Monday, August 22, 2016

28 - Invisible

5x7 acrylic
I do outdoor art shows.  It seems like there are a lot of artists doing them because some of the shows are really competitive and challenging to be accepted.  But when I think about it, I'm sure it's only a small percentage of the artists out there who are actually insane enough to participate in outdoor festivals.  For those of you who don't know what it entails - here's a synopsis of a typical weekend.  Set up on Friday sometime, or early Saturday morning.  This means dragging all of your equipment, tent, artwork, etc. out of your vehicle or trailer, and constructing your tent in a 12x12 space assigned to you.  You sometimes have the thrill of even doing this in the rain.  For me setup takes about 2 hours, but for some it's much longer.  Then you man your booth for the next 2 or 3 or sometimes even more days, waiting for people to come in and hopefully fall in love with one of your pieces of art work.  It's wonderful to meet people and see returning customers, and talk about various things we ironically have in common.  But ultimately, we are there to try to make a living; sometimes it goes as planned; sometimes not.  Sometimes it feels like everyone else is selling, and you are invisible.  The weekend can be hot, cold, raining, and even sometimes storms roll through that either injure or destroy your tent completely.  Then after it's all said and done, you dismantle everything and in many cases, dolly it all out to where you are parked.  In some cases you get to pull right up to your booth location, but this can be tricky with so many people trying to exit at once.  So that's in a nutshell.  Oh - I forgot to mention the booth fees, and travel involved.  I got home at 8:45 last night after a long hot weekend with less than stellar sales.  But like everyone else, I'll regroup, keep on working, and get ready for the next show. 

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