Risky Business

I'd like to dedicate this entry to a few of the risks involved in my work.

I recently got my work back from a public showing at the Civic Center. These peices were hanging up on the main wall for about a month and many of the pieces do not have a barrier between the art and the rest of the world. I do this for asthetic reasons as I dislike the glare and the look of glass/plexiglass. This comes with a few issues.

First off things can get on your work so you want to make sure you've used some sort of sealant on it. And if you collage things you might want to make sure that the glue you use is really really good, or use a decoupage finish on it.

This coming from me because I discovered the other day that a few of the fabric pieces collaged onto Fire and Ice were missing. Yes, MISSING. You could hardly notice it, in fact I walked by this thing for weeks before I noticed it. These pieces would have had to be worked at by a determined person, and did so in public. I was able to repair it and you wouldn't know the difference unless I pointed it out and even then it looks perfect.

From Notes from an Artist

The main issue here is that don't expect people to respect your work when out in the public arena. And don't be surprised if something like that happens if you don't take every precaution ever (insurance might be a good investment in cases like this). I honestly expected much worse than that actually. I figured people would go for the one that has pressed flowers on it, but it's in perfect condition. In fact Fire and Ice was the only casualty.



So now I'm out in another public venue, but I'm standing there with the art so the most I've got to worry about is someone pocketing something small. I might have to worry about the weather a bit but overall the potential for damage to my work by people is low. There is of course the issue of wind blowing someone's tent over into mine and wrecking things, but hopefully people are smart enough to weight those down.


Another issue is that "The UN's World Health Organization has raised the alert over swine flu to level five - one short of a full-blown global epidemic, or pandemic." - BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8025931.stm

I'm in public, in a potentially very crowded area. What to do? Do I hope for the best and stick it out? Do I cancel and not go and hope I avoid getting sick? Would they cancel the Market entirely if this flu gets way out of control? I sure hope so. And I am going to keep continuing to go because there's no point hiding away in your home hoping to live without actually living your life. Seriously, what is the point of that? When people start to not live through this thing (which they are living through just fine in countries that aren't Mexico) and everyone in town is sick, then I would probably stay home and duct tape all the windows and doors shut. ;) But what I am going to do is have hand sanitizers for my personal use and one for everyone else to use if they so please. Short of wearing a mask (with dubious effect) thats pretty much all I can do.

New Prints Available!

I've got a few new reproduction prints available for this Saturday (and for ordering if you'd like one or two, let me know). I've got them in a couple sizes ranging from 3.5 x 2.5 up to 12 x 18. The Stargazer Series individuals are currently only available in the 3.5 x 2.5 sizes. Look for bigger sizes in the following weeks, perhaps *next* week in fact. :)

Sojourn - From Notes from an Artist

Breadth of Vision - From Notes from an Artist

West Highland Way - From Notes from an Artist

Stargazer - From Notes from an Artist

The Farmer's Market

It is the day after the Farmer's Market and I'm still recovering from the exhaustion from it all.

Getting ready for it was extremely tedious and stressful. Most things worked out perfectly and the only hang up I had was the day before when the printers were late with the printing of a few things (labels, biography, and business cards) and trying to get everything packed up. I ended up finally going to bed a little before 1am that night.

Before I give you the skinny on how Saturday went I want to show you a photo of the pile of prints I had to work on for so long. These required me to crop them, UV protect them, spray-glue their backs, mount them on mat board, cut the mat board, sign each one, write their limited edition number on the back, paste their respective information labels on the back, put them in bags, put a business card in each bag, tape the bags closed, and then finally putting price labels on them. This was for over 100 prints, excluding the art cards which total 80. Those were a tiny bit less complicated.

From Notes from an Artist

O.O


Packing everything up was a bit of a nightmare also. We first tried to put everything into the Honda. I really should have taken pictures of this. Let me just say that if we had gotten in a wreck the three grid-walls would have either gone right through the windshield or the back of our heads. Now that you've got that wonderful visual in your head I'd like to say we opted for the pickup. That went much smoother and we used our bungie-netting to kept it all in place. Covered all the important things in plastic bags for protection from the elements and put my originals in the cab behind the seat.

