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Once again it seems that happiness and disappointment are scattered across the board for both shows. For me, Cincinnati is turning out to be my best show. (I have beaded "over the top" jewelry), having done extremely well both last year and this year. My average sales were 125. but I had several over 500. and one for a 1000. Friday was a good crowd, Saturday a little light and Sunday good after a slow start. The attached Marriott has WONDERFUL beds that I look forward to every year!

Columbus seemed a little off this year in attendance and my sales were definitely lower than previous years but that may be due to my coming in with a too low inventory. I did hear other artists say, though, that their sales were lower this year, too.

Just returned from the Tempe Festival of the Arts on Mill St. Crowds were fantastic, organizers of the show were great, sales were not. Lots of looking and most sales appeared to be in the $30-$50 range around us although we did make several large sales it basically just covered expenses, that is not a good showing!

Next show...Carefree, AZ Fine Art and Wine Festival Jan 14-16. Come by and buy!

Paragon runs events in silver spring maryland in the fall and spring. Does anyone have info on those events or on the producer?

I just visited a great event on Saturday-the Tampa Tourdeclay which featured 6 studios with 20 Florida potters and their guest potters. Fun, food, music, shoptalk and sales were present as I went from each studio visiting with the potters with their unique styles and ways of marketing their work. Had a great time and enjoyed the comraderie. The event is a yearly feature of the Florida Westcoast Ceramic Society. www.tampatourdeclay.com

The Armadillo Bazaar opens this week. This is it's 35th anniversary. It is a legendary venue for arts, crafts, imports, and live music, produced by the much-loved Bruce Willenzik. Is anyone else on this board going to be there?

I have only been doing it 33 years. I could tell you stories! Instead I will post a bunch of pictures of this year's event, once it gets going.

Does anyone have any infoon the Levi Commons Show in August?

An observation or two, a hope or three:

Nels aside (odd duck he is) I have found most photographers to be somewhat reserved, less outgoing than most artists. Perhaps the lack of social grace due in part to inherent shyness, even lack of confidence. I certainly qualify for all the above. After a few years of doing shows, I came out of my shell and stopped looking at the booth down the aisle (and down my nose) as competition and decided to say hey (hey Andy. hey Goob.). I decided not to look at the work, but to look at the person, and what an eye opener this was.

We share so much, the human components to the traveling tent shows much more interesting to me than the work on the walls. I met those the crusty veterans with the twinkle of perspective in their eyes, the young whippersnappers who grabbed hold of the marketing elements and looked big time,the frustrated and bitter black cloud dudes I couldn't get away from fast enough, the young lady living off the grid in her camper ,her soul showing and glowing in everything she did.The guy in the white van whose work DID knock my socks off.

I came away from this year with a few bucks from my efforts, a new found respect for those that have paid the dues and make a living selling their wares off the tent walls. You guys are one of the last home grown entrepreneurs out there, America seems to have outsourced the entire manufacturing base, maybe even the whole damn middle class but in this traveling circus you get out of it what you put into it. Talent, creativity,marketing,communication, networking,schmoozing all make or break the deal for you. Ain't no one telling you where to go, or what to do.

So thanks to those who shared a bit with me, and I hope I managed to do the same.Please remember there are other business people that need your support. Stay away from the mass framers, and get to know the little guy running the frame shop.Maybe give him a chance for a feature piece. Avoid Walmart and Target, hit the bodega and tha Ma and Pa specialty stores (remember where the old downtown is). Starbucks will survive without you, but the woman and her corner coffee shop won't.Oh, and tip the bejeesus out of that waitress that takes care of you all year. And if you're having breakfast at an establishment without waitresses, man you gotta change that up right now.

Keep the spirit of the independent businessperson alive, for the holiday season and the coming year.Peace.

Do read the article. It is full of information about artist's lives, earning a living and gives hope. Then tell us more about your life style choices.

While I am here online HOW DOES EVERYONE FEEL ABOUT THESE EXTENDED DEADLINES FOR ART FESTIVALS////// LET US HEAR IT ALL////

Did the largest $$$ prize show and one of the oldest art festivals have to extend their deadline// 1000 applications weren't enough to choose 200 artists????

