I’m going to have a booth at the Winter Fine Art and Craft Festival at the Evansville Museum on Friday and Saturday, November 17 & 18th! This is a new venue for me and I have high hopes that the right kind of buyers will be attending.
Evansville Museum Winter Fine Art and Craft Festival
- Date: Friday November 17th and Saturday November 18th
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Time: Friday evening from 5 pm until 8 pm and Saturday from 11 am until 5 pm
- Location: Evansville Museum • 411 S.E. Riverside Dr., Evansville, Indiana
- Cost: Free for members and children (monetary donation for entry I believe is asked for non-members)
Shows are always a crap shoot. You never really know who you’re going to be selling with and to who at shows more and more these days. Many shows are increasingly moving away from juried shows, which means the show applicant goes through a selection process.
There are shows popping up all the time that are more of a fundraiser for the show organizers and allowing anyone in who puts up the booth fee -think mass produced products, not handmade. They are basically just renting out spots to anyone with the cash. Often, they are not very well organized and do very little advertising of the show to get the crowds to come.
Sometimes, previously good shows can’t fill up any longer (due to declining sales for artists usually) so they let anyone in that applies to have a fuller looking show. That happens a lot at the bottom tier shows and sometimes at the middle tier shows but hopefully never at a top tier show.
What does this matter? It matters because if it’s portrayed as an art and/or fine crafts show potential buyers that attend these shows go expecting to see fine art and fine crafts, not Pampered Chef, Joe’s Vinyl siding, flea market finds and the like. If these art buyers feel deceived, then they may just leave without walking the show and ultimately leave without buying any art. That makes for a bad show for artists.
Shows get a reputation in the art community. I don’t know of any of my artist friends, myself included, that knowingly attend these type of shows. Shoppers that go for that type of show just aren’t our buyers. Think of this way, you don’t go to Dollar General to buy an engagement ring.
I’ve done my fair share of bad shows. By bad I mean bad for me and my art, not necessarily a badly run show. You learn with each one. I have come to point where I know what kind of shows my buyers attend. Craft shows where you might find someone selling their handmade crochet items, people selling knock purses, and people who make those cool rope bracelets are not where you will find me.
Art shows still bring in a chunk of my yearly income, so I won’t be giving them up anytime soon. I like to think there are enough buyers for all of us who sell our wares.
If you’re local, I hope you find the time to visit me at the Evansville Museum‘s Winter Fine Art and Craft Festival. Holiday shopping is now upon us! I’ll have Christmas ornaments as well as my original paintings, one of a kind block prints, prints of paintings and note cards.
If you’re new to my blog and website have a look at my ‘About’ page in the menu at the top. I’m an artist – a painter mostly and an avid gardener. I paint a variety of subjects including birds, koi fish, my gardens, ponds and flowers as well as anything having to do with nature especially trees and tropical scenes. I try to include a little bit of mystery in every painting. I also enjoy painting abstract paintings. If you’re interested in my art, join my email list which is mailed about once a month that gives you special status for invitations, birthday greeting and more. Sign up here for it.
