Fur In The Paint

Yup I totally gave up on the idea of drawing illustrations for describing the event. Not enough time. (Somehow in my mind I always think there will be.)

And that’s why I have even more gray hair
It was shocking windy on Friday afternoon during setup. Like tents were leaning at 70 degree angles from their weights. Artsplash has patron’s night on Friday, that we are supposed to be open for, for 4 hours. I seriously thought about skipping it. However this is when the judging takes place and also I really didn’t want to tork off any art fair folk (meaning show promoter types) so I compromised by putting up only 5 panels (instead of the usual 9) in the center of my tent with no print shrink bins because they have a tendency to blow away like so many dreams upon the wind. By the time the Patrons gig got started at dusk, the gale had relaxed down to being merely blustery. (Note: photo was taken on Saturday before opening.)

More Surprises
When the judges came around I apologized about the puny display but explained that I wasn’t willing to risk all more work with the wind. They apparently understood because I actually got an award this year. This is the first time in the decade or so that I’ve been doing this event that that has happened here. What’s even more surprising is that several of my friends also got awards. Not that they didn’t deserve them but this event tends to favor the modern, contemporary type artist. Not generally folks like myself.

One such award winning friend is Olga. I had a good time catching up with her since we see each other only 1 or 2 events a year. She and I have lots in common. So much so it makes me think we could be sisters. Well … as much as a chunky brunette from the Midwest could be related to a beautiful blond Ukrainian.

A Few Changes That Artsplash Has Made
The event is still quite excellent artistic wise. The jury is high level and the artwork exceptional.

A positive change was that instead of holding an artist auction the night of the adult’s only patron party they are now holding it pre-Christmas. Also they sprinkled the wine and food location in amongst the artists so as to encourage the patrons to move about.

These are wonderful changes because before the auction and food and wine were held in an adjoining area with a party like atmosphere. We donated art that the patrons bid on at the party and thus they didn’t really feel the need to walk the show. Now in order to get art, they need to shop for it from the artists.

Mind you I still didn’t make anything on Friday but I believe the change to be for the betterment for the artists on the whole.

I must say I do love it when an art fair asks it’s artist’s opinions, listens to what they say and actually implement the changes. Well done Artsplash!

For previous artsplash information The good the bad and the ugly of it, check out this previous Artsplash post.

UPDATED: I completely forgot I said I would write about clowns and something akin to a drug deal. Apologies for the length this post has become.

When I won my award the first sign I had of it was a big clown standing outside my booth shouting to come out and give him a hug. I looked at him like “I don’t think so buddy.” Turns out he was part of their hoopla for award presentation. In previous years they had Laurel & Hardy look-a-likes and one man bands. They do this because it gathers a crowd instead of the traditional judge handing you a ribbon and a pat on the back in secret. There is much shouting and cheering and the clown grabbing random strangers and forcing them to congratulate me. Much like the first date of my youth, the whole experience left me feeling excited and humiliated all at the same time.

“Much like the first date of my youth, the whole experience left me feeling excited and humiliated all at the same time.”

I’ve always hated (okay hate is a strong word) been uncomfortable around clowns. Actually anyone in a full body costume. I never understood why people think they’d be great for kids parties. Frankly there’s little more scary than a clown. I mean really if you were walking down a dark alley and suddenly a clown entered from the other end. Tell me you would turn around promptly.

As to the other topic. Weeeeell … it was funnier in my head like a week ago. What it amounted to was I bought a silk skirt from a vendor but since she didn’t jury skirts in she didn’t have them in her booth. But she did bring a bunch along, we just had to sneak off to her van to do the deal. She kept looking cautiously around apparently expecting some art fair folk to pop out and confront her. But all went swimmingly.

So yeah, waaaaay funnier in my head.

Artsplash is held in Sioux City, Iowa along the river front every Labor Day weekend. The event is held both Saturday and Sunday as well as a Friday night adult only evening. I’m in booth #18 on the river side of the main strip near the entrance. If you’re in the area stop by and say “Hi!” I’ll be back on Monday

For a comprehensive scoop on the event check out last year’s Artsplash post.

Rainbow Rhino UPDATE: I have actually worked on him just a little but not enough to make it worth while posting an image. I am however, taking it along to this event and plan on working on it there. So hopefully I’ll have completed or nearly completely the beastie part by the time I return. Of course, I should be hoping the sales are so fast and furious that I have no time to work on it at all.

Since I mentioned in yesterdays post about this lens I thought today I’d talk about it a little. And to be honest I’m kinda phoning it in.

