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Last weekend, I participated in my first outdoor art fair (I have, before, only participated in the inside, small art fair at my church in Madison, WI, First Unitarian Society, called Art in the Wright Place). It was an experience. Before hand, I had purchased a brand new Trimline canopy with mesh walls, French door--the whole shooting match. It arrived a couple of weeks ago with a shipping note indicating altogether it weighed around 200 pounds. My wife and practiced assembling it by watching a video they supplied. We would watch one step, turn off the video, go outside and complete that step. Then we returned for the next step until we had the whole thing up.

Also, before, the fair, I printed many new pictures (I am a photographer--www.photographybyjohnwoods.com). I got them matted, purchased frames and glass, and did that as well. I also purchased some new canvas prints of my work. I also created sets of note cards of my pictures. My work, by the way, is somewhat eclectic, with a lot of pictures from Europe as well as Wisconsin and other places we have traveled to. The night before the fair, which was last Saturday, August 10, 2013, we set up our booth. Though my vehicle for doing is a Prius, I got it all the back of the car, with the backseats down. The venue for the fair is a small town south of Madison on the Sugar River, and there is a park along with river, and that is where the fair took place. It is an attractive and tranquil place. It took us about 2-3 hours to do this as it was our first time and we were trying to figure out everything. We set our prices quite reasonably.

The next morning we arrived early, put up our pictures, organized the booth, and waited for customers, who started arriving a little after 9 AM. Paoli is in the midst of many farms with vast fields of corn. To make a long story short, we did not sell one framed piece nor any of the canvas pictures. We did sell most of our cards ($16 for 8) and we did sell some 11x14 ($30) and 16x20 double-matted prints ($60). At the end of the day, we had sold about $430 worth of stuff. I guess you could say I was disappointed. I thought we could do at least $1,000. However, this is a small fair, and the amount of people who came, while steady throughout the day, was probably around 1,500. In seeking to understand what was going on, we have attributed the small sales to both the number of people attending and the demographic, which I am not sure is taken with nice European prints.

Tomorrow we will participate in the Agora Art Fair in Fitchburg. We will take to heart the lessons we learned last week. We have even more cards. We have more matted but unframed prints. We will also have a good selection of framed works and some very nice canvas prints, including one 30x40 print of a restaurant on a bridge in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, Provence. This fair is much better attended, and is situated in a town with many high-income residents. So I think the demographic will be more favorable to what we have. This fair has been well reviewed here in the past. I am hoping for better results, and I will continue to learn from this experience. I will give a report on my continuing adventures after the dust settles on this one.

Congratulations to Mary Johnston whose candid expose, "Ouch -- The Zero Show" and Valerie Tyler whose empathetic post "Being Respectful of All Buyers" really struck a chord with our members this month. Who knew they were also Olympic quality skaters?

And also congratulations to Kay Cummins who wins a beautiful Red Dot for her profile photo. Kay is a very frequent contributor to the Southwest group and dutiful contributor of art show reviews at ArtShowReviews.com. Thank you, Kay.

This is another Amdur show and while it used to be the 2nd best, after Port Clinton, it didn't seem nearly as good as in previous years.

When you have been to one Amdur show, you have pretty much been to all Amdur shows so I won't spend a lot of time on the show.  It did have fairly solid artists, was laid out in a manner that made it easy to get around and see all the booths.  There is plenty of close by parking and in addition to the usual food booths, the area itself has many restaurants at a lot of price points.  The streets are wide and there is no cramped feeling as you walk around.

Sadly, the watch guys were there.  They have the crummiest booth possible.  they have a gorgeous commercial booth that they probably use at the big commercial shows but they barely have more than a card table and a couple of displays.  the most impressive thing at their booth is the box the watch comes in.  It has an international guarantee card, another card that I can't remember what it is for.  

The best thing about the show was where the stone birds and the candle people were located.  They were sandwiched in between two commercial vendors.  I loved the irony of it although I was possibly the only one enjoying it.  Why they are in a show for artists that make individual pieces when they are both more of a production shop than anything else, I don't understand and guess it is one of those things I am not meant to.  

It is always a pleasure to attend this wonderful show.  There is convenient parking, indoor, a/c bathrooms, reasonably priced food and of course-- really good art.  

