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(2) 2-D Flip bins for sale. Removable wooden storage & display bins on fordable Pro Panel bases. Wooden bins can be re-pained a different color of stained. Bases are Medium Grey color.

Retail $300 each

For Sale Now: 2@ $300 or $175 each

Pick-up in Atlanta

Palm Beach Fine Craft Show • Feb. 14-16, 2020

Deadline to Apply: Oct 15, 2019 - Juried Art Show PALM BEACH FINE CRAFT SHOW • FEBRUARY 14-16, 2020 Now Accepting Applications • Deadline to Apply: Oct 15, 2019 The prestigious Palm Beach Fine Craft Show makes its triumphant return to the Palm Beach County Convention Center February 14-16, 2020 under the ownership of the Palm Beach Show Group. This elegant showcase features over 100 of top contemporary domestic and international craft artists, offering their latest celebrated works in a comfortable, indoor setting. DATES OF SHOW: February 14-16, 2020 LOCATION: Palm Beach County Convention Center 2nd Floor Show Room  650 Okeechobee Boulevard West Palm Beach, FL 33401 APPLICATION DEADLINES AND FEES: Electronic applications: OCT 15, 2019 The non-refundable fee for applying is $35. NOTICE: The application fee is due at the time you fill out the online application and accept the terms and conditions. www.PalmBeachFineCraft.com • 561.822.5440 • info@palmbeachshow.com Copyright © 2019 Palm Beach Show Group, All rights reserved.

This past weekend (9/21 & 22) was spent at the Monte Sano Art show. It takes place in a beautiful state park in Huntsville, AL - home of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and Redstone Arsenal. 

The show is 2 days Saturday and Sunday) 9-5 and 9-4 with set up on Friday 1-6. It's a very easy set up allowing you to drive right up to your booth and park behind it while setting up and the same on break down. The booth spaces can be quite a challenge as it is in the state park but a few good shims and well placed 2x4 squares help out. Most of the 100+ booths are in the shade. Some deep shade as was mine. The weather up on top of the "mountain" runs about 5-8 degrees cooler than in the valley of Huntsville. We had cool morning temps with a nice breeze most of the day.

Saturday typically starts off with a bang but generally dies down around noonish as the football games begin. This is a part of the south steeped in football- Auburn, Tennessee, Alabama, Clemson, Mississippi State, etc. The crowds picked up a little in the afternoon but weren't anything to write home about. I did pretty well for Saturday but I wasn't leaping for joy. In fact, come Sunday morning, I was a bit blue as Sunday's have never been my strong day. Well... I was proven wrong. The day started slow (you know this IS the Bible belt) but after church the crowds came in. For me it was a different crowd than I had seen on Saturday. It seemed to be a bit more professional crowd.The majority of my sales were in the $34-$100 range.

The show is run by Huntsville Arts. They provide water and snacks in the park lodge during the show and a wonderful dinner and drinks on Saturday night. This year we brought our travel trailer and stayed 3 minutes away in the park campground. Great decision!! In past years we have stayed in a very nice Hampton Inn about 15 minutes away for $89 per night. There are wonderful artists and a variety of fine art at the show.

Want to know more?

Click here to download the pdf that includes images of the Artists work.

Hi all, just wanted to introduce ourselves: I am Julia Szabo with FestivalClick.  We offer a fresh solution for applying to Art Festivals and managing those applications. We care about the Art Festival community and really want to make everyone successful. We have a small development team and I am one of the co-founders.

In addition to being an Artist (a Crafter really), I volunteer and attend many Art Festivals here in N. California. ArtFairInsiders has been a great resource while developing our software (I pretty much read most your posts and comments).

Please check out our website www.festivalclick.com and register.  We welcome your feedback and promise that we will always listen and get back to you. My e-mail is julia@festivalclick.com. Hope to meet you online or in person.

Most of us know that artist fees do not entirely support the costs of putting together an art festival, and the bigger the event the more $$ an event needs. Show organizers search for sponsors to help carry the expense and, not surprisingly, there are business firms that are paid to find sponsors for events, Sponsorship Brokers. The good ones have extensive connections, strong skills, and a good work ethic.

But there is a rise in unscrupulous brokers who brokers make big promises, but they don’t secure any sponsorship. They don’t even try. Their business is to make money from the retainers.

They target small players, offer a guarantee, retainer upfront, ridiculous claims, etc. Then disappear.

Learn more at PowerSponsorship.com: How to Spot a Sponsorship Broker Scam (and One Broker You Need to Avoid)...

Besides the sales of our jewelry making equipment, we have many unset precious & semi-precious stones & pearls - Tahitian, Mexican, Tennessee River, Chinese mabes & blisters for sale.  We are in the NW Chicago area.

I always went to upcoming months on calendar to see upcoming applications due highlighted in red, now I see maybe 8 in a month.  Very difficult , impossible in fact.  Larry, can you  help?  or anyone?

how are other people faring with this new format?

