West Linn Arts Festival wrap-up
This weekend was my second and last art fair of the year, the West Linn Arts Festival. I forgot to take any pictures at the event (the first day I and everyone else was zombiefied by the heat, I just plain forgot the second day), so I'll go ahead and give you some eye candy before I continue on...
The first thing that was better about this show was that I actually managed to get there in time for the Friday load-in. That means that I had my tent ready to go, and all the heavy lifiting was done before Saturday morning. That pretty much left just loading in the artwork and hanging it to do on Saturday, which is super important for me because I am not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination. I rarely get up before 10 AM, so if you ever see me at one of these events and I seem a little off, it's because I'm short on sleep and jacked up on a giant coffee drink. One quirk of the site was that we were in a park (on a baseball field, actually), but the artist parking was off-site. It was only a couple of blocks away, but it was also at the top of a hill that formed a 45 degree angle. I mention this because after I had parked and walked down the hill to my booth site, I realized that I had forgotten my little hangers in my truck, and had to re-scale the hill on foot. Sweating profusely and panting like a pervert in the bushes is a bad way to start any show, but I didn't have much of a choice.
The first thing that was better about this show was that I actually managed to get there in time for the Friday load-in. That means that I had my tent ready to go, and all the heavy lifiting was done before Saturday morning. That pretty much left just loading in the artwork and hanging it to do on Saturday, which is super important for me because I am not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination. I rarely get up before 10 AM, so if you ever see me at one of these events and I seem a little off, it's because I'm short on sleep and jacked up on a giant coffee drink. One quirk of the site was that we were in a park (on a baseball field, actually), but the artist parking was off-site. It was only a couple of blocks away, but it was also at the top of a hill that formed a 45 degree angle. I mention this because after I had parked and walked down the hill to my booth site, I realized that I had forgotten my little hangers in my truck, and had to re-scale the hill on foot. Sweating profusely and panting like a pervert in the bushes is a bad way to start any show, but I didn't have much of a choice.
Once the show got started on Saturday, it became apparent that the heat was going to be an issue. I think it got into the mid 90's, which is pretty rough in the Northwest, but it's especially rough when you consider that there were no clouds, no shade, and no breeze. Early in the day, people were able to check out artwork and have decent conversations, but by early afternoon that was out the window. If you were lucky enough to be able to jerry-rig your booth to both provide shade and have it open so that a meager breeze could blow through, people would stop by. Otherwise, stepping into a booth was accompanyed by a 10-15 degree jump, which meant that people didn't spend a lot of time looking around. By mid-afternoon, people were openly admitting that they were leaving and coming back on Sunday. I did manage to make a couple of sales, but it wasn't really shaping up to be a great show.
It was a lot cooler on Sunday, thank goodness. There was definitely more foot traffic, and I was having better conversations with people as well. One of the things that's become apparent over the two shows that I've done is that not a lot of people know what actual printmaking is. The term gets muddied up by giclees and mechanical reproductions quite a bit, but I finally remembered to bring along one of my copper plates to show people where the images come from. The people who know what prints are generally have had some art education, and may have done some printmaking themselves. It's not that the rest of the people are stupid about it, but there's just not much exposure to the process for the general public. Everyone's seen Bob Ross paint before, so that doesn't need a lot of explanation. But there's no one on that level to show the process of printmaking (and explain the difference between prints, posters, mechanical reproductions, giclees, etc.). So if you're a printmaker and getting ready to do some shows, bring examples of the plates and get a concise explanation of what you do memorized. You've got some 'splaining to do. So even though Sunday went much better, I still only made one sale. Fortunately it was the right sale, and made my weekend.
One thing that I've noticed at both West Linn and Silverton is that the level of organization has been outstanding. The idea of having a booth sitter so that you can take a break (and stretch your legs, have a bathroom break, grab a snack) is something that's unheard of in the comics realm, and it's one of the differences between an exhausting, emotionally draining weekend and feeling valued. Even as an unknown artist, the organizers still come around to make sure that you get the chance to have a few moments to yourself. Having an artist hospitality booth and booth sitters may seem like a minor thing, but if you've never had some idiot security guard trying to bully you and force you out of a convention hall when you're trying to get your booth set up, you don't know what unwelcome feels like. Both West Linn and Silverton go out of their way to make sure the exhibitors have a pleasant experience, and I really appreciate that.
One funny thing, I had three separate people say that my stuff reminded them of Aeon Flux. I'll take that as a compliment, and I'm definitely a fan, but I wouldn't have picked that out as an obvious comparison. It beats getting compared to "Family Guy!" Anyhow, I wrapped up the weekend with a big, fat Five Guys burger, and that was the perfect end to the weekend. Today's my chill-out day, I've got some reading to do (and I might go see Transformers tonight - yes, I know it's supposed to be terrible, but I wouldn't mind watching stuff blow up for a whie), and that's about it. Back to work tomorrow...
c.
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