Nervous

Well it’s the day before setup for Naples and I am nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Okay, I know it’s a cliché but I’m a photographer not a writer. This is probably the highest rated show I’ve ever done and I’m hoping for big things. I know the economy is down and sales might be down but I’ll still be a little discouraged if I don’t do well. Plus my knee is hurting me some today. This is the first show I’ve setup since my surgery so I’m hoping I won’t have any trouble with the lifting.

So I’m trying to think calm, positive thoughts. Nervousness is bad at an art show. It makes me say stupid things to judges like at the Winter Park show. I was so excited that I had just sold three framed photographs in quick succession that when the judge entered the booth I blurted out – “all the best stuff is gone”. Arggghhh! Palm to forehead.

Above is one of the new shots that will be at the show.

Wish me luck!

Back to Today - Puttering

It’s one week before the first art show of the season and I’m doing my last minute puttering today. The van has had its oil changed and is gassed up. Pictures have been printed, sorted, and placed in their boxes. Tank the cat has been supervising. The van has been straightened up and organized. It won’t look this neat again until June. The water jugs that I use to weigh down the tent have been filled and put in the van. All I need is pictures and I’m ready to go. It’s going to get crazy in the next few weeks (actually until May) so tonight I’m having a quiet evening at home with my husband.

I did not get into the Northern Virginia Reston show. Maybe next year, but that gives me a few more vacation days to play with so two more applications go out today, Mayfaire by the Lake and San Marco spring. I know I said I’d never do San Marco again but Howard Alan has taken it over and while they may be a bare bones promoter they are organized and professional. It’s worth another try.

Hope to see you in Naples!

Reminiscing 6

And then came Lake Mary – Heathrow Festival of the Arts. This is still my favorite show. Steve greets me with enthusiasm when I show up pathologically early for setup. All of the staff is friendly and helpful. The customers are friendly and the location is beautiful.

A friend comes to help me with setup. This is my first time setting up the tent without Clif and the pieces seem to have multiplied but we manage to get it up after a couple errors. The only potentially serious problem we have is where to find water for the water jugs which hold down my tent. Despite the name there is no lake near the Lake Mary show and the water has been turned off because they don’t want the lawn sprinklers to come on inside people’s tents. My friend comes up with the idea of buying ice from Publix and putting it in the jugs. Thank God when she goes to buy ice she finds that Publix also sells water. I can just see us trying to feed ice cubes into the jugs. There have been some comedies over the years about filling those jugs. My favorite is another friend crouching on a two foot wall by a lake leaning over trying to fill the jugs from the lake water. The next time that same friend helped me set up he suggested heartily that I fill the jugs at home and put them in the van full. I do that every time now and it makes that part of setup a lot less stressful.

By the time I got to Lake Mary , I had done several shows and none of them could really be called successful. But I had learned a lot and made a lot of changes. Lake Mary is where everything seemed to come together for the first time. I even won my first award, an honorable mention for “Sunset at Lake Magarity.” I’ve made small changes since then; added large pieces, changed the booth layout, taken out the table; but Lake Mary is where I moved from wide-eyed beginner to actually being able to give a piece of advice now and then to other artists.

Reminiscing 5

Ironically enough, after all the tent hoopla, my first real art show is inside. It’s the Clearwater Fine Art Festival. It’s really the second year but the first year was cancelled because of Charley, Frances, and Jeanne. In case you didn’t live in Florida in 2004 those are the three hurricanes that hit central Florida in one very strange summer. I spent my birthday that year in a boarded up house with Frances blowing around us but that’s another story.

It was a well done show, put on by another artist but set up was still brutal. Who’d have thought that setup would be bad for an indoor show but I didn’t realize that all of the stuff had to be brought in from the outside in the brutal August heat. I was prepared with all the setup type stuff but I didn’t have a decent hand cart that would carry the propanels. Clif had set me up with a sort of rolling thing that probably would have worked if it had been longer but it was pretty comical on a slant with the propanels going every which way. I ended up having to make one trip per panel (10) plus the hand cart I did have carried very little. It’s amazing how much stuff is needed for a show. I ended up dehydrated, exhausted, and 5 pounds lighter.