I then went to bed and tried to relax but proceeded to wake up every two hours until 6am when we got up. You see, the vendors have to get there before 8:15am otherwise they have to fend for themselves with parking and have the carry all of their stuff to where you setup. That didn't really help us in this manner because my booth ended up in the main circle of the grove part and they don't let you drive on that. Well we headed off finally and got there a little after 8am. I had gotten an email a week before saying that I should 'check in' at a certain place, so we went there but these people blend in so well to everyone else there's no way you can find anyone to help you unless they notice you look lost.

So I walked around and tried to find my vendor space (our names are chalked on the road/bricks). I could not find it. Short of completely panicking someone finally came to my rescue and showed me my spot which was pretty much the only place I didn't look. Isn't that always how it is? I can't find something and as soon as I say it allowed I turn around and it's sitting right there in front of me.

We finally were able to set up but we couldn't park the truck anywhere near our spot. Most of our things really weren't that heavy except for the concrete blocks (to hold the tent down in case of a tornado).

From Notes from an Artist

Before

From Notes from an Artist

After


So I've got these fancy grid-walls and grid-baskets that are absolutely fantastic. They hold my prints perfectly.

From Notes from an Artist

From Notes from an Artist

From Notes from an Artist

I moved one of the grids. The one that holds all of the different sizes to the front of the booth so that people walking by can browse easier. I brought along three originals (I need to bring more next time) and the one I put on the front of the booth stopped people in their tracks. Pretty fantastic.

The vendors can sell as soon as the bell is rung at 9:30am (clang clang clang) - no sooner. You have to stop selling as soon as it is rang again at 1:30pm (clang clang clang) - and no later.

So weighing down your tent is a must as we found out that day. It was *not* a windy day, nor was there a breeze. But every once in a while there would be a very slight-tiny gust of a breeze and a few of the tents not weighted down tried to jump around. You can imagine these things just flying away in a second. One of the tents ooching around was a booth filled with pottery. I'm not even sure they noticed (we were eyeballing this thing as it was a couple booths away from mine) and if that took off it would probably take out half of their stuff if not more. We used heavy concrete block for ours, some people had more fancy things, but most did not at all.

We are going to be playing with the layout/structure of the tent and my art and prints to make it look spiffier in coming weeks. I will also be adding a bunch of new prints for this next week and a couple for the week after that.

I got a really good response, most people who came in were in awe by my work and loved it. It was nice. And on top on that I *sold* stuff.

Farmer's Market Prep. Buying stuff and prints... and more stuff.

So I bought a bunch of grid-wall baskets and some display things yesterday and all of the little tiny details, like a calculator that matches the purple color in my business card flower. The baskets (and the grid walls also) I bought from a local used fixture store. Idaho Fixtures actually, they double as a 'farm store' where they sell inexpensive clothing.

I also spent the last day and a half cropping, spraying, and mounting all of my almost 100+ reproduction prints on mat board. I haven't put them in their bags yet because I need a few more things for them. Like more business cards and some info about the piece (that will be glued on the back of each piece). I'm also getting my artist bio printed so people can get some info on me. And that is good news for those potential stalkers, well, not really. ;)


-_-


But the hard and boring part is done. Now I just have to get a few more things printed and fixed I should be all set.

One of my design clients has made a color-bowl for me to help with the display and I plan on using my fake plants to help make things pretty also. The same fake plants I used in my BFA show. Oh, and for those who have no idea what a color bowl is it is a large pot that has colorful flowers planted in it. Usually they are sitting outside of people's homes. So that is really nice of her. Her business is called Artistic Elements (I did their designs) btw and they do all sorts of gardening things for people.

1 more day before the market starts... Hopefully I won't be too tired to enjoy it.

Farmer's Market Prep. 3 - Art Reproductions

Yesterday I ordered my inventory for the market. These would be print reproductions of my art work that I've had scanned.

I've opted to use an online printing company that specializes in printing for photographers and artists. I use http://iprintfromhome.com/. What you do is you create an online account with them, upload your digital images, and place an order for the size and material you want to image to be printed at and on. They give you cropping options, and they even have a version of their online ordering software that lets you edit your images before placing an order. It's pretty fantastic. There are no minimum orders and they guarantee their work 100% even if they didn't cause the problem.

Shipping prices don't seem to go up when you place a large order either like a lot of websites do regardless of how heavy the items are. You know what I'm talking about. You go to some random online store and buy a pair of sunglasses for $20 only to find out that they base their shipping on how much you spend and end up paying about $30 + for those sunglasses because they are just over the cut-off price for the cheap shipping and now you get to pay more for an item that weighs nothing! Not that that has happened to me, that's just a hypothetical based on my observations of shipping costs on websites.

