Tag Archives: art

First Art Show of the Season

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Surprisingly successful.

This past weekend was my first art show of the season. It’s at a venue which is usually good for me, but this time, it was surprisingly good. I thought I’d blog a bit about it.

But before I go into a report of this past weekend’s art show, let me begin by explaining how I sell my work. (You know me; there’s always a back story.)

My sales channels

I sell most of the jewelry I make in three different channels:

  • My Art Show Booth
    My art show booth as it appeared this past weekend in Leavenworth. I was fortunate to have an end spot and be open on three sides.

    Art Shows. This accounts for far more than half of my sales, but it’s the hardest work I do. I (normally) pay a free up front for booth space and then, on the day of the show, arrive early with a 10×10 foot tent, tables, table covers, signage, and merchandise displays. I set everything up — it takes roughly 90 minutes — placing my work as artistically and practically as I can. Then I sit in the booth all day — sometimes for as many as five days in a row — to sell what I’ve brought, make more inventory (when possible), and take/make orders for custom items. Then, at the end of the show, I pack everything back up. The benefit: I (normally) get to keep 100% of the selling price for each item.

  • Wholesale and Consignment Sales. This accounts for maybe 15% of my sales and involves a lot less work — but at a cost. My wholesale price is 50% off the retail price; consignment fees are typically 35% to 40%. Even though it costs more, I prefer wholesale sales — once an item is sold, I can pretty much cross it off my inventory and forget about it. (The exception is the trade-in policy I offer for my wholesale clients; if something doesn’t sell in their shop in 6 to 18 months, I allow them to trade it in for another item.) Consignment is a royal pain in the ass. Not only am I letting a consignment shop hold onto my inventory (so I can’t sell it myself), but I need to keep track of all that stuff. And if an item is lost through theft at their shop, I’m pretty much screwed. Or if they go out of business while they have my stock, I have to worry about getting it back. Needless to say, I really don’t do much on consignment. What’s nice about these channels, however, is that they do often lead to a regular stream of sales with monthly income. So there’s that.
  • My Online Store. This accounts for another 10% of my sales. Right now, I’m using Etsy, but I hope to switch to a more professional solution soon. Etsy takes a small cut of each sale — it’s less than 10% (unless the sale is related to a special ad they’ve placed) — so it isn’t the cost that bothers me. It’s being in an online retail space with people selling cheap, imported junk that they’re trying to pass off as their own work. The only thing that keeps me with Etsy is their integrated shipping feature, which not only makes it easy to ship to addresses all over the world, but gives me a discount on USPS postage costs.

The rest of my sales are face-to-face to friends and acquaintances. That’s a tiny percentage of the total.

This Weekend’s Show

This past weekend I was at Leavenworth Art in the Park. This is a weekly art show in the center of town that has been fine-tuned over the past year for COVID. Right now, it’s operating with only 15 artist vendors in widely spaced outdoor booths; when restrictions ease a bit more, I suspect it’ll go back to its previous capacity which was about 20.

Art in the Park
With spacing for COVID, booths are able to be open on all sides.

Leavenworth, Washington, is a small town in the foothills to the Cascade Mountains. It’s a gorgeous location, nestled near mountains that remain snow-capped for much of the year. Its Bavarian Theme is what brings tourists in all summer long. The town also has (or had before COVID) lots of festivals, including a three week long Oktoberfest and big Christmas celebrations. The area has tons of hiking, white water rafting, camping, and other outdoor activities. It’s a nice place to visit, although admittedly a bit too touristy in town for my taste.

Leavenworth, WA
Downtown Leavenworth, WA was completely redone years ago to require Bavarian style architecture. One of the nice things about COVID — there are silver linings if you look for them — is that it got the town to close down the main street to vehicle traffic to make room for outdoor dining.

Elk horns
One of the draws to Leavenworth is entertainment, like this elk horn group. I shot this photo from my booth; it was very close to where the entertainment was.

I started showing/selling my work at Art in the Park in 2019. I attend on a limited basis because my primary work, which is cherry drying with my helicopter, requires me to be close to the helicopter in the Wenatchee area from roughly June 1 to August 15 every summer.

In a way, my limited time there is a good thing. Leavenworth is 50 miles from my home and the days there are long: 9 AM to 6 PM. Add that to my one hour (each way) commute and I’m looking at 11 hours. Spring and early autumn can be cold, summer can be hot. Parking is a pain in the ass. There are long lines at restaurants and, often, for the restrooms.

The reward of being there, however, is great sales. Folks who come to Leavenworth come to be entertained and to spend money. They shop in town and at the Art Show. They eat and drink in countless restaurants and bars. They stay in local hotels. They are in money-spending mode. And because most of them come from the Seattle side of the mountains, they have a bit more disposable income than the local folks I used to sell to at smaller venues in downtown Wenatchee. A pendant priced $59 isn’t a big expenditure for these folks, so I can actually sell and make money on my work.

This weekend was a great example. Although it was the second weekend of the show, it was my first weekend attending. I set up on Friday morning and began selling almost immediately. By 6 PM, I’d sold more than I had in an entire weekend on my last show. I did even better on Saturday and almost as well on Sunday.