When you live in Amdurland, the odds are that you have seen 90% of the artists at one show or another so any time you get to go to a show that will have "new" artists, it makes for a fun day.  This show did not disappoint.  The quality of the show is above average at almost every booth.  It is one of the shows that you understand why the artist got into the show even if you aren't interested in that particular medium.  

My only complaint about the show was what happened to the jewelers.  Everyone is always talking about how there are so many jewelers in a show.  I don't know the exact per centage but in the first row we went down, it was a minimum of every other booth.  One jeweler told me that the show takes a per centage of the number of artists applying in a particular medium, not a per centage of the total booths.  More jewelers applying meant more jewelers in the show.  I was in line to buy a fun necklace and there was a judge in front of me.  I asked her if I could talk to her about something that I thought was a problem with the show and she said she was a judge for those at the show.  I said I realized that but that she had access to The Powers That Be.  I told her about the per centage problem.  Then I told her I liked her necklace.  She said she was a jeweler.  I asked her if she would be happy at the show if the pie was cut up into so many pieces and she agreed with me.  Then she said she would talk to those in charge.

This show seemed to have a lot of buying energy.  Most booths were crowded with people and despite all the jewelry, those booths seemed to have a lot of activity.  I never really understood the whole buying energy thing but  it seemed to be happening here.  I hope the energy that I felt translated into sales.

After we left that show we went to Art in the Park  in Lake Geneva.  I have nothing to say about that show except don't bother, especially if you are a serious artist.  There were a couple of quality artists but for the most part, it wasn't worth looking at.  And, don't even ask what a resort town is like on a wonderful day in August.

This was my first year showing at this show. As I drove through the Columbia River Gorge in 105 deg heat, I had high hopes of selling my most expensive pieces. Alas, that was not the case. Again, all of my sales were small. This is not a high traffic show so it’s hard to make it work on small sales. I had a lot of interest in my work and a lot of be-backs that didn’t come back or came back but didn’t buy. Many of the artists I talked to were either disappointed with sales or said it was just OK and down from last year. This is not to say that artists weren’t selling. Some were and some sold BIG. The art at this show was amazing and I felt truly honored to be among them. Some large and expensive work sold here. Wearables seemed to be selling well or at least had a lot of traffic in their booths. I saw a lot of hat boxes walking around. If I were to do this show again, I would bring large paintings.

Logistics

This show, in its 45th year, ran from Aug 9-11. Fri and sat 10am to 6pm and Sun until 5pm. It is located in the resort town of Ketchum, ID. The Sun Valley resort is a couple of miles away. The town is at about 6000 ft evevation.

Setup

We got a message from the director a few days before the festival informing us that they had to switch set-up times for the early and late set-ups. I was originally scheduled to set up at 8am on Thursday but was switched to 2pm. I had hoped to be setting up in the cool of the morning and have the leisure to take my time and completely set up rather than finishing up on the morning of the first day. But oh well, sometimes you have to go with the flow. It was hot, but I got through it. They set up in sections in 3 hour shifts. Everyone in the section enters and sets up. Most artists set up from their vehicles. You really didn’t have much of a choice since other artists’ vehicles were blocking your exit. So I took my time. Load out was much the same, except you needed to pay the city of Ketchum sales tax to get your load out slip. Most artists at least mostly tore down before bringing their vehicles onto the field. It was all kind of a free for all, but it somehow worked. The nice thing about having the late load in was that I had the early load out.

Where there’s smoke there’s fire

Thursday night thunder storms ignited several fires south of Ketchum. Early Friday afternoon we noticed smoke over the mountains. We watched it grow. The fiber artists were worried about their wares. None of us knew how close it was. I started thinking... if we’re told we have 2 hours to evacuate, what would I take? Every day in the afternoon, the wind would pick up and the smoke cloud would appear. These fires might have dampened the crowd. When I arrived in Ketchum on Wed. and on Thurs. the town was packed with people. It was hard to find parking in town. But from Friday on it seemed less busy. The picture below was taken Friday at closing.

Other stuff

Lodging--It can be expensive here so you need to be creative.

Weather-- hot-ish Friday and Saturday and breezy in the afternoon, cooler on Sunday, smoky all days.

Celebs-- that I know of, Jamie Lee Curtis and Hilary Swank.

Booth fee-- $450 for a single ($900 double), corners are first come and are not extra.

Parties-- Thurs. evening artist party with food and wine, Sat morning awards breakfast.

