Hello. I am new to art fairs and plan to apply to Artisphere sometime next week. Hoping for any advice on my booth and pictures. Couple notes:
- I do not have a lot of work to show at this time unfortunately and my first deadline is Oct 6. I plan to have over 30 pieces in inventory by summer 2018, but I only have 7 at this time.
- I do plan to erase the website from my banners.
Any feed back appreciated.
Thanks!
Scott
Replies
I think the booth is beautiful as are your pieces. But you need more work. At the very least two more pieces at each end of the tables would look better.
I agree with Larry about the placement of your pieces. Right now the heavy wood tables get most of the attention. I like the pictures since they enlarge your work so that people can see something from more of a distance, but with the angles of the side walls, it's hard to see the two farther photos on each side. What about 3 pictures across the back with 2 photos toward the front of the booth on each side wall? Bruce Baker says that the convergence of 2 planes gets the most attention, so he recommends making use of the corners. Could you put 2 of the back pictures at an angle across the corners to try that out? Good luck with this. It can be hard, putting your booth display together.
Thanks Kathleen. I will try several different layouts as you describe and see what looks best. Thanks much for the input! Putting my booth together has been a lot more difficult thank I anticipated... but I am enjoying the process. :)
Scott
I see why you want to present your booth with your floor and tables as it shows that your end result will be a nice classy booth.
But- somehow you will have to resolve the lack of inventory.
Some shows may be concerned that you may run low on stock.
It has happened to me at a show or two and the show directors are not happy with that.
I take the opposite approach and have a rather crowded booth shot, but that is to ensure the show that I am seriously in this and have plenty of work.
Best wishes, let us know what happens!
Depending on price, lack of inventory may or may not be an issue. One time saw a booth at a gem show, consisted of a guy sitting in a chair, and 1 small round table with 1 notebook sized display case on it. Curious , I walked up to have a look, and there was in that display case the most perfect set of calibrated columbian emeralds, deep green, flawless, that I have ever seen. Asking the price ($1.5 million US) I realized that I was out of my league. Went back the next day to have another look, why not, and he wasn't there. Asking the neighbor booth, well, he wasn't there as he had sold it.
Stories aside, putting a booth together is a process. You try your best shot, and over the course of a dozen shows or more, you will figure out which parts work well, and which do not. It will evolve. My present booth looks nothing at all like my first booth, and I am getting ready to trade up to a better canopy.
I agree though, the tables take up too much visual attention. If you don't want to replace them, try throwing a neutral colored table cloth over them, and see how that the tables (visually) subtracts out of the view.
Your work is great, by the way.
Thanks for the the input and stories! :) I'm honestly a little bummed that you all think the tables are too much, but I see your point. took me well over 100 hours to build the table display, specifically for this booth... and as a woodworker, hearing "table cloths" is almost painful to my soul, LOL!!!
I'll certainly play with the the booth arrangement as you recommend. But will have to wait a little... I had the booth set up in the living room the last couple weeks and the wife was getting a little annoyed - so had to take it down. :)
Thanks!
Difficult to tell what your medium is. The banners with identification need to be removed from the booth. And if you don't have enough inventory for a booth picture, you can remove one or two tables and center the other one. But I'd contact the show director before applying to inform about the lack of inventory. Your two individual pictures have an orange color cast which needs to be corrected. And the more square image needs to be cropped where you have too much background on left and right sides.
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
Thanks Larry. I'll work on my photos. Couple questions about your feedback.
"Difficult to tell what your medium is". These are hand carved wood displays. This is something to convey in my Artist Statement, correct?
And should I remove the banners altogether? Or simply remove the identifying text on the banner. I thought removing the banner would make it look even more sparse.
Thanks
Scott
If you remove all the printed words on the banners you can use them. From the angle and the position of the work on the tables, you can't tell what they are. They are too far back to really see what's under the glass. Maybe use one table across the front of the booth with the pieces on it. That will put them much closer to the camera.
Larry Berman
What if you didn't have glass over the pieces in the booth picture?
Larry Berman
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