Ok, friends, here it is.....the first time in my life I have ever packed up on Saturday and left a show. I am sitting in my van typing this trying to calm down.
I arrived here last night to friendly staff and easy set up. This morning started as usual, no issues. The crowds were very light and have remained very light all day. About two hours into the show, the wind started gusting very bad. I knew wind was an issue here and came with plenty of weights. My tent hadn't budged at all, but the wind was so strong that my ProPanel shelves shook to the point of knocking down my art. I got the show director who was very helpful and she brought me a folding table to move my work to. That also didn't work, the wind is so bad here that the art blew off the table too. After 11 broken pieces of art and no sales, I decided to pack up before losing more work to the wind. I will probably spend the rest of this week fixing all of my broken work. The wind is no ones fault, just bad luck I guess.
The staff of this show is friendly and very helpful. The crowd is another story. This is a Wal-mart mentality type of crowd. It is not the right market for my work, ranging in price from $75-600. They weren't interested in buying anything I had. Apparantly, everyone here is a found object artist and were going to go home and make my work out of the old junk in their garages. They saw no value in what I had and weren't shy about it either. I felt this crowd was very low brow and very rude. I had a couple of people laugh when some of my work fell down. I haven't experienced this level of trashiest or rudeness at a show before.
I think these people were expecting a flea market instead of an art fair.
I am sad to say this show is a farce on many levels, but I dont think it is the fault of the staff or the city of Stillwater. They tried their best and were very helpful and kind to me.
I can say that from what I saw and from talking to other artists, if you have cheap art and are willing to tolerate the wind, then you may want to do this show, otherwise avoid it, it isn't worth driving to and the crowd is very unimpressive and rude.
I will be in Franklin, Tennessee next weekend and will review that show as well. Tha ks!