Food--not a lot of selection but good. Try the huckleberry ice cream!

Other--shoes optional :)

Hi- Any recommendations for pre-Christmas shows that I could still apply to? It seems most are "craft" shows located in high schools. Thanks for any ideas!

Stuck? Uninspired? Afraid? What the heck ... move on and take a chance. This is something I wrestle with daily. How about you?

It's time to replace my EZ Up top - Does anyone have any information where I can purchase a Clear Vinyl Top?

Clear Vinyl makes so much sense - there has to be one out there.

Thanks & keep smiling.

Genmarie

The last three years, I've spent several months and thousands of dollars chasing migrating birds and art festivals across the Northeast shore venues in hope of finding subjects and buyers, respectively, for my avian photography (also called "bird photography", but you can't charge as much if you call it that. ;-) 

This year, thanks to a generous offer from the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor NJ (a prime spring migration spot), I was able to stay on-site for three weeks and let the migrating birds come to me. Then I drove back to Florida for a month to work up the best images before heading north for shows August through September.  Rebranded as "Geoff Coe's Wild Images" instead of "Wild Images Florida", I'm now armed with a strong set of pix to sell to a wider range of Northeast buyers, rather than relying primarily on selling to Florida snowbirds in their summer homes. 

At least, that's the plan.  Two weeks in to the experiment, how's it going? 

Petri Dish #1 was the Ocean City Boardwalk show on August 2-3-4.  Run by the Ocean City Art Association, this show has been a summer staple for 51 years.  And the consensus among the artists and customers I spoke with about the show's history, it's seen better days.  Buy/sell, booths chock-full of manufactured beach trinkets and cheap jewelry compete with a few painters and an unbelievable number of photographers for the attention of passers-by who may--or may not--have had any awareness of the show before they began flip-flopping their way down the boardwalk. 

Make no mistake, this show is a marathon: 7 AM Friday morning setup, followed by show hours of 10-8 Fri. and Sat.  Sunday kicks off at 10 as well, but you could begin breaking down at 4 PM if you wished.  ( I pounced on that deal.) 

It's an inexpensive show to do (under $200), which helps to counterbalance the high hotel costs (I stayed in Vineland, NJ, an easy 45-minute drive away).  The early-Friday-morning setup is difficult--pull up to the base of the boardwalk, dump your trailer contents on the curb, park ($15/day in one of the outdoor lots), then dolly 'til you drop, dodging throngs of bikers, joggers, and early-bird boardwalk strollers as you go.  The show folks advise that you can start the process at 7 AM, but some folks were halfway set up by the time I arrived at 7:10. 

In keeping with the mid-'90s appearance of the show's website, there's no email communication at all--everything is snail mailed, even though the application asks for your email address, and even though I specifically advised on the application that I'd be on the road, so email, please.  As a result, I had no idea where my booth was when I got there. Unfortunately, I had no idea where any show organizers were, either.  So I walked a block along the boardwalk until I got to the foot of the show and called loudly for an organizer.  Some confusion ensued, since--as is usual--there is a craft show run by another group under the nearby portico.  One of their organizers responded, bless her heart, but couldn't help me. 
A couple of minutes later, an apologetic assistant organizer from MY show gave me my booth number--I was a long block away--and eventually I got set up in my space.   It was a half-hour after the official 10 am opening time, but it didn't matter. No heat for my tardiness came from the show organizers.  In fact, I didn't see a show official or volunteer all weekend. 

There were three judges, and I'll give them credit: they worked hard, communicated with each other to discuss the merits of what they saw, and made a point to greet the artists and ask questions.  The prize money wasn't big-time (in the two- and low three-digit range) but the check amounts were in keeping with the low booth fee. 

There was also an artist dinner on Friday night in the boardwalk municipal building, immediately following the 8 PM zip-up.  Most artists had finished eating by 8:25, but inexplicably, the awards ceremony hadn't started at 8:45.  Having arisen at 5 AM, I gave up and left for my drive back to the hotel. 

Was this show worth the aggravation?  Well, maybe.  I had developed a bit of a client base from my participation two years ago (you can read about that show, and the famous parking fiasco, here).  Most of them came by, and a few of them bought. And enough new visitors came by to eke out a reasonable profit--a few hundred more than I made in 2012.  But it was barely enough for 3 days of work. 

