ARE THERE ANY GOOD ART SHOWS LEFT??

This photo is from an art show I exhibited in last Sunday - June 20th, 2010

46th Annual Art Festival - Watertown, WI

Where are all the people you might ask?  That is exactly the question that was going through most of us artists' thoughts who were in this show!  

This is the third art show I've done this season, and I have to say it was the worst attended show I've been in, in a long while!  It makes one wonder how much the show was advertised.

It is a beautiful setting in a park.  The show is held on an island, and this was the 46th year for this show.  I had done this show about 5 years ago, and the attendance was good.   We were truly amazed at the small amount of people who attended it this year.

While sales have been down to almost nothing for the 3 shows I've done so far this season, I couldn't believe the lack of people at this show.  The other shows had people, but nobody was spending any money.  This show had no people hardly and nobody buying.  Very disappointing, and I know a lot of the artists (46 approximately), probably didn't even make the booth fees.  I just barely made the booth fee of $80.00.

 

This is a photo of the bridge you drive over to get to the island.

Notice...no big crowds walking over the bridge to get into the show!  This is how it looked all day long!  What is really disappointing is that it is such a beautiful setting for an art show....artists get to pick their own spots, and spacing isn't limited to the usual 10' x 10' space.  There are a lot of nice trees and even geese and ducks strolling around.

It was obvious a lot of the same artists aren't returning to the show, as when I checked the number of new artists listed in the flyer....over half were new to the show this year!

Here are me and my sister...still smiling after only 4 sales for the whole day!

(I'm on the left and my sister is on the right)

She is not only my sister, but my best friend and buddy! 

A portion of my booth at the show.  My sister is my "display artist"!

She loves to set all the creations out, which is lucky for me because I don't have the patience for it!  I do help her, but she decides where everything looks the best.  We always get a lot of compliments on our booth.

In all honesty, I really wouldn't recommend doing this show unless you want to have a nice relaxing day sitting in the park.

My next show will be one of my very best shows...the FIREFLY ART FAIR in Wauwatosa, WI.  I can hardly wait to see what the results of this show will be.  It has always been a good one through the years, and while the sale dollars have gone down, they are still really good for me.  We shall see......!

ART SHOWS, ART SALES....REVIEW OF MADISON AUDUBON SHOW...FIRST SHOW OF THE SEASON

View of the Community Center Lobby

This Saturday I exhibited in my first art show of the season, at the 33rd Annual Audubon Society Art Fair in Madison, Wisconsin. This was the first year the fair was being held in its new location at the Warner Park Community Center.

I was up at 3:30 a.m. to be sure I had time to get our lunch packed (my sister goes with me to all my shows), and the rest of the things packed in the van. My sister arrived at 5:30 a.m. and off we went! Since this was a new location for the show, we weren't quite sure where it was, but felt confident that we would have no problem finding it as my sister brought along her new GPS system. We programed in our destination address and away we went! Well, all went well until we were just about into Madison, when a bunch of construction barrels threw me off and I went "right" instead of going straight. That was when the GPS really came in handy, ( I especially liked how it talked to us) and it kept "reevaluating" our directions. After a lot of laughing and "reevaluating of directions", we finally arrived at our destination.

Before the show opened.

My booth was on the left side, with the black gridwall

Our booth ended up being in the gym, and the grey plastic they had covered the gym floor with didn't make for a very appealing atmosphere, but we could understand that they didn't want the floor scratched or ruined from all the different booth setups.

There were about 60 indoor booths and about the same amount of outdoor booths.

My sister, Dianne, my display artist!

She is really good at finding just the right spot for each creation!

Jungle Spirit in her display!

Were the sales good.....NO! This is probably the worst show for sales I've had in over 5 years! I just barely broke even with the show fees and gas. YES, the bad economy is truly affecting artist's sales at shows. It was a far cry from shows where I have sold as many as 30 creations. At yesterday's show I only sold a total of 7 pins and two fairies!!

While there are always a few exceptions, the general mood from artists at the show was that sales, if any, were way down!! There was a lot of grumbling going on behind the scenes.

A very talented artist across from us, who designed the most exquisite glass mosaic pieces sold a very expensive piece of art and several lesser priced pieces, but a jewelry artist friend of mine who always has done well at whatever show she was in, said she also just barely made the show fees and expenses.

The picture above doesn't reflect the gorgeous work of this artist. The designs of flower, birds, and more were fantastic. My sister purchased one of her smaller pieces...a beautiful robin scene ($195.00).

If you'd like to see more of the beautiful mosaic art of Laura Harris, pay a visit to her web site below:

MELONHEAD GALLERY

Both Laura and her husband, Jack, were delightful neighbors to have at this show. Both my sister and I enjoyed being able to look at such beautiful art all day! Very inspiring.

These delightful, colorful creations are the designs of Mary L. Hager, a 3-D Mixed media artist. Mary's work is some of the most colorful, whimsical, work you could ever hope to see! I will be doing a "feature" on Mary in the coming weeks, with more photos of her enchanting figures, from seahorses, to flying frogs and more. In the meantime, if you'd like to see more of Mary's art, visit her website below:

MLOUHAGER

While it was a disappointing show for "sales", we still had a fun time talking to people, meeting some of our old customers, and artist friends.

I'm still smiling, and looking forward to seeing what the next show brings! One never knows....it could be a good one!