ANY COMMENTS OUT THERE???

Hi has anyone done this show? I am looking for some shows to do in FL in Feb and March that I can still get into.

I am a painter and I live in Atlanta. Thanks!

Market Days

December 4 and 5, 2010

Tallahassee, Florida

Market Days is an annual show held at the fairgrounds in Tallahassee, Florida. Artists are set in fourbuildings that line the road in and out of the fairgrounds. Thereare additional booths between the buildings in the median. Theirwebsite (www.marketdays.org)advertises approximately 300 artists with 15,000 people inattendance. However, paperwork delivered to the artists for nextyear noted 20 – 24,000 people in attendance annually. The weatherwas nice both days. A little cool in the morning but in the upper60's in the afternoon.

Most items were hand made by artists exhibiting. Of course there was some buy and sell, and then therewas an imported metal booth that covered approximately 10-12 10*10booth spaces; they did tell folks that they bought the items forresale.

Saturday was crowded by most show's standards. It was approximately 10-12 feet across the isle and manytimes it was impossible to walk across from booth to booth due to thecrowd. While there was plenty of people, they appeared to be goingfor lower end items. The mustard and soup mix ladies next to me hada booming day. Unfortunately, Sunday was dead. Even the niceweather could not bring out the buyers. 80% of my business onSaturday with sporadic sales on Sunday. All of my sales except onewas under $50, and I had one sale that was over that amount.

Fellow artists I spoke with didn't have much good things to say about sales, however, I spoke with severalthat did very well with their Christmas and under $20 items. Thebooth fee was $450 and I did ok. It's an easy show to do and I gotto visit with my friends that drove down from Atlanta for theweekend. Plus I found a nice gift for my lovely wife.

The folks running the show do a great job. They are friendly, constantly checked in to see if Ineeded anything, had coffee and donuts all day. Additionally, I hadfour of the main show staff including the director to spend timetalking with me and thanking me to be there. I just can't say enoughabout them They really make an artist feel special.

This last Saturday was the Winter Market held at the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis Indiana. This was my 5 or 6th Eiteljorg show (I also participate in the Women in Art show in the spring) and overall it was in keeping with past shows.

Load in is not the easiest as you have to park at a curb - traverse a winding ramp to gain access into the museum and then depending upon booth location possibly load onto a very small elevator.

This year, layout was more challenged by the addition of an exhibet devoted to trains that took up much of our prior artist space. Because of this - upstairs space was utilized, booth sizes were greatly diminished and artist numbers were reduced greatly.

We were not thrilled to find ourselves upstairs in a smaller darker location - but our neighbors were friendly - we bring our own lighing just in case and we made it all work.

Being upstairs - we believe our foot traffic was not what the main floor artists had in numbers - but we were still happy to be in the show at all as many past artists were not accepted due to the diminished numbers.

Load in was helped by being able to load in the afternoon prior to the Saturday event (thankful I did that as it was snowing hard and very wet Saturday morning). Load out was slowed because of the bottleneck at the elevator - but still only took us a bit longer than our usual hour strike.

My husband and I paint and do photography. Sales were fairly good - this is always one of our better shows as the crowd tends to be a little more high end. We sold one nice sized painting as well as a couple smaller ones, some photographs and notecard sets as well as a number of smaller miniscape paintings.

I have been noticing a trend lately that people are purchasing more what I would call purposeful art - ceramics and jewelry and perhaps a bit less decorative.

All in all a great way to spend a snowy Saturday. This was our last show of 2010 - next up is the Indiana Artists show at the Indiana State Museum in February. This will be a new one for us - so I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes.

Happy arting all!

-k-

Has anyone heard what happened to this event? I heard nothing but kudos and thought I'd love to give it a whirl. Since I couldn't find an application for anything more current than 2009 I e-mailed the promoter (Venues). No response, site not updated since 2009. I called and left a message, and although it is still a working number, no reply. So, I called the Chamber of Commerce in Ponte Vedra. They've never heard of it, have no information. Now, I'm curious.

Did this once great event simply disappear? Any decent Jacksonville area shows to recommend?