I am packing to leave for this weekend’s event and the gallery work hasn’t let up lately so I’ve not got a lot of time to devote to making this an outstanding post. You’ll just have to settle for an informative post that points you to an outstanding lens on the subject. So here’s my latest Squidoo lens. It’s about preparing art fair slides and digital images for the art fair jury..

Quality images of your work are the single most important determining factor that gets you in the event. In this day and age you really need to be as professional as you can in order to compete for the limited number of booth spaces available for any particular event. I read somewhere that Cherry Creek had over 2000 applications for 200 booths. (Yeah I know right? How do you think you’d stack up in that kind of competition? Well here’s a few of the basic pointers on how your slides. Refer to the lens for more in depth information as well as a bit about Zapplication and how to maximize your images with it. As with the post the word slide and image are used synonymously.

What constitutes a good quality image.
1. Clarity. No fuzziness or blurry areas. Also no shadows or glare.
2. Color is true to the original. Too light or dark is not acceptable.
3. Image Only. No framing, matting, glazing, or fingers, grass, carpeting. You get the idea.The nice thing about digital files is this is easy to crop out.
4. No Distractions As mentioned #3 the focus should always the artwork. In a like manner the background color should be neutral and muted. Bright White or Very Dark backgrounds should be used cautiously.
5. Image is square. This means the image is not crooked or fading off into the distance on one end.
6.Your best work only. You will be judged on your weakest work guaranteed. Most applications take 3-4 images. If you have 3 outstanding pieces and one so-so piece. It is the so-so piece that will determine your entrance into the event.

The lens also discusses the importance of a good quality booth slide. There was a time when the booth slide was simply meant to be used to show the scale of the work. More and more though the booth image has become a factor in the actual jurying process.

What Makes A Good Booth Slide/Image
* Your slide should contain no banners or obvious things that indicate who the artist is.
* No people in the booth including yourself or customers.
* Just like in your actual booth at the event, no items on the ground (ever.)
* It should not be overcrowded with work.
* A good idea to create a new booth image every year.

So if you are entering art or craft fairs and want to learn a little more on what a jury is looking for be sure to visit my preparing art fair slides and digital images for the art fair jury lens. Also for those of you on facebook can now vote on liking a lens.

EVENT LOCATION: Loring Park, St Paul MN For a complete overview of this event please visit my previous post about Loring Park. Not much has changed except I didn’t see anything resembling craft and they no longer do the free t-shirt thing.

How It Went
Well I have to say all in all it was really bad. I have done Loring Park now for a couple of years and it has yet to be really good, which is a concept I have a hard time wrapping my head around. It has all the characteristics of being an excellent event.

* Great Park setting. (I mean seriously look at that view)
* Located in a huge city.
* High quality art
* Two other events running at the same time where people get bussed between all the art fairs.

But folks just weren’t buying and not just from me. A quick glance at the constant flow of people walking by showed maybe 1 in 50 held a package. So won’t be going back next year unless I try one more time. Like I said I can’t quite wrap my head around why it’s not working.

It was beastly humid on Sunday but oddly enough I tripled my Sunday sales (which sounds like something butg three times not much is still not much) over my Saturday sales, despite Saturday being a much nicer day.

I’m not bummed or anything just slightly confused as to why. I do enough events that a bad one here or there has no real impact on my emotions. I am however looking forward to the next 3 weekends being art fair free. Whoohoo!

This event is held in Loring Park in St. Paul MN. It runs Friday and Saturday and I’m booth number 94. So if you’re in the area stop by and say “Hi.”

This is such a visually stunning setting for an art fair it’s a joy to do. This is my 3rd year doing this event. It runs in conjunction with the Uptown which is in Minneapolis, as well as Powderhorn also in Minneapolis. They do a busing thing where people can ride to all three events.

Hopefully the weather holds. At this point there is chance of rain both days. So I imagine at some point I will indeed get rained on.

See you all on the other side. Though if time allows I’ll post tomorrow as well. I’ve seen some unusual circles in my pasture. Hmmm.

So here’s the skinny on this event.

Positive Attributes
* Located in an affluent lake district.
* Small but a good size for the size of the hosting town (about 75 artists)
* Very well juried. Extremely high quality of work
* They balance the artists and actively court artists of different styles and mediums
* Provide water and donuts for setting up.
* Six awards of $150 each
* In a park with plenty of shade trees and a lovely view of the lake.

Negatives
* Size of venue may not be good for artists who have to travel to attend.
* One day event. Even though I like that about this show (it really couldn’t be extended into a two day event) it means if it storms your completely out of luck.

