I Survived Art Festivals

I survived art fairs. Having three art festivals in a row turned out to be physically strenuous and intense, but I didn't die from it. Now South Florida season is over, snow birds are back to their Northern nests. I am packing up to leave Miami too. Unlike snowbirds I am heading to the west, California. And I plan to come back to South Florida in the next season. I had started doing art fairs/festival in the worst time of economy, but it turned out to be my advantage. Artists who have been there for many years already had set high prices, whereas I am literally nobody, so my low prices spoke during the events. I really don't know how other artists did at those events because I didn't ask all of them, but from the situations around my booth, things were pretty slow everywhere. For me, things were not so slow. I sold 7 at Las Olas, 4 at Surfside, and 5 at Key Biscayne. In this super slow economy and the fact that I am unexperienced in fairs I take this as a huge success. At Key Biscayine Art Festival, it rained occasionally on the first day. My booth space was uneven so I struggled to set up my booth, but things kept falling apart. Two artists in the nearby booths came to rescue me as they saw me "suffering alone." Because of this, by the time the show started I was still hanging my art. What I learned about avid art collectors is that they tend not to care about the presentation part once they are hooked on to a particular artist's work. Such was the case when this lady decided she was going to get one of my paintings. This orange "Sunrise" linescaping painting was just painted a day before the festival, and it even didn't have hanging wire on the back, so it was on the glassy ground leaning against my panel when she saw it I often can't catch up with installing wires on the back of paintings so I do it during art festivals. I reported earlier this year (you'd have to scroll down to see the report) that color group of red is selling like crazy. This may serve as a continuation of my testimony to my "Red Theory 2009." One week earlier I sold one orange painting and one red painting at Surfside Arts Festival. I think this has something to do with the current recession and people subconsciously seeking redness to compensate the gloomy feeling. I could be very wrong, but I have been running out of red/pink/orange products in the past several months. I think Oas Olas and Key Biscayne were both very good shows. People had good eyes and bought what I consider best of my work. And interestingly but not surprisingly, nearly all buyers were "snow birds" from up north. So I will be back in the next season.