some still do, especially the really good artists like John Costin, the bird man from Florida. 

But giclees were cheap and fast.  The public ate them up.

 When you could print out on canvas, the whole scene exploded into one color-orgasmic orgy.(Is that a little redundant?  It is very vivid).

Painters who did only originals started seeing a slump in their sales.  Shows responded by saying most limited editions had to be a small number like 250 or less.

Face it, canvases are here to stay.  The public loves them.  Don't have to mess with any glass, don't have to buy a frame.  They love it.

The next way the digital revolution changed us was the whole application process.

Old school ways.

 At the beginning of a new year you went to the Post Office and bought 100 pre-stamped post cards.  You addressed them to shows  you were interested in.  You requested a prospectus.  How quaint!  You also figured out real quickly to  buy a rubber stamp with your address because who wanted to write your address 100 times.  You would think you were back in Catholic school being tortured by the nuns.

You filled out the app and sent it in with a check for jury fee, numbered slides and a SASE.

Then you waited for results.  You waited on Friday, for that return envelope to arrive, minus slides, you knew you were in.  That was the process until...

Zapplication, Juried Art Services, Entrything, ad nauseum.

Zapp changed the whole game.

It was now easier and quicker to apply to shows.  No more running to the post office to make a deadline date.  No more keeping reams of slides on hand.

Shows loved it more.  Their applications for jury exploded.  They figured out that this was better than baked bread.  A lot of money is collected in the jury process which helps a show's profitability.

Images were now stored on your own personal Zapp site.  Imagery was now unified.  All digital files where of a certain number and they all had little black borders on them.  Jurors could sit at home and jury images on their own time.

Naturally, rivals jumped in like JAS and Entrything, but face it folks, it is mostly a Zapp process.

One of the big drawback to this whole process was the way shows now introduced a layer between you and the show.  It wasn't as easy to just call somebody and get needed info.

Paying for a booth became a shopping process.  Put in your card number and pay.  A few shows still wanted the booth fees sent to them via check.  Artigras is a good example.

Getting feedback from the jury results became a tedious, aggravating process.  None of them want to do it--or let's just say, very few.  Krasl, the St. Joseph,MI show is one of the best for giving feedback.  They have a very savvy director who is artist friendly.  Thank you Sarah, and happy new year.

This easy process now meant you had a ton of more competition for getting into shows.  Great work, alone, did not get you in.  The sheer length of the jury has to take toll on the scorers.

Also, there no almost no secrets in the industry anymore.  Everybody knows where the shows are now.  It took me years to accumulate knowledge of certain shows.  Now that is available at the click of your fingers.

Shows saw the numbers increasing for jury.  They figured. "What the hell, let's raise the jury fee.  What are they gonna do? Stamp their feet.  In the end, they will pay."

The other by-product of all this is the ways that dates, stated in the prospectus as deadlines for image submission, suddenly got extended.  More extra entries, more moola.

It is wrong what they are doing.

 Bayou City in Houston is one of the most recent to do it. Deadlines are not always etched in stone anymore.  It is a wretched process and I don't see shows changing their ways.  As long as their is a line of artists with money in hand wanting to apply, the shows will continue their practice.

It is dishonorable.  It is a sordid business model, and it will lead to a decline in our industry.  Greed does not go unpunished forever.

On a positive note, digital makes it easier for Artist Sales.

ENTER THE ERA OF NURITS AND THE SQUARE.

No more old school.  No more click-clack of machines running over cards and carbons.

Now it is the era of the card swipe.  Instant OK of the sale.  Heck, people now sign on a lit screen using their fingernail.  Personal checks.  Don't see many of those unless you are certain parts of the midwest.  They still like old school.  God Bless Them.

The card swipe procedure is going to change in the near future.  I will talk about it in my third blog which deals with future trends.

Lastly, digital made artist websites our new virtual stores.  Facebook and other social networks have opened up a whole new venue for selling art and using the process as a good follow-up mechanism for potential sales from art shows.

The camera on our cellphones has changed things.  

Savvy artists now encourage a prospective collector to shoot a JPEG and send it to their mate while at the show.  If they like it, you can close the sale.

The camera-phone makes the instant-moment at a show a big deal.  People see your work, shoot it and send it to their friends, they want to share the moment.  Unfortunately, most don't want to buy the work, they just want to share it. 

