Mystic Outdoor Art Festival
Mystic, CT, Aug. 13-14
Jury fee $30 (I think), Booth fee $250; about 250 artists.
Put on by the Mystic Chamber of Commerce -https://www.mysticchamber.org/e…/mystic-outdoor-art-festival
This was my seventh year doing the Mystic Art Festival. The show has been good to me in the past, and was good to me again this year, astonishing me and leaving me very grateful.
I'm an painter, with pieces ranging from $100 to $4500. I grew up in the Mystic area, and worked there, and have friends and family there. It was where I began to grow my collector base, as well.
I have always had a very good spot in the show, outside of the main area, on the corner of a side street with no one across from me. I believe this has helped me, too.
Last year, one of the show's organizers was hit by an artist driving in early Saturday morning during set-up. She lived, but was in the hospital for a while, I understand. That accident made police demand that the show change the set-up it's had for its 58 or so years.
Usually, booths line both sides of Main Street, facing the sidewalk, and traffic flows in the middle. ("Flows" is not quite the right word, as there's a drawbridge in the middle of town, and it goes up every five minutes or so, bringing traffic to a complete halt).
This year, they took booths off one side of Main Street west of the bridge, and put all those booths on Holmes Street, on the east side of the bridge. They thinned the booths on the east side of the bridge, as well. I'm sure this caused confusion for artists and fair-goers alike.
Set-up is Saturday morning, and it's never fun. Storage varies. Some booths have tons, some have hardly any. The show seems to always take place on the hottest weekend of the summer, and this year was no exception. It was in the upper 90s both days, with sweltering humidity. Ambulances went out several times for people who had collapsed.
Parking is always difficult. I rented a space from a small deli across from my booth. There are lots throughout town where you can pay to park, but if you're looking to park for free, you might have to look for quite a while.
The show is typically jammed. People come from all over New England to go to this show, and for many, it is the high point of their summer vacation. This year, traffic was way, way down - but mostly what was missing were people who weren't going to buy anything anyways. There were almost no little kids, almost no one with infants in strollers (why do they do that???) and very few people with dogs.
I sold six paintings. Half were small, but the other half were large, including a $2000 cowscape bought by a person who was at her first art show. The artist beside me, who makes beautiful and unusual dioramas with hand-carved birds, also had a good show. A fabulous photographer next to her bombed out, however, barely making his booth fee - and last year, he won a ribbon. A jeweler who is a good friend also had a crappy show.
There's another odd thing about this show, and that is that private businesses rent space in their parking lots to artists and crafters who either didn't get in to the main show, or didn't even try. This adds a strange unevenness to the show, which already has some fairly rocky displays and art. Much of the art and many of the displays in these areas are very good, but some are not so good.
Someone told me this year the artists were mostly painters and photographers. I didn't get away from my booth long enough to know whether this was true. I also heard that a number of booths were vandalized - the sides cut. There are cops all over the place, day and night at
