Here's my booth all zipped up, prior to opening on Sunday...

I'm not going to beat around the bush, Silverton kicked my ass this year.

As a quick sidebar, I know discussing business is kind of a taboo thing for artists - we're all supposed to be above money and all that.  And I can definitely say that when you start to allow commercialism to creep into your creative thoughts, your work suffers.  But for me, there are two sides of the coin.  When I'm working on a piece of artwork, the money side of it doesn't factor in at all.  Either it's a worthwhile idea executed well or it's not, and that's the entire bottom line.  I don't concentrate on anything else (which may be to my detriment, but I've found that my best work always comes when I'm doing something that I want to do, not something that "might sell").  When it comes to exhibiting your work, especially in a situation where you're paying up front for space (and the work has long been completed), money matters.  Having a good show means that an artist can sock away enough for the next year's event, can continue to buy the necessary supplies to continue working, and maybe even continue to climb up the ladder to larger and larger venues, which will ultimately get an artist's work in front of more eyes.  Money isn't the purpose of creating art, but if you want to spend your time creating art, you're going to have to figure out a way to make it profitable.

Now, when an artist has a bad show (strictly financially speaking) like I did this weekend, it's sort of a double loss.  I didn't offset any of the money I spent for the booth, hotel, gas, and in preparation for the event.  Put together, that adds up to a decent amount of money.  I also can't afford to enter another show next year - I took my shot this year and got shut out, which is like getting stuck in quicksand.  I still have one more show this year, and if it's better than last year's show I may manage to cover both events, but I feel like that's unlikely.  Maybe I'm just feeling pessimistic right now, but that's just how I feel.

What was especially frustrating to me this year was that I didn't really feel like there was significantly fewer people the event, people were generally positive about the work that I had done (and in several cases, enthusiastic), I had a very good spot for my booth (right next to the information booth at the entrance of the park), and that I had improved my presentation without raising my prices, but the end result was that instead of feeling good about how things had gone, I left Silverton with barely enough gas money in my pocket to make it home only because I spent the entire weekend scrimping and eating fast food instead of eating real meals.  I can't say enough about how friendly, intelligent, and curious the attendees of the art fair were this year, that really made things go a lot easier, but I just can't figure out if things are really so much worse than this time last year, or if my work has somehow devolved into something a lot less palatable, or just what the problem was.  

I hope that this post doesn't come off badly, it's not my intent to beg for sympathy.  It's a hard time for artists everywhere, but the near-complete 180 from last year's event (again, speaking solely financially - I felt like the rest of the aspects of the event were similar to last year's) has my head spinning.  I'd love to simply write this thing off as a case of the bad economy blues, and perhaps that's really the whole story, but I'd be failing myself if I didn't try to figure out if there's more at play (and in particular, something that I can do differently).  I suppose I'll have a better idea of what's going on after I finish the West Linn show in a few weeks.

So yeah.  I'd love to be more positive about my experience in Silverton this year (like I said before, I enjoyed all the conversations I had with people who attended the show, and I do think it's well-run and quite an achievement for a small town like Silverton), but I think it'd be more accurate to say that it set off a panic in me.  It's a show that seems to trend more towards the crafts end of the spectrum than the fine arts end, and that may be an issue that worked strongly against my favor.  And maybe that's the bigger issue - the economy troubles combined with a show who's "character" doesn't really provide much support for my particular style of work can be tough to overcome.  Finding the right outlet for your work seems to be a never-ending battle, but an important one.

Anyhow, I do appreciate the opportunity and the festival, but it's pretty unlikely I'll return.  I can deal with failure, but I'd feel like a fool if I returned and paid to be at a second show that went as badly.  End novel... now.

c.