Some want to share it  in bad ways.  They want to shoot your work, and copy it.  Maybe call it their own, get people to buy it from them.  It has opened a Pandoras Box--the genie is out and will never be stuffed back in the bottle.

I am tiring, calling it a night.  Part three will deal with the now,now.  and, the future.  Stay tuned.  Give me some feedback.  What do you think about my comments?  Add your own experiences--but don't high-jack my thread.

Time for some red wine and football.

Aloha, Nels Johnson.

St. Louis, Missouri
39th Annual Spring Art Fair at Queeny Park
Queeny Park in West St. Louis County
130 artists
Deadline: January 15

For more than thirty-eight years the Greater St. Louis Art Association has been providing opportunities for the public to see and purchase original works of fine art and fine craft directly from the artists who create them.

Every year we produce two juried art shows (Spring and Labor Day Weekend).  Artists in all media are encouraged to apply. These shows feature juried local, regional and national artists' original work.  From the pool of artists applying, about 130 artists from all over the US and Canada are invited to exhibit.  These artists are selected by a professional jury process in eleven distinct media categories.

Food and refreshments are available on site, parking for the public and artists is free.  Live music playing during wine tasting and peak attendance.  During Sunday afternoon, an interactive children's art education program encourages families with youngsters to meet and talk with artists and learn about their work.

Noteworthy:

• Our 38th Annual Spring Art fair
• Limited to approximately 130 artists
• An air-conditioned indoor art fair, no worry about the weather, tents or security
• Jury/Booth fees ($25/$200); free electricity 
• Cash awards totaling $4,500
• Booth sitters, 24-hour security. Rest easy knowing your booth is locked up safely at night.
• Excellent marketing campaign, expanded to television, newspaper, magazine and radio advertising, internet and e-mail promotion
• Promotional postcards, business cards and coupons provided free to exhibiting artists
• Live music throughout the art fair
• Wine tasting Friday & Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoon

Important dates:  

• Artist's entry deadline:  January 15
• January 24 Late Deadline for Artists Applications ($25 late fee applies)
• January 26 Artwork has been juried
• January 30 Artist notification via e-mail.  Acceptance letter will soon follow.
• No booth fees will be refunded after March 3
• April 4  Booth set up starting at 9am, must be finished by 5pm   

Learn more & apply: www.artfairatqueenypark.com/  

You may also contact:  Vic Barr, GSLAA President

(314)997-1181  vicbarr@sbcglobal.net

Well, 2013 represents my 38th year in the biz, that is a little over 1100 art shows done all over this great land.

I started in 1975, in Hawaii while in the Army, and migrated back to Florida.  I average about 30 shows per year.  That's what it takes for me to make a living at it.  On the average, I get one weekend off per month, and you can bet your buckeroos I don't spend it hanging around art shows.

Still missing a tooth from when I bit into that delicious chicken wing at Phils Bar in Saugatuck in 2010.  Gives me that pirate look, just like many of my images from the Keys.

I am a photographer.  Have been from the beginning, probably will die still being one.  So a lot of what I am going to tell you comes from a 2-D perspective.

I am going to talk about beginnings of the biz, where we are at now, and where I see it going.  I will discuss past,present and future trends and how they affect us in our biz.

FIRST OFF, AND MOST IMPORTANT, WE ARE IN ONE OF THE BEST BUSINESSES IN THE WORLD.

We get to be our own bosses.  We are captains of our own time.  We get to have fun and laugh a lot.  We meet and network with some of the most free and creative spirits out there.  People envy us.  All the time, I get told by folks, "When I retire, I want to do what you are doing."

So, I guess I retired when I was the tender age of 30.  Barely out of the fog of Pink Floyd and other surreal happenings.

THE PAST--INNOCENT AND WONDEROUS TIMES, WE WILL NEVER SEE AGAIN.

When I started, we all had handmade booths, and most of them were creative and cool.  Granted, it may have taken us four hours to put them up, but who cared when you were smoking a good doobie and having great times with your neighbors.

These were the times of orange,blue and sometimes white tarps.  Walls could be plywood, pegboard or fabric.

In the old school days, you sent slides into art shows and waited for the outcome.  There was no instant network of notice like today.

When the return envelope came on Friday (Most shows sent out notifications on Monday) you instantly felt the envelope to see if slides were enclosed.  If so, it was the FU notice from the show.  One of the coolest ever ways of knowing you were in a show was the way Harvey Weinberg, director of the Cain Park Show, did it.  If you were in, the envelope, right above your stamped return address would say, "Good news for..."  How cool, it made your day.

