We had a great time at the Crosby Festival of the Arts. The Toledo Botanical Garden was a beautiful setting with huge shade trees. And fantastic live music throughout the festival. Sales were a bit slow but we covered costs; booth fee, RV spot, gas and food. We are getting much better at setting up and tearing down the booth. At the end of a festival we used to be just about the last to clear out. In Columbia there were still a few others left by the time we were done. At Crosby I'd say there was about half of the booths still packing up while we were pulling out.
The up coming Cain Park Arts Festival does not allow sales of prints, only original paintings, so I am busy making a few smaller acrylic paintings. I've been planning on some smaller paintings anyway in order to provide a wider range of price offerings.
Wednesday we moved from Toledo to Sandusky, Ohio. We wanted to see some of Lake Erie and plan on spending a day next week exploring Kelley's Island and South Bass Islands, which has the highly recommended Put-in Bay.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Busy, Busy, Busy!
We have three festivals behind us now: Pecan Street Festival in Austin Texas, ArtFest in Dallas Texas and Art in the Park in Columbia Missouri. Check out my entire schedule of festivals at www.AQOils.com (click on Festival Schedule near the top right.) From now on I plan on adding an entry to this blog at least once after each festival.
We are doing pretty well ... considering the current state of the economy. Meeting a lot of great people and having lots of fun. Art in the Park is our favorite festival thus far. Not only did we have our best sales but it was an extremely well run show, widely publicized and in a beautiful setting. Near the end of the festival a local news team was out interviewing vendors and Debie's was the only interview that made it on the evening news! (along with a couple shots of some of my artwork:) neato!)
We are doing pretty well ... considering the current state of the economy. Meeting a lot of great people and having lots of fun. Art in the Park is our favorite festival thus far. Not only did we have our best sales but it was an extremely well run show, widely publicized and in a beautiful setting. Near the end of the festival a local news team was out interviewing vendors and Debie's was the only interview that made it on the evening news! (along with a couple shots of some of my artwork:) neato!)
and we are off....
Actually this is a March 28, 2009 entry from my old blog:
Debie and I have been busy preparing to finally start our life as nomads traveling from art festival to art festival in our fifth-wheel trailer. Our first festival is here in Austin at Pecan Street Festival May 2-3. After Pecan Street Festival we will be going up to Dallas, then Missouri and on up to Ohio. You can check out my Festival Schedule page to find out where we will be and when we will be there. I have applied to many juried shows across the country throughout the rest of 2009 and am now waiting to find out which will invite my participation. I will be updating the Festival Schedule page as I find out more.
Technically we started our new life on the road during September and October of 2008. But it turned out to be more of a personal art festival boot camp and vacation ... and a fantastic learning experience. The first show was in a very nice outdoor shopping mall in Arkansas. But due to what appeared to be very weak publicity of the event and the dark economic clouds popping up sales were very poor. Festival veterans of 10 to 20 years were saying they had never seen sales so poor. Still we seemed to have done as well as anyone else so we were encouraged and we met a very nice lady, Tina, who has and continues to participate in many festivals, and has even juried some as well as written articles on art festivals for a national magazine. Tina turned me on to Sunshine Artist magazine, gave me a great deal of valuable advice and even spent over half an hour going through a catalogue of shows pointing out the ones in which she thought I would do well. Thank you so very much Tina. So even though the festival wasn't stellar we learned a great deal and had a chance to visit my sister and her husband who live in Alma, Arkansas. Our second show was in Kansas City. The economic storm clouds appeared once again and so too did literal storm clouds. It drizzled all during setup Friday afternoon. And then two hours into the festival Friday evening sirens started blaring and we were all directed to the parking garage; a tornado had been spotted! While in the garage it started pouring down and the festival was over for the day. It drizzled quite a bit Saturday keeping attendance down. Saturday night high winds blew through and wiped out half the booths. We were fortunate enough to be in the half that was spared. Sales were very bad for everyone but it seemed that we did as good or better than most so we were once again encouraged. And we had a very nice week visiting Debie's mother and sisters in Columbia, Missouri. Next was a festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico during the first weekend in October. It was a large and well organized show but the economy was still putting a big damper on sales. From what I hear sales at art festivals have picked up since last October. I think most people were just beginning to hear about how bad the economy was becoming and so most people were in a kind of wait-and-see mode, especially concerning the spending of discretionary income. Once again we seemed to have done comparatively well though. We stayed in New Mexico through the next weekend when my folks joined us and we all went to the Albuquerque Balloon Festival; it was the first time for all of us. The balloon festival is an incredible spectacle, with over 800 hot air balloons launching within a three to four hour time period. Everyone should experience it at least once! We had one more festival scheduled, Artoberfest in Galveston, Texas. But the festival, as well as much of Galveston, was wiped out by hurricane Ike while we were at the festival in Kansas City. I wouldn't say our first foray as participants into the world of art festivals was exactly a resounding a success but we learned a great deal, met a lot of very nice and friendly people, we received many encouraging signs that we might actually be able to make a living on the art festival circuit and we had a lot of fun.
Technically we started our new life on the road during September and October of 2008. But it turned out to be more of a personal art festival boot camp and vacation ... and a fantastic learning experience. The first show was in a very nice outdoor shopping mall in Arkansas. But due to what appeared to be very weak publicity of the event and the dark economic clouds popping up sales were very poor. Festival veterans of 10 to 20 years were saying they had never seen sales so poor. Still we seemed to have done as well as anyone else so we were encouraged and we met a very nice lady, Tina, who has and continues to participate in many festivals, and has even juried some as well as written articles on art festivals for a national magazine. Tina turned me on to Sunshine Artist magazine, gave me a great deal of valuable advice and even spent over half an hour going through a catalogue of shows pointing out the ones in which she thought I would do well. Thank you so very much Tina. So even though the festival wasn't stellar we learned a great deal and had a chance to visit my sister and her husband who live in Alma, Arkansas. Our second show was in Kansas City. The economic storm clouds appeared once again and so too did literal storm clouds. It drizzled all during setup Friday afternoon. And then two hours into the festival Friday evening sirens started blaring and we were all directed to the parking garage; a tornado had been spotted! While in the garage it started pouring down and the festival was over for the day. It drizzled quite a bit Saturday keeping attendance down. Saturday night high winds blew through and wiped out half the booths. We were fortunate enough to be in the half that was spared. Sales were very bad for everyone but it seemed that we did as good or better than most so we were once again encouraged. And we had a very nice week visiting Debie's mother and sisters in Columbia, Missouri. Next was a festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico during the first weekend in October. It was a large and well organized show but the economy was still putting a big damper on sales. From what I hear sales at art festivals have picked up since last October. I think most people were just beginning to hear about how bad the economy was becoming and so most people were in a kind of wait-and-see mode, especially concerning the spending of discretionary income. Once again we seemed to have done comparatively well though. We stayed in New Mexico through the next weekend when my folks joined us and we all went to the Albuquerque Balloon Festival; it was the first time for all of us. The balloon festival is an incredible spectacle, with over 800 hot air balloons launching within a three to four hour time period. Everyone should experience it at least once! We had one more festival scheduled, Artoberfest in Galveston, Texas. But the festival, as well as much of Galveston, was wiped out by hurricane Ike while we were at the festival in Kansas City. I wouldn't say our first foray as participants into the world of art festivals was exactly a resounding a success but we learned a great deal, met a lot of very nice and friendly people, we received many encouraging signs that we might actually be able to make a living on the art festival circuit and we had a lot of fun.
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