I’m Baaack!
This is a photo of the Beaux Arts Festival on Saturday. It was taken closer to end of day so the crowd had thinned a bit.
The keen observers among you probably noticed that I have returned a day early. This was not by choice mind you. But we got rained out. We did manage to put in a full day Saturday, but the weather forecast was grim for Sunday. Using my “artfair spidey senses” (as Mike calls them,) I made the executive decision to pack up completely on Saturday night. I had a gut feeling it was gonna get ugly even though as we packed the sun came out and showed lovely blue skies.
By the following morning it was driving rain and windy. We went to the artists breakfast hosted by the Beaux Arts Committee at the Radisson. (Yummy BTW) and briefly glaced at the destruction.
The skeletal remains in this photo are our neighbors across the street from us. The 99 (or viewed upside down in our photo is 66) is where my booth would have sat. It turned out about only 1 in 20 completely packed up on Saturday. Many tents survived just fine. Many were not so lucky. Not all the mangled tents were EZ Ups either. There was a heavy duty craft hut type, half a block up that was half collapsed and blown out into the middle of the street.
It had rained so hard over night that water was coming out of manhole covers. In one area it was like a 1 foot fountain gurgling out of the middle of the road.
SO for those of you thinking about doing artfairs to sell your artwork, take a long hard look. This mode is not for the faint of heart. There are risks to be sure, but for me the rewards outweigh them by far. I plan to blog all about artfairs over the summer. Also I think I will include more general business information and marketing, as well as my usual artsy fartsy stuff. If anyone has anything in particular that you want to hear about, just leave a comment.
It was a 7 hour drive to get back home today. I think it is time for a hot bath, a cold diet coke and a long, long nap.
Tags: artfairs
Welcome back! The bath, coke, and nap sound good to me!
Funny that I should visit your blog tonight, because I wasn’t actually expecting you to post until Tuesday!
One very sunny day we got completly drenched by rain while we were out. I told my husband (and others) “I can smell rain” but it was such a lovely day that no one believed me. 5 minutes later the heavens opened and it POURED! Now my husband jokes about the fact that I can smell rain! It’s a good thing that your husband listened to you!
I have no idea at all about art fairs. I’d never heard of them until I started reading art blogs! I’d like to know how to go about getting prints made as well.
Hi, Mona, Welcome back. Hope you got some rest. Thanks for sharing your story — the seven hour drive seems bad enough. As I get older, I hate driveing. Commuted and hour and half each way to work for over ten years after I got this farm — there was a bus part of the way until the last year or so. I retired early (earlier than probably should have economically) partly because I hated the commute — driving in the dark if it rains becoming very difficult especially — and partly because of family health problems. Did you have some good sales on Saturday? I hope so. I used to love to go to art fairs — but, yes, I can see it is not for the faint of heart. It is great you have your husband to help you. I would love to hear about art fairs and marketing from your perspective. But even more, I would like to hear how you transitioned from vet tech. to art — HOW YOU BELIEVED IN YOURSELF ENOUGH to teach yourself and how you started out.
I corrected my Victory painting for a third time and posted the painting of the apendix barrel horse last week. Need to tweak the appendix barrel horse again and repost. I have been practising with color pencils in the evening. My mom wanted a cat picture and I gave her a CP of one we used to have on Mother’s day. I am off to see old work friends today, but hope to put in studio time the rest of this week. Hope the kitty isn’t resenting you for being gone. Angela
Hi guys, Thanks for the friendly welcome back. No rest yet. (also no new post yet. will try to get something up tonight.) I had planned on working a short day at the gallery yesterday, but the customers kept coming. I had messages on the machine so I actually went in early for an appointment and wound up spending the entire day with customers. This is odd, only in that most years I can go weeks without anyone and lately I get anywhere from 3-15 people a day. I made need to hire someone, but then I would have to move my studio space out of the gallery because I need to be alone when painting. (sigh)
I will definately add making prints and my story to the list of topics.
Angela: I will check out the new horse paintings, (I am always curious) probably later this morning, as I imagine I may well be dragging this evening. I never really thought of it as teaching myself. I just always drew. Perhaps my story will be posted in the very near future.
Undaunted: I think ourdoorsy types notice things like the smell of rain. (That earthy smell) Handy little gift to have.
So no artfairs where your from eh? Seems to me your from the UK but I have a vague memory of New Zealand? Is that correct?
You were right the first time, I’m in the UK! Maybe there are art fairs here and I’ve just never heard of them? I’ll have to ask Anita - she knows everything!
That day I just couldn’t believe that no one else could smell it! You’re right, it must be a gift!