More shows then, were on grass rather than the street.  Usually setup was the day before, unrushed, mellow, take your time.

A lot of us would sit in our vans, not far from our booths, and suck on a great number of doobies.  Then pleasantly blitzed, we would go out and make money.  It was awesome.

Then one day, we had a small epifhany.(I know I misspelled it, get on with it)  We figured out we were missing out on a lot of early sales by eager patrons.

This was one of earliest inklings to how we maybe should present a more business-like image.  Yikes, some of us started wearing clean shirts--and they were not all tie-dyed.

In the day, at big shows like the Grove and Winter park, you could hear a symphony of "clack,clacking going on."  That was the sound of the old knuckle-buster credit card machines clicking over the card and the carbons.  The sound was deafening at times, especially on Sundays between 1pm and 3pm.

Then off course, you had call in all those transactions and get an approval code before submitting.  Bill Coleman (photographer of the Amish) once had to call in more than 300 of them.

On Sunday nights, you could see a cavalcade of vans and sedans, laden with racks upon their roofs.  Yep, that was us gypsy artists making for home.  Take the money and run.

It was more innocent times.  I really believe we saw much more knowledgable patrons at the shows. They knew they could find some really original and creative art, at better deals than galleries.

Many artists made enough money to not only put their kids thru schools, pay med bills, but also build their own homes and studios.  I knew several of them like ceramicist Ken Jensen and mixed media artists Wes and Judy Lindbeg.  Everybody knew somebody, who was doing real good, was socking money away and having a hell of a time selling art.

Competition was maybe a little different from now.  There was no Zapp or JAS or Entrything.

There was Sunshine Artist, Greg Lawler (later on) and of course the most important, insider info from a good friend.

Back then, people had little secret shows they could go to.  Little gems, not a lot of competition, and you could make serious money.  These were the days when if you paid your booth fee, you expected it to return ten times its amount, or it was not a good show to do.

People kept secrets.  They might tell a good friend, especially if they were not a direct competitor of theirs.  I remember years ago, glass artist Jeff Jackson, from Micanopy,FL, telling me about how good Boston Mills was.  But, that is all he said.  He gave me no address, no link, we didn't have them yet.  It took me about two years to figure out Boston Mills was not a show outside of Boston, Mass.

I would say the early wondrous, innocent times ended in the mid-nineties.

The magic bubble probably burst in 1999.

All of a sudden, shows were not that easy to get into, or make money at.

TRANSITION TIME--1999 til now.

When the stock market bubble broke, free spending habits got a lot tighter.  It drove a lot of talented people out of wholesale into retail.

It upped the competition.

For years, savvy artists developed a good line of products (Nowadays we know this as Branding).  They got weary of being on the road.  They had families to raise.  So the prospect of creating and selling from home was a God-send.  The money rolled in, the product rolled out.

When the bubble burst, wholesale dried up for a lot of artists (This also includes crafters, we are all creative artists).

So, needing to still make a living, these guys jumped back into the retail scene.  And, they were good.  Very good.  All of a sudden it wasn't a cakewalk getting into the Columbus show.  Applications started increasing, jurying got a lot tighter, the booth shot became all so much more important.

A lot of good artists started getting knocked out of longtime shows, they got beat out by better artists.

A vacuum was created and some savvy individuals saw the potential to fill it.

ENTER THE ERA OF PRIVATE PROMOTER RUN SHOWS.

To be fair, there had always been private promoters out there.  But most of them were known for having one show like say an Audrey Levy show in Ann Arbor.  Nobody had really taken the idea of producing multiple shows at multiple locations and running with it.

I got to give Howard Alan credit, he hit upon a great idea.

Put a show on in a well known location, (like around a well known show like Los Olas). He also figured out if he could build a steady growing family of artists to do his shows, he would achieve nirvana.

Howard paid his dues mostly on the east coast of Florida for many years.  He put on shows, advertised them well, and built up a steady stable of artists.  He basically said, if you come along with me, you will be in most of all my shows without being rejected.  This was a tantalizing proposition, and many savvy artists signed up--and prospered.

The magic moment for Howard which really propelled him into the big time is when the legendary Los Olas Museum Art Show imploded and left a vacuum, ably filled by Howard.