Overall, it was the best weekend I’d ever had at any show anywhere.

Pendant
Here’s one of the pendants I made while I was sitting in my booth on Sunday morning. I made a total of six pendants that day.

It was so good that I spent most of Saturday and Sunday making more inventory. My wire work pendants continue to sell well in Leavenworth and I made five custom pendants for customers while I was there. I also made a bracelet and three beaded necklaces. This week I’ll be making a lot of earrings in my shop.

Now although the booth fee at Art at the Park is remarkably low, the non-profit organization that runs it does take a cut of sales: 21%. So I don’t get all of the money I brought in. But 21% is a lot less than the 35% or 40% I’m paying two galleries to show and sell my work. And I sold a lot more this past weekend than I’ve sold in my three year relationship with both galleries combined. So I’m definitely not complaining.

I’m doing two more weekends at Leavenworth this month. Then I’m stuck in Wenatchee for most of the summer. I applied to a show in Wenatchee in June and another show in Chelan in July. (I had to find a booth sitter for the July show in case rain is possible and I need to stay home.) I’m scheduled to go back to Leavenworth in August and September, but I may need to cancel that because of a conflict with another opportunity that I’m not quite ready to discuss here yet.

And if you’re a Leavenworth tourist reading this, I sure hope you’ll stop by Art in the Park while you’re in town. It’s open on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from about 9 AM to 6 PM (or 5 PM on Sundays). I believe it’s also open on Thursdays between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Support local artists and makers!

Reality TV: British Baking vs. Blown Glass

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I compare two contest style reality TV shows.

I don’t watch regular TV. I don’t have cable or satellite, although both are available where I live. Instead, I have a smart TV and subscribe to a handful of services: Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney Plus. (I also watch YouTube on my TV but I haven’t yet sprung for a subscription to get rid of the increasingly annoying ads. I don’t think YouTube should cost more than Netflix.) Because I absolutely abhor commercial breaks while watching TV, I pretty much ignore the extra channels my TV offers for “free.” (My time is worth more than what I’d spend watching those commercials.) I don’t channel surf; once I start a show, I’ll either watch it all the way through or turn off the TV and do something else.

What I watch is pretty much limited to what I find on the services I get. (This means that if you try to start a conversation with me about the latest hit on CBS, you will not succeed.) When I feel like watching TV and I don’t have something specific in mind, I’ll browse to find something new. I’m big on binge watching when I want entertainment, so that occasionally has me trying new multi-episode series to see what resonates with me enough to watch.

I should mention here that, as a rule, I don’t watch reality TV. My personal reality is entertaining enough for me — I don’t need to watch some onscreen reality, manipulated by directors and creative editing to add drama. I’ve never seen Survivor or The Great Race or The Bachelor. I don’t even know the names of other shows that countless Americans waste their time watching — probably because they have time to waste. I prefer spending my free time enhancing my own reality.

Great British Baking Show Promo
The promo photo on Netflix for the Great British Baking Show.

That said, I rather enjoy The Great British Baking Show, which I believe — and you can correct me if I’m wrong — falls into the reality TV genre. It’s kind of fun and very heartwarming (at times) to see the contestants help each other out. There’s very little (if any) friction between the folks vying for the prize of top chef. I watch people struggle (or not) to bake amazing things. They succeed (or fail miserably). The hosts provide just the right amount of comedy while the judges keep things grounded. Along the way, I learn a bit about baking techniques and how people’s backgrounds influence the kinds of foods they make. There’s no fake drama — at least none that I can see. I think that’s what explains why it’s such a hit with many of my friends, although we don’t usually gab about it the way other folks seem to gab about The Bachelor. (For Pete’s sake, even one of the late night TV guys — one of the Jimmys — includes a recap of each Bachelor episode in his monologue. Who cares?)

Blown Away Promo Photo
The promo shot for Blown Away on Netflix.

Recently, while looking for something new to watch, Netflix suggested Blown Away, a contest-style reality TV show featuring glass blowers. This seemed like a good fit for me. I love the look of blown glass and sort of expected the show to enlighten me about glass art techniques, much the way British Baking gives me insight into making custard or layering cakes. I figured I’d give season 1 a try and tuned in for a few episodes.

I was disappointed. Although the show offered many clips of what the glass artists were doing, there was very little in the way of educating viewers about it.

Well, that’s not exactly fair. I remember seeing some onscreen captioning that did explain certain terms and techniques briefly, but all of those seemed to disappear by the middle of the first season’s run of episodes. Other than that, the only time artists or judges explained what was going on was to enhance the drama. “That’s a very risky procedure so-and-so is attempting.” Or “If I don’t do this just right, the whole piece can shatter.” In most cases, these insights were actually the foreshadowing of breaking glass or ruined pieces.

