random thoughts after my first art fair.

Wow, it's hard to believe it's already been a week & a half since my art fair!  I guess it's about time to recap how it went, share my thoughts about it, that sort of thing.

The back of the Suburban, all loaded up, right before we went & set up at the art fair.

Jesse, in the space behind my booth, helping attach the tent weight.

First day shot of my booth, with Joshua sitting in the chair reading a book just outside my booth.

First off, I sold one painting.  A smallish one, making back 1/4 of my booth fee, so overall we ended up losing money.  But.  Artists I'd talked to at a different art fair before mine said not to let the first art fair discourage me, that I'd have to keep at it for a while before I'd really have a good feel for it.  So, I am taking that to heart as I look back on it all. :) 

And I do have the consolation of knowing that the art fair was kind of an experiment on the part of the promoters who put it on.  Our city isn't known for art the way others in the Valley are, and a lot of the other artists who've been doing art fairs for a long time didn't sell much, either.  So, it wasn't just me.

A second day shot, after some rearranging of art & my set-up.

The third day was rather cloudy, with off & on rain.  Pretty slow.

A look down our row on the third day of the art fair.

It was still a good learning experience.  I don't know how many times throughout the weekend I stopped for a moment & took a look at what I was doing...  "This is a JURIED art fair.  Look at all these art booths all around me!  I'm one of the artists this time... I GOT IN!!"  

Wow.  Very surreal, and *quite* a privilege.

Matt asked me after we'd packed it all up if I still wanted to do it, and I said yes.  By "it" he meant the whole art fair life, making more paintings, keeping it up even when it seems like it might not work, giving it a shot at being something where we could actually live off it one day, with both Arizona and Michigan as home bases.  (It would take a long time and a lot of work for that to happen, but that is a long-term dream.)

Two of the booths across from me.

The third day was pretty chilly, so I was thankful I had brought along my jeans. :)

In trying to sum the weekend up, I think perhaps copying my Facebook status update from that first night works best...

Just got home from my first day at my first juried art fair. Learned a lot of things. A south-facing booth is not the nicest for the artist, since you have to look into the sun all day long (but then again, people don't have to squint to look into your booth). Oh, and sunblock is a good idea... I have a really nice red farmers "tan" on my arms. Heard a lot of "I have a granddaughter named Amelia", "nice, beautiful, good, etc. work", "oh, do you have horses?", "oh, the loaves & fishes". And the funniest thing was when a lady turned sideways and my giant horse eye caught her off guard. She actually jumped! Talked to all my artist neighbors, one who gave me good ideas of art fairs in the Valley, one who told me I needed to talk more to people to try & sell my art, and one who I discovered is also an NMU grad. :) A very good first day indeed, and I am wiped out. Head hurts, body aches, super hungry and ready to crash. But I'm good. :)

One of the things artists at the Carefree show had told me two weeks before my art fair was to look past this first art fair and keep applying for other ones.  So I have my eye on one in Tucson in April, perhaps one in Prescott in May, and one in Flagstaff over Labor Day weekend.  Then there are the ones back here in the Valley starting up this fall.  So we shall see what happens. :)