A little history.

In the 80's and 90's it was routine that either the Coconut Grove Art Show or the Los Olas Art Show would be the numero uno show to do in the country.  40K sales were not uncommon for the savvy artists there.

Then Los Olas made a fateful mistake.

For years this show was held on Los Olas Blvd. (Where it is now).

It is amidst trendy show, bars and restaurants.  Of course you would want a show there.

Then they made fateful mistake and got greedy.

Mind you, this is my take on it when I say they got greedy.  They will deny it til the day their Picassos run down the kitchen sink.  Nobody likes to have egg on their faces.

They took the show off the boulevard and moved it onto the grounds of the museum.

Dumb move.  No bars, no restaurants, no fun.

They imploded and became a nonentity within six years.  Imagine going from being the number one show in the country to being nowhere.  What were they thinking?

Ah, wily Howard saw an opening and took good advantage of it.  He talked to the boulevard merchants and said "Let me put on a well-run show here and you will get those lost crowds back and everybody will make money."

And they did.

And from that came the empire known as Howard Alan Productions.  The guy is a genius.

I don't do his shows.  I respect him, I just don't want to get up at 3 AM in the morning to set up. I am too old for that, or truth be told, I just don't want to do it.

I think Howard started the modern promoter-business model.  Many have followed like Amy Amdur, Patty Norazney and Bill Kinney and Richard Sullivan, to name a few.

The promoters have influenced our present biz in many ways.  Some good, and some bad.

Amy was one of the first to figure out you could start charging artists for every little conveniece you can think of.  You want a corner, sure, that will be $150 extra, you want to be next to a loved one, sure that linkage fee will be $100.  You want storage behind your booth, "you are kidding me, you don't have enough money for that, and I don't have enough space for that."

Thus enter the era of paying for every little extra at shows.  They quantified it, assessed it, and said "pay up."

Ooh.  One other very important thing happened.  They raised the price of the booth fee.

Now average shows that returned for many artists only $1500-$2500 gross were costing $300 and up booth fees.  The old 10x booth fee model was out.

Guess what, the established organizational art shows took notice of all this, and jumped on the band wagon too.

AT THIS POINT I AM TAKING A BREAK, IT IS NEW YEARS EVE AND I AM PUBLISHING THIS.

I will start another blog, maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, which will deal with the almighty Present.

Then we will get into what I see next year and the future.

Suck down a few martinis and Jacks and stay tuned.  I have lot more to say.

HAPPY NEW YEAR YOU ALL.  WE ARE BLESSED.

Note: I reviewed this show a year ago.  Rather than rewrite half of the review, I'm providing a link here.

Howard Alan Events' Coconut Point "New Year's Weekend" art festival is a traditional kickoff to the winter season for Florida-based and snowbird artists alike.  In contrast with last year's show, which seemed to encounter some buying doldrums among the populace, this year's show had pretty heavy traffic and sales on Saturday.  Sunday's feeding frenzy never marterialized,  partly because of the weather front that moved through around 8:30 AM, bringing high winds, and partly the local weathercasts, which tend to scare the bejezus out of the locals every time it looks like winds might kick up or showers threaten to make folks turn on their windshield wipers.  (Note to residents and forecasters: Hurricane Season ended on December 1.  Take a deep breath, already!!!!)

If I seem testy about this, it's understandable:  Saturday put me on pace for a record Coconut Point show, and I wasn't happy that, at least until 3 PM Sunday , crowds were less than a quarter what they had been on Day One.  I was sitting at about $150 for the day until some late-day return customers dropped a few dimes and made it a decent day and show, if not a gangbusters one.   Other artists I polled reported about the same result: A solid paycheck for most (especially large-scale 2-D artists--a trend we noticed last year).  The jewelers I spoke with did OK to pretty well, and several said they appreciated that the show wasn't overloaded with their category.  Show quality was strong, and I did notice a lot of newer artists this year...or at least, artists I hadn't seen at other Florida HAE shows.  This is an affluent area, worth the $395 booth fee, and folks didn't seem afraid to spend, nor did they ask for discounts.

Howard Alan is known for thorough advertising/marketing, and he outdid himself with this show.  For example:  As a local, I subscribe to the "digital edition" of the Fort Myers News-Press, and every day in the week before the show, the paper's "top 5 stories" email included an ad for the show.  There was a heavily-promoted free drawing, Pinterest boards, and TV advertising...including early morning standups by each of the three TV news stations.  Don't know how an artist could ask for more.