I know that the place must have been full of cameras because of the amount of footage they edited in that set up rivalries between contestants. One contestant leaves the annealer door open too long; cut to another one yelling, “close the door!” Another contestant is yelling at her assistants; cut to the other contestants complaining about the yelling. And don’t even get me started on the way they edited in facial expressions from competitors that were obviously not responses to things that were said in the edited video. In the final episodes, half the scenes consist of one contestant comparing his/her work to the others and saying how much better (or worse) it was or declaring that he/she should win (or should get eliminated).

Four episodes from the end, I already knew who the final face-off would be between: a particularly outspoken and prima donna-ish woman who claimed to be making art that always seemed to be gender related and a no-nonsense man who definitely had superior skills but a similarly unattractive attitude. The editors had been developing the rivalry between them for nearly the entire run of episodes; how could they possibly eliminate either one? I got the feeling the outcome was established long before the show was edited and the scenes they included were edited in to support that outcome. The trouble for me was that I didn’t like either of those last two contestants. And when it came down to the final winner, I preferred the other one to win. (I actually wanted the guy eliminated just before the final round to win; he had the skill and the humility to take his art to the next level with the prize.)

When the series was over — I watched the 10 half-hour episodes over three nights — I was left feeling disappointed. I’d learned next to nothing and felt manipulated. I’d grown to hate the host of the show and the person who won. I felt too much pity for the contestants I thought should have stayed in the running but had obviously been eliminated because they were too much like British Baking contestants and not enough like other reality show contestants who would do anything to win.

I had just started watching the first episode of season 2 — perhaps thinking it would get better? — when I realized that this was probably like most reality competition shows. Fake. Contrived drama. Judging designed to maintain the rivalry between competitors. Little, if anything, to be learned. Why would I waste my time with more of this?

I turned it off.

I spent some time thinking about how this show stacked up against a reality competition that I actually liked: The Great British Baking Show. I wanted to understand why I liked one show and disliked the other. This blog post is the result of those thoughts.

What do you think? Have you seen either show? Can you recommend something you think I might like?

Phoenix Festival of the Arts

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I participate in an art show in Phoenix.

I was set up as a jewelry vendor this past Friday through Sunday at the Phoenix Festival of the Arts in Phoenix’s Hance Park.

Hance Park is also known as “the deck park” because it’s the park that sits atop a tunnel where I-10 runs under Phoenix. (It’s a park on the top deck of the tunnel.) It’s a bit of a pain to set up and tear down because they limit the number of vehicles on the deck and if someone selfishly sets up while unloading — rather than unloading, moving a vehicle out of the park, and then setting up — there’s a long wait to set up. Parking outside the park was supposed to be a problem, but I didn’t have any problem at all. I always arrived early enough to get a good spot on the street less than a block away. For tear down, however, I couldn’t get my truck into the park timely so I wound up parking in the nearby library lot and taking my gear through a gap in the fence that someone had opened. It saved me a lot of time, but I had to carry each of my 40-pound tent leg weights separately. I felt it in the morning.

The event included at least 80 vendors, most of which were selling handmade goods. There were a lot of potters and jewelers, some woodworkers and metalworkers, a handful of photographers, and some painters. The rest were making a variety of other handmade items, some of which were impressive pieces of art while others fell into the category of granny crafts. There were also more than a few vendors who shouldn’t have been there at all — folks selling obviously buy/sell merchandise they didn’t made like salt scrubs and salsa and garlic grating dishes. It was a typical mix for an event that was apparently setting a low bar for vendors and lucked out by getting some good ones. I’d say that my work was neither the best nor the worst, which is a spot I don’t mind filling.

Because the booths were set up in quads, we were all able to have our booths open on two sides. Technically, I could have been open on three sides because I was in the last row, which just had paired booths. But I went with two sides and had a nice walk-through booth. I put my pendants on the back table, logically with the cases of stones that I use to make pendants. I had earrings in three places, including the back of my large hinged display on an island in the open corner of the booth.

First booth setup
My initial booth setup on the first day of the show.

Oddly, the only thing I sold that day were earrings — six pairs. No pendants, no bracelets, no rings, no stones. I suspected it was because of the booth layout so on Saturday morning, I reorganized to move the pendants closer to the front of the booth and reorganize the earrings to both sides of the hinged display.

Booth 2
My booth setup for the second and third day of the show.

I’d put up my shade extension on Saturday morning but quickly realized that it was causing people to walk around the front of my booth instead of coming in. So I pulled it down. People came in. (Go figure.) From that point on, I did relatively well, selling a mix of pendants, earrings, and rings.

I was satisfied with sales at the event, but not thrilled. All my costs were covered and I made a little profit, but I’m not convinced that my time wouldn’t have been been better spent at camp, making more jewelry in my mobile shop. As it was, I sold out on all of my most popular earring styles; I’ll definitely need to make a lot more for my next show in January.

I’d been accepted to two shows that weekend but had chosen this one because it was a three-day event instead of a two-day event. I think it was also a little cheaper. Next year, I might try the other show, which I think was in Tempe, AZ.

As an event for people wanting something to do on a December weekend in Phoenix, I recommend it. With art vendors, mural painting, live music, and food trucks, it was a great way for people — including families — to spend an afternoon.