There are two kinds of artshows. There are the ones we covet where serious art buyers come to see the high quality of work displayed. They are educated about the types of art displayed and they came to buy. These shows are harder to get into and anymore, harder to find. When you get into one you know that the weekend will be very successful and that you will be surrounded by other artists with interesting work.
Then there are the other shows where the quality of the art displayed can be very mixed and where the crowd came out because it was simply a beautiful day. These days are harder because people came not expecting to buy and we all become scenery rather than the hard-working artists that we are.
I am always amazed at the number of people who don’t understand that we have to apply to shows, pay for the booth space, travel to the location and then set up our spots. A fellow artist even had a woman in her booth tell her “I could make this stuff too if I didn’t have a job”. Somedays are definitely more work than others.
For me the most trying shows are what I call the “dog” shows. These are the shows where there are more dogs than people sometimes. While it is fun to see all the various kinds of dogs, mostly we sit and pray that there are no “accidents” near the booth. Dog lovers out for the day rarely are serious about the art that we have for sale and we have witnessed one too many dog fights to be fans of these shows. We recently even did a show with clearly marked “no dogs allowed” and watched people walking Fido right past the signs. We did see one really interesting breed however so I took his picture…
This is a what?
We still move one to the next stop and this time it will be a new show we have never been to in Avon, CO. We are very excited!