Setup on Friday is a piece o'cake: Good directions to the site, a quick check-in, and well-marked spaces set, in Howard Alan style, nearly pole to pole but with lots of space behind for storage.  Tear-down on Sunday went smoothly, but it requires patience:  The artist parking is about a six-minute walk, at the far reaches of the movieplex parking lot.  (There's an artist shuttle running in the morning, but not during breakdown.)  You could bring your vehicle near the perimeter of the show site at 5 PM, if you could find a spot (it's a VERY busymall), but a pass certifying that you had broken down your display was required to drive in front of your booth for loading. 

I was in a row conveniently situated along the edge of the show, and it was fine with HAE if we parked in the lot closest to the backside of our booth when the show closed, instead of joining a queue of vehicles to drive to the front side, as usual.  So we did...and although it required a bit of schlepping and dollying and patience (while awaiting a parking spot), things went smoothly and I was on the road by 7:30. 

I'm almost sorry I won't be attending the second installment of this show, on Valentine's Day weekend.  (I decided to try my hand at the Bonita Springs National instead, a few miles away, same weekend.)  Let's hope there are enough art buyers to make both shows thrive, and that another AFI reader will step up and review the February show. 

Transplanting herself to Florida from Kansas and Texas, not only was Bonny Hawley's life changed but so was her subject matter. Living on the Gulf Coast of Florida surrounded by water her imagery explores the mysteries of the deep. Floating images barely seen peer out at the viewer and draw you nearer. What is the media? What am I seeing?

Bonny weaves from the fabrics of ancient worlds and threads of her imagination to create her mysterious flowing spiritual works.  Her art celebrates life and stimulates the spirit.  The work consists of acrylic mixed media collage, oil glazing, and cold wax medium and involves monoprinting, stenciling, metallic paints, gold and silver leaf and hand painted papers on raw silk and linen.  

Living in Naples, a winter tourist destination that brings art collectors to her doorstep, means she doesn't travel far to meet them.

See her on December 28 & 29 at the Coconut Point Art Festival in Estero, FL, and at other art fairs in Naples throughout the winter months.

Learn more about Bonny and her work: ArtFairCalendar.com/featuredartist.

I wake up this morning thinking of 2014 and reflecting on 2013. I did some progress in life as an artist and person. I realized what my regular job means and bring to the table. I came to terms that my art is what makes me wake up each morning.

I learned the conflict of both my art and corporate world. I saw and experienced the bad side of be an artist. The bad side is not how much money we make as an artist is how fellow artist treat other artist. Experience how corporate people treat you do well at art world. Even worst when artist and some talkers treat you when they found out that you also held a regular job.

The reality is very hard to do well and keep up with both. One thing you learned that you really work more 80 hours to keep up both worlds going. Soon you realize the need to work three times harder to create your own path.

The one thing that I know nobody will gave me anything for nothing. I work for everything and take risk to reach my goals. There still a lot of ground to cover. I look forward to the hard work, to proof wrong the doubters and haters. I look forward to keep improving my life as an artist and person.

As another comes to a end and new one start I wish you all Happy New Year.

I am trying to prepare my Zapplication.  I understand the Booth Photo.  I am a photographer and don't know if photographers submit images of their digital files or if they have to take pictures of there prints in frames?  I have seen the images of pottery, jewelry, etc. Please help.  Thanks. 

Hello, All:

I just received an application to this event and see that they have indoor spaces (with air conditioning!).   Does anyone have any comments about this show?  High end?  Low end?  Attendance?  Worth it?

Thanks in advance - and Happy New Year!  

WHAT:  Krasl Art Fair on the Bluff, one of the nation's top fine art fine craft art fairs. Krasl Art Fair is ranked:

• #7 on the Art Fair Calendar's new Best Art Fairs list (from their 2013 survey) 
• #12 in Sunshine Artist Magazine's 200 Best For 2013 
• #32 in Art Fair Source Book's top 100 shows 

WHERE: Beautiful downtown St. Joseph, MI overlooking Lake Michigan. A resort community with stellar beaches, a charming downtown, a Jack Nicklaus Golf Course and many more outstanding attractions, restaurants and shopping.