Would appreciate any feedback, thanks.

Try as we might between Larry Berman and myself sometimes spammers sneak in. Our apologies for any nuisance you've experienced in the last couple of days from James Pollard. He has left comments on people's pages and sent emails from the Commercial bank of Dubai(UAE). You know what that means. He is gone.

Please let us know if you ever spot suspicious activity on this site. Considering its scope (over 15,000 members) our controls have worked well. Thank you for understanding. 

This happened on September 6-7-8 on the streets of Clayton. This is where the government center buildings are for St. Louis.  It is a three day show—and is very difficult to get into.

I got in this year and previous to that back in 2013.  Besides that, I have only gotten in three other times in 26 years.

This is a biggie, I put it right up there with KC Plaza, Des Moines, Artisphere and Main Street Fort Worth.

Notice I did not include Winter Park in that list.

Also I do not want to drive that far to do Cherry Creek or Sausalito.

People who get into these biggies can routinely do between $6-$20 K in sales.

The quality of the people attending make it that way.

SLAF is surrounded by very rich communities and many come and decorate their homes with exclusively art from this show.

There are about 180 booths which include the previous year winners. They get mucho applications.

That said, it is not easy to jury into.

You are up against the best of the best on the circuit.  There are no slouches here. No buy-sell.

Each booth looks like an art gallery.

The patrons dress to the nines.  They are world-travelled, they look For uniqueness as well as quality.

Back in April I was eating breakfest at the Vinoy Hotel right before the start of the Mainsail Show in St. Petersburg.

I knew they were notifying that morn.

So I opened up my Zapp with trepidation, preparing to get blown off for the sixth year in a row.

But then I got sidelined and went to my emails.

Lo and behold I saw the most precious words you could ever want to see.

”Congrats!”

I was floored and exhuberent at the same time.

So here I was in Clayton.

The Show arranges for artists to stay at the Sheraton Plaza Hotel for a great rate of $99 per.  The hotel is about three blocks away from the show.

It has a great bar and a sucky dining room.

I remember the first time I stayed there in the late nineties, I saw Serena and Venus both strutting their stuff down the hallway.  They were like regal lionesses working their way thru the Savannah.

Now let me tell you about this year’s show.

The weather forecast looked good with fairly mild humidity on the days of the show.

Mother Nature had other plans.

We register at the hotel on Thursday nite and then do setup starting at ten on Friday.

The Show opens at five and runs til ten.  The last hour is a big waste for most.

The Show supplies electricity, you bring your lites and fans.

Friday setup was in horrible heat reaching into the nineties, it took a lot out of me, almost a five hour setup which I usually do in three and one half.

I staggered back to the hotel and got a great shower and two hours of rest.

The booths are laid out on city streets back to back.  They give you about two feet of storage.

Booth sides give everybody room to hang, walk thru or store.  They are generous.

You are on hilly roads so be prepared to shim. It is also very tight getting vehicles in and parked.  Lots of dosey-doing.

Everone is a pro so we all work it out without any acrimony.  We are here to make serious moola.

Well dressed patrons were out early.  Thank God The evening got a little cooler.

I started off with very slow, small sales but by night end I was up to almost $2K.

I did not notice a lot of big things go by.  It was more precious little pieces of paper.

Those with a mailing list do alright.  The patrons want to see the fresh new work.

This is an originals only show which hampers a lot of 2-D artists.  No prints or repros.

It is hard to make and sell an original for under $150 unless you are a photographer, which I am.

That said, I heard a lot of grumbling from my neighbors about it was mostly Lowend sales.

Frankly, That has been the trend for many of us this year.  The Middle Class feels uncertainty about the future and they are holding back on purchases.

My sales are off by 30-40% this year, and I am not alone.

That said, we all had high hopes for big sales on Saturday.

Saturday show hours were 10am-10pm. Long day.

Weather was much better, there was a pleasant coolness in the air.

People slowly drifted in.  

I had a big flurry of sales around eleven and did a quick $2K.

My sales were steady all day but the high end was la king.  I only sold five pieces over $300 and the largest was $500.

It was a long exhausting day but when you have mucho dinero going into your bank account it feels worth it.

I saw some of the best well dressed women in the world at this show.  I complimented them and they complimented me.

I closed up right at 10pm and scooted across to Ruth Chris’s in time to get a great steak and a bottle of Cabernet.

At the hotel bar I stopped in for a nightcap and it was jammed with fellow artists—they mostly seemed to be in a happy mood.  Big shows have a way of making it all seem the sacrifice and hard work has finally paid off.

I slept very well that night and woke up Sunday to the sounds of pouring rain and crashing thunder.

The weatherman had correctly predicted this, he also promised us it would be over by 11am when the show was to open.

He got that one wrong. Gusty winds, some 60 mph, bucketfuls of rain, and several downed artist booths later, the rain finally quit before noon.

People were out buying pronto.

I did another flurry of sales, selling ten different 16x20 framed images in an hour.  Each one, $150 apiece.