At any rate, my display is looking much better. My frames all match. I’ve gotten rid of the WalMart plastic bins. And I’ve already been accepted into Lake Mary – Heathrow. When I get home I order a new hand cart.

Reminiscing 4

The search for a tent is on. I scour ebay with no luck. I finally decide on a Craft Hut mostly because the company is located just 4 hours away from me and I can save shipping costs. By now I have joined the Yahoo group artshow_photo which is a wealth of information. The tent with the options they tell me to get is significantly more expensive than the base model but I remember the words from the artist at Winter Park and get everything I’m told to. I make arrangements to pay for the tent by the end of the year for tax purposes but not pick it up until spring. Little do I know I have bought the last Craft Hut made by Craft Hut. I figure this out come January when the Craft Hut people call me and tell me they are “moving” and they will ship the tent to me free of charge. Soon after that I hear that Craft Hut has sold out to Flourish.

The tent arrives and Clif and I put it up in the driveway. It’s got an amazing number of parts, takes an hour to put up, and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to put it up by myself. But I’m somewhat ready for the next step.

When I first moved to Deltona I saw signs for Springfest. It’s an outdoor two day festival and I set my sights on that for my next show. It’s not a real art show but it is outdoors and I get to put up my new display. I’ve learned a lot from artshow_photo. I’ve got print bins, a new chair, and a card rack.

I’m also about to learn about the awful experience called Saturday morning setup. Clif, a friend of ours, and I arrive at the appointed time – 5AM. It’s dark and there are no lights. The only booth markers are a series of flags with numbers on them and it takes us a ½ hour to find them. No one is in a good mood and I am totally stressed. I’ve since learned that, with help, I can put up a booth in 3 hours, but I still hate Saturday morning setups. Once the booth is up, there is decent weather for about an hour. Then it pours, all day long. I spend pretty much the entire day inside the tent with the sides down. I sold one card. But Sunday was better and I sold two framed pictures to the mayor, some matted photos and cards to friends, and I got a lot of compliments. There’s a lot of joking among art show artists about compliments. No, they don’t pay the bills, but they do feed the soul.

The booth is not quite there yet though. It’s way too busy, my frames don’t match, and it’s still not very professional looking. But it’s enough to get me into the next show, my first real art show.

Reminiscing 3

My next show was the Audubon Space Coast Bird and Wildlife Festival. I actually do pretty well. I’m still having trouble finding my place though. Buckler is out and with Buckler my original idea of doing local home and garden shows. The work I want to do is not the work that does well at that type of show. A bonus from my job has allowed me to buy some walls. The tent is still a problem. My husband has heard of something cheap called an EZ-up and suggests I go visit the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival and talk to the artists there and see what they suggest. I generally like people who tell me the truth and don’t sugarcoat it. The first person I talked to definitely met that criteria – “EZ-up”, he sneered, “EZ-up is easy down. I spent $3800.00 on my tent and walls alone. If you’re going to do it, do it, don’t dabble at it.” I am grateful for those blunt words today. There were some difficult times ahead of me and more than once I think I would have thrown in the towel if I didn’t have so much invested. At the time though, those words were just a tad bit discouraging.

Shortly after that, I found the Bird and Wildlife Festival and I guess God knew I needed some encouragement. I made a modest profit. My display still needed work but it was looking much more professional. The only problem was the festival was only once a year. I had to have a tent and it had to be a real art festival tent.

Reminiscing 2

So my second show was a Buckler show. Buckler does shows all over Florida and they are great, if you’re looking for country crafts. Not so good for photography. For the first time I realized that people were traveling around the country, actually making a living at this. And they were polished and had beautiful displays, mini stores really. And I was lacking a lot of the basics, walls for instance. Note to any aspiring art show people – easels don’t work. I have seen displays with one easel out in front holding an especially eye-catching piece. That works great, but more than one easel, forget it. They take up a lot of room, people trip over them and the table easels are really easy to knock down. The chair is really tacky but check out the tablecloths… My first major display purchase.