WHEN: Saturday and Sunday - July 12-13

NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS:
Deadline: Thursday, January 9 - 12pm EST

APPLY:  www.zapplication.org

Jury Date: Tuesday, February 4, 2014 (artists and public invited to observe)

NOTEWORTHY:

• One-half century of artistic and sales excellence. 
• Limited to 216 artists.
• 30% of artists re-invited from 2013
• Over 151 openings for 2014
• Average sales (2013): Sunshine Magazine reported two revenue camps, half in the$2,000 to $5,000 range and the rest doing $5,000 to $10,000.  
• Art Fair Source Book reported average sales of $3773.  
• Krasl Art Fair artist survey of the 106 responding artists reported average sales at$3,600
• Application/Jury Fees ($30/$275 or $300/Booth, depending on space size: 15x15 or 20x20). Many booths offer exposure to the public on two sides of the tent. Benefit, very reasonable booth fees!
• Estimated attendance: Approximately 70,000, drawn from the Midwest.
• Friday set-up; drive to space for load-in and load-out.
• Best of Category Awards: $100 cash; Krasl Board Choice Award (automatic invitation to following year and booth fee waived); Shore Magazine "Best Booth Award" (includes ribbon, plaque and $100).
• Artist-in-Residence program; residents host artists in their homes.
• Excellent artist amenities, including artist-only parking, Saturday gourmet breakfast, booth sitters, electricity available to many booths, artists' hospitality room and much more.
• Friday Night Kick Off Party with gourmet food, wine tasting and live music.
• Round table artists' discussion with committee and staff.
• Jury session open to artists and public to observe.

For more details about the show, click HERE

The artists speak:      

"The location is beautiful, friendly patrons, great weather, and convenient parking. People were willing to spend money for art!"    

"Good sales, excellent amenities, there is no other show more welcoming to artists."   

"35 years of experience: you have one of the best July shows in the country!"    

"Krasl is the best art fair by far! Thank you! The attending audience was very responsive to the sculptures."    

"The Krasl Art Fair is one of the few shows that put the artist and quality of the show first."   

Email inquiries to: Sara Shambarger, Director of Art Fairs, sshambarger@krasl.org

You may also contact by telephone: 269.983.0271 

Anyone got any comments or ratings for the King Canopy Tuff Tent?  Scored on one from Amazon.com for 199$ and free shipping.. Looked to be better than the EZ-up Express II's I have been using...

Please no tent snobbery remarks. I cant afford 1200$ plus for a tent which takes two people and an hour plus of time to set up....

Hello everyone!  Token Aussie reporting in to wish you all Happy Holidays!  

I know I haven't been around much the last 6 months, far too much on and happening both with making jewellery, shows and the farm ... its upset my online routine!!   I do try and keep a vague notion of what's been going on here though :)    

I haven't even posted that I met the gorgeous Kathleen Clausen and her entertaining hubby, Mark, on their recent visit to Australia!   We spent the day together in Mudgee going around a gem show, that I'm sure was so tiny for them in comparison to US gem shows.

Here's a taste of our Aussie Christmas... hot, hot, hot and dry!   The kids spend a lot of time in the pool cooling down... these are my twin girls - they look like me don't you think LOL.

Wishing all of you all the best, and looking forward to participating more in 2014 <3

Embracing Our Differences invites art submissions for it's 10th annual outdoor art exhibit celebrating diversity.

• National and international submissions are encouraged.
• 39 artists will be selected for the exhibit.
• The exhibit will be displayed April and May 2014 at Island Park along Sarasota, Florida's beautiful bayfront.
• Since 2004, the exhibit has been viewed by more than 1,600,000 visitors.
• The exhibit will contain 38 billboard-sized (16 feet wide by 12 1/2 feet high) images of the selected artworks.

941-404-5710

One look at Ron Roland’s art and it becomes obvious that he not only likes trees and color, but he likes perfectly shaped trees and beautiful, rich color.

The Florida painter describes his work as contemporary landscapes in acrylic impasto style on birch panels, noting that he has a “love affair with color and movement...I want my paintings to evoke participation. I want the viewer to be plunged into the scene by the simple act of viewing.”

Ron Roland is similarly caught up in his surroundings. In the Florida Panhandle he saw Hurricane Ivan first hand. Watching the fury of the storm descend and viewing the aftermath, so that now his landscapes have become a way to show our sometimes conflicted and ambivalent love affair with nature, the prevailing trees and water which the storm did not destroy.