Sales were mostly Lowend, under $150, the rest of the day til show close at 5pm.

I made more at this show then the previous five shows I had done and this included Uptown.

Most People were happy but they mainly were getting Lowend sales.

A couple of painters, one was my neighbor, zeroed at the show.  They were pissed.  I cannot blame them.

But a show like Saint Louis gives the artist a unique opportunity to really excell.

I would heartily encourage any beginning artist to apply to this show if you think you got the right stuff.  New and different art always has a chance of getting in.

I am off for two weeks, gonna play a lot of golf.

In  fact today, Sept. 20, I  am playing for the Clearbrook Club Member-Member Championship title.

Mark Hanks and me won it in 2017.  Hope to do it again.

In addition to a Purchase Awards Program that provides an average of $10,000-$12,000 in art sales, Artisphere distributes $15,000 in prize money to eleven award winners each year.

Renowned artist hospitality includes: 

• Convenient set-up and load-out
• Parking, security
• Reduced hotel rates
• Volunteer booth sitters and complimentary meals

We know it's true, don't we? I've just finished reading this article on the website Artsy, Why Some Art Fairs Thrive—and Others Flop. Although it is about the "big" art fair scene, many of the ideas apply to our smaller street art fairs (and indoor events also) that are not big news on the art scene.

What factors in an art fair's being successful? Not surprisingly, location.

I particularly thought this was interesting:

"But a fair’s success depends on more than situating it where none previously existed. Friedman said he researches the potential local market, talking to collectors and gallerists to determine if a given region has the potential to sustain a successful art fair. Next year, he’ll launch the Denver Fine Art Fair. He described Denver as “an untapped market” that has a “strong collector base with young professionals who have discovered art collecting in a fast-growing metropolis.” While Friedman takes a pioneering attitude toward fairs, he said that having too many fairs in a city or region can be counterproductive because “it gets watered down.”

yeah --- Denver, oh no! Of course we all kind of already knew that, didn't we?

Read the rest here and let me know your thoughts: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-art-fairs-thrive-flop

I have been on the road for 10 days doing this show plus St. Louis.

So I will start with a blog about LF. St. Louis later.

This is a long-standing show on the lake north of Chicago.

Very wealthy people live here, and many attend the show which is on Sunday and Labor Day Monday.

It has an early morn setup, no night before.  There are more than 200 artists.  There is a smaller show going on by them at the same time.

Held right downtown right by the commuter railroad tracks, it is a perfect magnet to attract buyers.

And they come.

People are dressed quite fashionably, many are escorting their expensive pets.

Lots of loud barking going on by little perky pups. Everybody is out showing off their expensive pets.

And some actually take the time to look in the booths and buy something.

Not many zombie-walkers here.

I have done this show about seven times, it is always steady but not great.

St. Louis is great, LF is ok.

I had a memorable moment happen to me this year.

It is one of the many reasons why I still love doing the show circuit for more than 47 years.

So, this nicely coiffed young kid waltzed into my booth.

He sported long Curley blond locks.  He was dressed in white linen shorts and wore neat pressed blue buttoned shirt.

He eyed my images carefully, taking about five minutes to give all the walls a good inspection.

Then he spoke to me.

”Are these photographs photo-edited?”

I naturally replied, “Of course, you are not going to get a great photo produced from a raw image. You have to edit.”

He looked a little closer.

”So you do not push the slider bar up to embellish the saturation.”

At this point I was about to ask him if his name was Mr. Epson. (That is the name of one of the best selling inkjet printers in the biz.)

Instead I asked him to pick out his favorite.

And he did.  He liked one of my hand-colored iconic figures.

I said, “It is yours,free.  I like your questions.”

Then the kid did an amazing act.

He walked up to me, photo in hand, and wrapped his arms around my waist.  He gave me a big hug like I was this steely Sequoia tree.  He said, “Thank you.”

He made my day.

The shows to me are not just about selling. If I can inspire the next generation to appreciate good art then I feel I have truly done something good.

Labor Day Monday was a lot slower.  Sales were minemil.

Teardown was very humid and wrenchingly hot.

I took water breaks every twenty minutes.  After open heart surgery I have learned to take my sweet time.

I am probably one of the last of artists who still bungees his metal racks to the roof of his van.

I used to take two racks at a time on my shoulders up the six foot ladder. Repeat fours times and bungee them down.

Folks have been taking a poll on me, wagering when I will fall off the ladder and crack my head.

They can wait, I ain’t falling.

Now, I am smarter.

I stack all the racks against the van.  Then I climb up the ladder and grab a rack, one at a time, and hoist it to the roof. My workouts at the local gym keep me able. Then I tie them down.

My buddy Steve Baldourf says I am an inspiration to others.

Me, I call it a way of life that I have doing since my twenties.  I plan on doing into my eighties.

Next, I will tell you about Saint Louis.

It was killer show, only wish all shows were like it.