All in all this is a well run little event. The number of 2D artists is a bit staggering and may actually cut into profits. This however is an extremely rare thing for art fairs to have too many 2D artists and is proof of their desire to keep a balanced show.

Coming Up
Tomorrow I’ll post the progress on my Percheron mares painting. I’ve begun working on my third horse and hope to mostly finish her off today.

I have no title for this painting as of yet. Any ideas?

Yes that’s me on the left working on my Percheron painting.

A Day In The Life Of An Art Fair Artist
5:00 am Wake Up
5:30 am Get on the road. Driving in heavy fog.
7:00 am Arrive at event which opens at 9
9:15 am Booth opens for business
9:16 am - 4:00 pm demonstrate, paint, talk and sell
4:15 - 5:45 pm Pack stuff back into the van (normally takes less time but we had to haul everything out from the center of the park)
6:00 pm after a quick meal we leave town
7:00 pm Arrive in town 45 miles from home and stop to go to a movie.
9:30 pm Drive home
10:15 pm Arrive home and answer emails and messages from the day.
12:15 am Go to bed.

We Got Lucky (Let me count the ways)
1.) So what I thought was to be a sweet spot turned out to be an awkward and cramped spot because whoever was marking booths failed to factor in the fact that the tent could not collapse down into a triangle shape. We had to bump our tent right up to our neighbors because of this we wouldn’t have access to the back of the booth. I figured I’d have to sit near the entrance of the booth (which I hate doing because it often scares of lookers.) We usually like to have access out the back for storage and selling area.

As were staking the tent into place I looked enviously at the empty neighbor spot thinking it was probably a jeweler (because they can usually show up at the last second with a few tables) But a thought occurs and so I go the staff and ask if our neighbor is a jeweler (because secretly I was hoping it was a cancellation) and lucky me it was a cancellation. I then asked if I could set up my other tent since I was planning on demonstrating if I promised “not” to sell in it.

She said “You can do whatever you want with that space. It’s your lucky day.” And so I did an quickly before any other neighbors got idea of staking a claim.. In the end, instead of one cramped spot with no access out the back I got a double wide which looks . . . well twice as impressive with tons of space out back. (Sa-weet!)

2.) The weather was gorgeous. It had stormed overnight a few people had lost their tents (no idea if that’s why my neighbor canceled.) Since we knew it would storm and lately they’d been severe we passed on setting up until morning. The crowds were thick but the buying light. We had a good days sales and I’m happy with my take, but as usual was hoping for like double what we did. I don’t know that I’ve ever said “Okay we made enough money at that event. I don’t think I need to sell another thing.” The Gap between more and enough never closes.

3.) Also I got an award. This event doesn’t have a best in show, first second third kind of thing. They have 6 merit awards of equal assessment. So I got one with a check (I really do love free money. meaning I didn’t have to give something up for it. Well other than my time and sweat.)

So there was my day. And Lorie, you were right. We were blessed.

I’ll do an art fair assessment on the Art Sail event in a day or two.

NOTE: Once again I forgot the camera. But not being able to come back and say sorry no pictures yet again! I used my cell phone. So image quality isn’t the best but at least you get an idea.

I know it’s not Tuesday. The day in which I promised I’d return but . . . well . . . Ah heck it’s the same ‘ol excuse. Too busy to breath.

I have to say the whole experience of doing the event by myself went pretty well. I just arrived earlier and stayed later than most everyone. Despite my plan not to put up both tents, I did so I’d have shade. Since it had been years since I did an event alone I expected to be achy and sore from all the hauling and toting that I had to do All BY MYSELF but no. Other than a couple of bruises and scratches I am remarkably unscathed.

Saturday was hot. Not “pray-to-your-deity-to-release-you-from-this-earthly-realm” kind of hot. But still plenty warm. More than one person was wheeled by on a stretcher. Then that evening came a big cool down and with it the promise of 70mph winds and 1″ hail. Neither of those things happened but we did have scary orangish pea-green skies, very strong winds and a torrential downpour. I managed to get everything secured and get back to my hotel about 15 minutes before the apocalypse happened.

Later the oft mentioned potter friend Connie (as opposed to the oft mentioned paper making friend Connie) and I ran back down to the park to see how everything faired (including my neighbor, a young guy who was camping in his tent overnight.) Everything was still upright (including my neighbor) so we both slept pretty well that night. Ummm . . . meaning me and Connie slept well- in separate hotels. Not me and my neighbor guy. (Yeah okay that was awkward. Clearly not enough caffeine yet today.)