“I paint larger than life treescapes using a bold palette with high contrast. My style uses an altered form of impasto painting. That is, I use a brush and not a palette knife to build up the paint to create texture. He paints wet-on-wet and the board is both the substrate and the palette, as he mixes colors as he paints directly on it.

After a long career in the arts that included being a graphic designer he is now participating in art fairs full time because of the opportunities to show his work to the large numbers of people who attend the shows. 

See more of this exciting work: RonRolandart.com

Well, 'tis the season for applying to shows in 2014. Waiting and wondering if I will get in. I still create images every week and some of them are popular in the waiting months. But I don't see any art fairs for me until late April. That is a four (or more) months stretch with no income from my art. Maybe an occasional sale from my Etsy shop but from the past few years, no sales have been made from January through May.

So, this is the hibernation part of the year. Yes, I will create more pieces for 2014 but none of them will sell until late April or possibly May or June. I am not at a point in my art career to do Florida or Arizona shows. So, unless something changes, I will be lurking on these posts but I probably don't have much to offer. 

For us northerners, do you just sit tight until spring or do you go travelling?

Okay, so maybe I didn't rush to post this but the shows over anyway! I've done this show three previous times and you can see my last comprehensive report at: http://www.artfairinsiders.com/profiles/blogs/2011-tempe-fall-festival-of-the-arts

What was different this time around? After reading my own previous posting not much has changed!

Buying energy: Way below previous years. Friday was mostly lookers for me but not so for the guy next to me. Remember Shields and Yarnell? They had a TV show in the late 70's with many other appearances in popular TV at the time. Long story short, Robert Shields is an artist who does many Arizona shows and he was selling some on Friday. I was as close to zero as I could get without actually being there ($25 sale for the day).

Saturday is typically the best selling day of this show. As expected it turned out to be a decent (not great) selling day. Robert was busy most of the day while I had fits and starts.

Sunday, fah-ged-a-boud-it, no buying energy at all. I could have worn balloons on my head, done a really bad mime act and still done better! Robert is a really nice guy he might have given me a few pointers if I asked!

What else may have effected sales? Well, ASU made it to the PAC 12 championship against Stanford and the game ended up on that weekend! Although there were lots of people on the street on Saturday not many were looking for art to take with them to the bleachers. In addition to that, someone reported that the local news was actually discouraging people from going to downtown Tempe because of the game! That didn't seem to quell the crowd but who knows?...

Weather: I was hoping that we'd at least break into the 60's, not so. All weekend long it stayed in the mid 50's. Not bad if you had a sunny spot but anything on Mill Avenue (runs north/south) gets limited sun as it makes its way across the sky. The weather last year was the exception and in 2011 the weather was pretty much the same as this year.

Most of the artists I spoke with reported sales that were off about 50% for them from previous shows here. I did about the same as last year but well above 2011, which, by-the-way, the weather was just as bad.

Anyone considering this show with a long drive? I'd suggest passing unless you've done it before and it works well for you.

What else was different? Usually this show has had control of a parking lot to the west of the show for artists and they only charged $25 for the weekend. This year it was reported that the City of Tempe took control of the lot and were charging $10 per day which is a little less than the going rate at other lots around the venue. The lot closest to my location was $12 a day.

Quality/Range of art: Seemed to be a little below the level of last fall's show. The range was very wide with consequent quality on either end of that range represented. There seemed to be a lot of stuff in the middle of the range.

Load-In/Out: It has usually gone fairly smoothly and on time. This year there seemed to be some mysterious hold up and the 9 o'clock vehicles didn't start to load in till 9:30 which pushed all the other time slots back quite a bit. Good news was, again for some unexplained reason, there was none of the usual frenetic rush and throng of vehicles coming in to set up at the same time. Things seemed to be calm and well organized and there was a lot of street space during set-up.

Oh, I almost forgot. Saturday night they hosted a wine/beer and h'orderves reception for the artists after the show! Apparently they've done it before but this is the first time they had it when I attended the show. They handed out tickets for redemption for bebidos and you queued for the food which they were pretty restrictive with. The fact that they controlled the handing out of food didn't bother me as I got enough to eat its just that they ended up with a lot left over at the end of the shindig and they had restricted the number of artists that they let in through an email reservation sent out early on. Perhaps they could have let a few more artists in to finish off the treats!