I learned things though. I learned that it is not a good idea to have my husband help me with setup. I learned where to get plastic sleeves that fit my mats instead of overlapping. I learned that I needed to find a different van rental place because .75 / mile really adds up. I learned that if I wanted to survive doing Buckler shows I needed to take my photographs and put funny sayings on them. I learned I really like country crafts and I made a modest profit which I promptly spent at the show buying things with cute sayings on them. Four separate groups of friends came to see me at my great debut. In the following week, each of those friends came to me and said “this is not your venue”. I had signed up to do two Buckler shows. After a week of thought, I cancelled the second one.

Back to the drawing board…

Reminiscing 1

Since I’ve made a resolution to write in my blog more often I’ve decided to do a little reminiscing. The above photo is of my first booth ever, complete with plastic tablecloth and WalMart bins. It was at the Deltona Arts and Historical Center grand re-opening and I was so excited and so clueless. I actually did pretty well considering that I was only there for three hours and a lot of that time was taken up with speeches and ribbon cutting stuff. I will always be grateful to Lloyd and Deltona Arts for giving me that start.

Whoops, I’m wrong about that. Many, many years before I did have a couple forays into the art show scene up in Virginia. Now that was comical. Talk about being clueless. The first one wasn’t too bad except for the fact that the show promoter provided pegboard to hang your work and I came with none of the pegboard things that you use to hang things with. I had to scurry around and borrow some. I sold one framed picture for fifteen dollars. I was a little disappointed but I did trade one picture for a nice pencil drawing of an otter by another artist. I still have that picture.

The second one – well it’s no coincidence that I didn’t try to do shows for another 15 years. This was an outdoor show. In those days, no one had the tents we have today. The week before the show I started thinking about how I was going to display my work. Plenty of time right? Since pegboard had worked before I had the brilliant idea of getting two pieces of pegboard and hinging them together so they would stand up. Great concept, if there’s no wind…. I remember leaving my then husband in charge while I went to get something to eat. All the artists were in a big circle and the food vendor was directly across from my setup. I was walking back across with my hot dog. My husband was sitting in a chair reading. The wind started to pick up. The pegboard started to sway. My husband is still reading. I’m yelling his name telling him to pay attention. He doesn’t hear me. I start to run. Too late, the wind picks the display up and crashes it down. Needless to say I sold nothing. The marriage didn’t last either.

I did learn something though. The photographer next to me was selling matted pictures in clear plastic sleeves. He also had a magnificent picture of an eagle sitting on a glacier. He was selling like hotcakes. I resolved I would go to Alaska someday. And I would get some of those clear plastic sleeves.

Updates

Well, as expected, I did not get into Vero Beach. I’m disappointed of course but my schedule for winter and spring is already pretty packed. Also, doing Vero Beach would have meant missing all of Bike Week since I did get into the Leesburg show for March 1-2 , the first weekend of Bike Week. My knee is healing nicely and I expect to be back on the bike by then. I’m still a little nervous about Naples Invitational setup and breakdown but they were nice enough to give me a close in spot so I won’t have to do a lot of walking. I have two weekends left to get ready so I’ve been printing and framing like crazy. I’m surprised at how much new work I have. It’s always hard for me to judge my own work so if you have a favorite you want to see this year, let me know.

I’m behind already. I haven’t done my New Years ritual yet. Each year I write down on slips of paper the character defects I want to be rid of for the coming year and then burn the slips of paper. It’s worked so far. A friend is coming by this weekend and we will do it together.

I use a mailing list generator to send out some postcards before shows. Some interesting numbers – Number of people within 10 miles of Coconut Grove who are married, own their own homes, and make over $200,000 a year – approximately 10,000. Number of those who contribute to conservation causes – 49! There is something seriously wrong with this picture.