So enough about the weather, onto the really important stuff, the money. The show was good. Really good. Perhaps the best it’s ever been. Almost, but not quite happy dance time.

NOTE: Thanks to Connie, Paula, Belinda and LaRae for checking on me and making sure I had enough potty breaks. Thanks also to my two neighbor guys who sold stuff for me while I dashed away for a potty break that wasn’t gifted from one of my artsy girlfriends helping me out. All of you guys kept me from having to break out the adult diapers this weekend. So thanks for that.

Here’s poor little Budda cat all tuckered out after a hard days packing for this weekend’s art fair. Or should I say a hard day of directing the packing.

I am on my own this weekend. It has been years since I’ve done an event all by myself though at one time it was common for me. Mike is off to massage school. Mind you I have dozens of friends who have offered to assist me at art fairs but the stars were against me this time. As weddings, family vacations and our local celebration has left me adrift in a sea of loneliness. (So do you pity me yet?)

Greater Rolfe Days
This weekend also happens to be Greater Rolfe Days which is my hometown celebration, where there is a school reunion, parade, miscellaneous activities and of course the aforementioned rodeo. (Click on the link to plan your visit and you’ll see a rundown of all the hometown type activities including a greased pig contest and chicken bingo.) What that means is several other people either have relatives in town or are participating in the various activities and thus no one wanted to go sit in the sweltering heat with me. (hard to imagine, I know. sigh)

Brookings Summer Arts Festival
So this weekend I will be in Brookings SD doing the Brookings Summer Art Festival, which is a huge event. I think they have around 300 vendors plus there are many satellite events which all totaled probably doubles the number. So if you’re in the area stop by and say hi. I’m at Booth 189. For the previous art show breakdown on Brooking click here.

See you all on Tuesday.

Okay so I really DID take pictures this time. But unfortunately I appear to have deleted them as soon as I downloaded them. NOTE TO SELF: I really need to learn to not do things (you know like blog, operate heavy machinery that sort of thing) when I am excessively tired. So dang it, no pictures unless by some miracle the hubby is able to retrieve them because he has magic skills. (don’t hold your breath though, hubby is working double time right now between the gallery and making hay. Umm . . . to be clear, that’s not a euphemism. I really do mean he is making hay.)

So the show went well. And by well I mean I made pretty much exactly what I expected to make. I probably/possibly could have made more at Omaha. But as I said Saturday morning it stormed overnight. And while now I feel bad about the “neener-neener” comment because it was an actual storm where tents got trashed not just a rain shower, I also feel so much better about being indoors despite the potentially lower sales.

A Short Story Titled “I Don’t Care.”
When I woke up in the middle of Friday night with the lightening and rain, I rolled over thinking “I don’t care.” sighed ands went to sleep.

When I walked into the building Saturday morning with my booth completely ready to go knowing that the humidity would skyrocket from the rain and the temps were to reach into the mid-90s with heat index around 100. I smiled thinking “I don’t care.”

When I woke up in the middle of Saturday night with the lightening and rain pounding hard against the window, I rolled over thinking “I don’t care.” sighed ands went back to sleep.

Umm . . you get the idea. This was probably the most stress free weekend ever. With the gallery going gang busters I wasn’t even sweating about whether I would have enough sales to make it worth my time. All in all art fair heaven.

The Event Breakdown
The event was held in the varied Industries building at the Fair grounds in Des Moines. They had around 250 artists which is down (by deliberate choice of the promoter) by quite a few from the last time I did this show. It runs in conjunction with the Outdoor Summer Festival that runs downtown which has about the same amount of artists.

Sunday morning a fellow critter artist friend Belinda Riley (click the link to see her wonderful critters. I’ve got a couple in my gallery but nothing of this size.) and I left our husbands to “man” the booth while we went on reconnaissance mission to the downtown event. While the setting is really lovely I can’t say that I think the artwork was anything superior to the indoor event. It was beastly hot when walking about and while they had a good crowd not too many of them were carrying packages.

Artfest MidwestThe Benefits
* Obviously the whole INDOORS air conditioned thing.
* Love being able to just walk out Saturday night and leave booth completely intact.
* Have load in helpers (for a reasonable fee)
* Donuts for Sunday Breakfast
* Works hard to include Iowa artists. The other event touts how many states their artists are from.
* Sue Stookey the promoter works really hard to address artist concerns. A rare thing to be cherished.

Downside
* Still the stigma of this being a lesser talent show

As I’ve said normally I would be in Omaha on this weekend but I heard a rumor that they are moving their event to a different weekend. If that is the case I will definitely be doing this event again.