(Originally posted in February but it accidentally deleted by me. Re-posted to archive the review)
This weekend was the Locals Art Show in Marathon. It is affectionately referred to as Pigeon Poop. For the last nine years it has been the same weekend as the venerable Pigeon Key Art Festival.
Pigeon Key was established as a fundraiser show to help support the preservation and promotion of the historical site on Pigeon Key and to promote the cultural history of the Florida Keys. It is very competitive with about 70 well-recognized national artists juried in each year out of nearly 400 applications.
The local artists in the Keys said “what about us?” and decided to start a “Locals Art Show” that, in the words of the organizers would “share rather than compete for customers with the Pigeon Key Show”. Pigeon Poop was born.
About 60 artists/crafters are “invited” to participate and the jury process is not particularly formal. Most of the artists are, indeed, local to the Keys and southern Florida. An effort is made to get good balance across media.
Staci has done this show for the last four years. It couldn’t be easier. Our boat is docked less than a mile from the venue (the parking lot at the Winn Dixie Shopping Center in Marathon) so this really is a local show for us.
Set-up starts Friday around 2PM. You back the van up to your spot and can set up out of the van rather than having to unload and park.
Heavy tent weights are always necessary in the Keys because it almost always howls in February. Over the past few years, we’ve seen more than one E-Z UP take to the skies.
While the show doesn’t officially start until 10AM Saturday, most booths are open by 9AM. The location is right on US 1 and has great visibility. Tourists on the way to Key West see the tents and slam on the brakes and take a look before heading west.
The quality is, for the most part pretty decent. Carroll Swayze’s unbelievably beautiful paintings and etchings were on display. So too, were stunning acrylics by Terry Peddle Corcoran out of Little Torch Key. There was also hand painted silk scarves and beautiful jewelry (but not too many jewelers), and, of course, some fine fiber art and décor courtesy of Staci.
This is not to suggest there weren’t clunkers – a vender of aprons with tacky even-for the-Keys “slogans”, among a few others. But hey, this wouldn’t be the Keys without them.
This show is more about the ragtag Keys artist (and I’m mean absolutely nothing negative by this) than it is the refined Beaux Arts' crowd (and I’m mean absolutely nothing negative by this). This is the kind of show that would attract a guy like Serge Storms (look him up) but Geri Wegner might also find a thing or two that captures her eye.
It’s about balance and understanding the strange world that is the Florida Keys. Lois Songer gets it with her wonderful Key West shows. There are serious buyers/collectors but there are also Cruise Ship visitors. Pigeon Poop gets it too.
There are some things to dislike – the seemingly larger number of artists who smoke at this show than others we do and who think it’s okay to stand right behind the booth and puff away. The dirt and the dust that swirl through the air in those howling winds makes for a lot of dusting.
But really, what’s not to like about a show that closes at 5PM and where you can be on the back deck of your boat at 5:15 watching the sunset with a glass of delicious white burgundy while eating some Dion’s fried chicken that you picked up from the Citgo gas station on the way home. (You really need to try this chicken to know what I’m talking about.)
Success here, for us, is anything over $1000. Two years ago we did almost $1,500. This show only makes sense if you are, indeed, local or if you capture that lightening-in-the-bottle patron who can make a whole weekend with one large canvas purchase. Don’t come here if you need to make $4-5,000 to make it worth the trip. I think you’ll be disappointed.
This year, the Pigeon pooped on us. We finished the weekend at about $510. Our neighbors complained as well. Everyone we spoke to said that they were down about 50% from previous years. What went wrong?
The evidence here is anecdotal and I’d love for a Pigeon Key artist to chime in to provide that perspective.
As I said at the outset, the Pigeon Poop show has always been the same weekend as Pigeon Key. Pigeon Key is a destination show that draws patrons from the upper Keys and Miami and beyond and from Key West. The quality is uniformly high and attracts the serious buyer.
In talking to customers we always found that the Pigeon Key patrons had the attitude that if they were in Marathon for one show (that costs $8 to get into) why not also go to the one just down the road that is free? Lots of these folks told us they liked the variety at Pigeon Poop better as well. Some complained about too many jewelers at Pigeon Key.
So, not only were we selling to the locals and the drive-by tourist, we were selling to the Pigeon Key crowd.
For nine years, all was well. This year, Pigeon Key pulled a last-minute date change. (So last minute that we heard of one artist who had no idea the dates had changed.) They moved the show to the weekend of the February 23-24 (the same dates as Lois’s Old Island Days in Key West).
Was the old switcheroo designed to prevent the patrons from siphoning off to Poop? That’s the prevailing theory among the Poop artists.
The destination patrons were not in town this weekend. It was the locals and the tourists only and sales suffered.
Some will say this is a manifestation of the too many shows syndrome and if I didn’t know the background of these two shows I would probably agree. However, the nature of Poop, when compared to Key, is such that they shouldn’t threaten each other; they should complement as they did for nine years.
As long as we spend winters based in Marathon, we’ll continue to do the Pigeon Poop show – it’s too easy not to. But our expectations will need to be lowered if Pigeon Key continues to opt for a different weekend.
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