This is a "filler show" at best: not one I'd travel a significant distance to do, but at least it put some bucks in the bank after doing only three shows since the end of April. 

Week two (8/10-11), by comparision, was an artist's paradise, at the exceedingly well-run Rehoboth Beach Art League show. Go od to great sales for most artists, and quality off the charts on weekend one of this two-weekend show.  I'll chime in next week with a full report. 

October 5

on Broadway in Historic Marysville, Kansas

10:00am - 5:00pm

Room for 100 exhibiters

Application Deadline:    9/6/2013

ArtoberFestKS is a new event, a celebration of the Arts and German heritage with activities for everyone including polka bands, arts & crafts show/sale, food & drink, kid's activities and lots more. The festival is held in historic downtown Marysville, KS, adjacent to the Koester House Museum and close to other local museums and attractions.

Marysville, KS, has a strong history of supporting the arts and artists.  Guest artists are often invited to exhibit their work at the Lee Dam Center for Fine Art.  The event will be advertised on many local media outlets and is an exciting new event for the area.

We have an early bird registration special for our first artists to apply.

Only $25 for a 12'x12' Booth Space   

For the FIRST 25 Exhibitors 

For more information, please visit our website:  www.artoberfestks.org 

To contact us: artoberfestks@gmail.com

We are happy to answer all your questions.

The whole community is turning out for this new event, sponsored by

*Marshall County Arts Cooperative

*Marysville Chamber Of Commerce

*Koester House Museum

*Marysville Main Street

*Marysville Public Library  

I just wanted to let all the AFI members know that last Saturday, The Cotton South Fine Arts Festival became the first "A" list show in the country to hit 100% of those artists requesting Homestay accommodations through our Artist Homestay Program. This year we're accommodating 40 artists and their spouse/guests in private homes here in Madison as a way to help offset the cost burden of participation... and as a way to engage our community in an effort to develop friendships within the community with those who support the arts. We did it in our first year... and with 2 months still to go till the actual Festival date.

The Cotton South is innovating a number of Programs in the Festival industry... so stay tuned. T

Creative Energies with the Lightdome canopies in Ocala Fl sells these tops also.  lightdomecanopies.com

Waxahachie's Holiday Showcase
Waxahachie, Texas
November 15 - 17
Apply now!

Click here for more info: www.gga1.org/Waxahachie%20Holiday%20Showcase

Any one know who might be making and selling waterproof vinyl canopy tops for pop up style frame now that John Mee canopy CO is out of business? All I can find are the 600D polyester replacement tops that fit. 

This show has been going for more than 30 years. Up until the last few years it was in a parking lot in the middle of this resort town. One of the local galleries complained that the show was hurting sales so the city no longer leases the lot on the fourth of July weekend. Instead, the show is held in the open area of a mall and around a lake. The load-in and load out is not fun. You dolly to almost every location.

Here's the good news - It is a fabulous show - huge crowds and really good sales. While I'm sure that having collectors and working my email list helped, most artists had good sales. The location is beautiful. There is a high end hotel right next to the site. Many second home owners too.

I did one wholesale account but all the rest were retail. It was a $10k show. Hard to leave that kind of income, but I had promised myself that this was the last show. And some very nice orders not included in that number. The promoter is Mark Beling, show is mountainartfestivals.com. You have to go to his website to apply, no Zapp.

It seems a bit odd to post this since this show is the last outdoor show that i will do. I"ve done the circuit for 20 years and it is just not what i want to do any more.  I'm one of the 'older' artists and when it is just too hard to drag the tent out of the SUV and the weights and the cases and bases and walls, it doesn't matter how much I make.

Show is worth doing.

If you're not aware of what the "orphan rights bill" is, it's a proposed law that if the copyright owner of a image isn't easily found, it's free to use. All creative groups are opposed to this law passing.

But here's the thing I'm taking issue with. What the detested orphan rights bill would make legal is already happening illegally. There are companies that are grabbing images from Google Images and using them for commercial use, thinking (or not thinking because they are incapable of rational thought) that what they're doing is just fine.

The prevailing attitude seems to be not getting caught means no foul.

Here's a picture of sneakers that were designed with one of my images.

Here's an article I wrote outing the company that provided the image.
http://bermangraphics.com/blog/the-orphan-rights-bill-our-greatest-fear/

Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100