Sept 6 will be a big day. I have the First Saturday Arts Market from 11 to 6, then that evening I am in the group show Fall 2014 Kaleidoscope at Heights Art Studios & Gallery.
The First Saturday Arts Market was the first thing I applied to back in April of this year. I’d wanted to be in the June event but September was the first available open spot for me other than July when I’d be on vacation. Looking back, there is no way I would have had my tent and display ready, much less any reasonable inventory to sell.
That day will be a test of a number of things:
- Do I have everything on my art fair take-along list?
- How well does the outdoor exhibition gallery (aka big tent) set up and tear down?
- Does everything fit into my car?
- How do my encaustics handle the peak summer heat?
- What art pieces interest people, and which don’t?
- What’s the reaction to my pricing?
The preparations for this have been a really fun experience. Not wanting to pay big bucks for professional display panels that wouldn’t fit into my car, I opted to make my own. While I think they look pretty good, I way underestimated the time and effort this activity took. And everything has been a new adventure:
- Researching & designing my own label/price tags
- Settling on standard pricing
- Inventory control
- Planning exhibit arrangement
- Publicity
The experience of getting my tent together also helped me achieve my major goal of making my application for the Bayou City Art Festival next March. The submission deadline was this week and they needed five photos: four of representative artwork, and the fifth being of your booth as you would be displaying it seven months from now. The art photos I had, but for the booth shot I needed to have all the display panels done, and enough inventory on-hand to fill up the walls. I’ll find out in October if I made it or not. But in the meantime I will have gained the outdoor exhibit experience from the Heights art market.