So I've ordered about 110 prints and 80 small art cards. Art cards are basically the baseball card collectibles of the art world. They are the same size as your typical Baseball card, or for you nerds out there, like your Magic cards. I will have about 11 larger prints of each of my 10 currently scanned pieces, and 8 of each for the art cards. I've played with the sizes a bit when I was ordering and I'm saving myself about $200 getting smaller prints and only a few few large ones. The smaller sizes will allow me to sell them cheaper so that it will be affordable to everyone. And that is good for exposure.

I'm getting these ones printed on "Kodak Supra Endura Professional Photographic Paper... Kodak Supra Endura photographic paper has an extraordinary color gamut and state-of-the art image stability." According to my printers. I will be offering to make special orders for customers who want Giclee reproductions - these are printed on types of canvas. I recommend the Somerset Velvet Giclee Prints because the prints look a lot nicer in this material than on the canvas. The canvas prints look like they have lines all over them and I'm not really liking how that looks. The Velvet Giclees look really nice, they have a softer look and you might say it's similar to watercolor paper. However, the Somerset Velvet Giclee Prints are not as brilliant as the prints on the photographic paper. But that's something you can decide you want when you look at my examples of each (I have a single image printed on all three materials so that you can compare the differences). It's nice being able to have the set and look at them side by side.

From Notes from an Artist Keukenhof example art-prints on different materials. Photogrpahic-left, Velvet-top, Canvas-bottom right. These are 8in x 10in prints.

From Notes from an Artist Example of the Canvas print. See the texture?

I should be getting the prints on Tuesday unless Easter messes up the printing and shipping times. Once I receive them I will be mounting them on hard mat-board, placing them inside their own plastic bags for protection (weather, kids, me). I will also be including info about each piece in the bag with the print and one of my business cards. Which means I need to get a few things printed next week at my local printer (Thorne Printing in Nampa).

This is going to be fun.


EDIT: Just got the shipping confirmation (about 5 minutes after I finished this post)! These people print FAST!

Farmer's Market Prep. 2 - Booth Insurance

I am a recent buyer of an insurance policy.

As a Marrket Vendor I am required to have an insurance policy of at least $1 million. The market itself has to have one of at least $3 million. The people who run the market gave out a list of providers that have been used by past vendors and I sent out quote requests to most of them (the ones in Idaho). I went to their websites and sent the quotes through their online request/contact system. I recieved a few responses, three responses out of four requests.

I requested online because I dislike using phones for this sort of thing, plus I wanted all of the quote in writing. They all wanted to know the basic info about my business: the name, what I sell, how much I make average a year, and info about the market. Out of the three that responded initially only two ever responded (as of today). And out of those two only one of the providers really took the time to get me a fast quote. In fact she did it that same day.

And all through email. She found a quote that was acceptable and then spent even more time to get me a lower quote. That second quote was about half of the first one. I decided to go with it, one because who can resist a quote that is of $125 for the year for an awesome liability policy that is a $2 million coverage (they don't do ones smaller than that). Secondly because at that point she was the only one who had given me a quote. Thirdly, because she was friendly and was on-the-ball as we were emailing back and forth on and off all day getting all of the details down. I met with her the other day to sign the papers and found she was genuinely interested in the market and what I did. I also found out she was doing the insurance for another vendor - someone who sold herbs evidently. I had the option to pay in increments or all at once, and since it is such a small amount of money I decided to pay it all at once. Which wouldn't be a problem except I completely spaced on bringing my checkbook with me. Not a problem, I can just mail it in, and she said she'd get the insurance certificate out to me as soon as possible.

I am going to personally recommend her here in my blog because so many business relations come from contacts and recommendations. Her name is Becky Carlson and she is with the Leavitt Group of Boise. Here is the website address: http://www.lgbinsurance.com/

The other provider gave me a quote, finally, two days ago. This is well after the quote request and well after when I sent details about what I needed. The quote(s) were for more than double and on up than the one Becky was able to snag for me. And I should mention that they don't seem to be friendly, basically the way their message with the quote(s) was written makes me think that they just want to get the deal over with, and they insist on talking to me on the phone (I dislike that). Which isn't really the way I like to do things.