Strawberry Days Festival

we got a new booth shot

These are awesome, these are amazing, I can’t believe you draw these, you have the best stuff in the whole show and just WOW were some of the things I heard while people were walking outta my booth this weekend at Strawberry Days. We did somehow manage to make our booth fee back, but this event wasn’t really about the art. It was more about the food and music, even the craft people were complaining from all the mass produced stuff that was there (now the craft people know how we feel). When the craft people are getting screwed, the fine art people get double screwed.

This was a poorly run event which had no focus on the art and since we weren’t even in the main part of the show, most of us were left out in the cold to die. The few kids and parents that did make their way out to see the art simply passed us by to grab kettle korn and homemade rootbeer (which was really good) from a booth just down from ours. Don’t get me wrong - some people had a great show, like the metal guy across from us who was selling his stuff like pancakes, wish I had thought about jacking up my prices so I can say “at the gallery these go for $350 but today they are $95!” Then there were the guys on the end selling beautiful stuff to put in your garden (which looked like a pain to make) for only $20, makes you wonder who made them?

This wasn’t really the type of show for us to do, we should have learned with this one, oh well. It was more of a family thing and young families with 3 or 4 kids don’t really have money to buy art when the food is so expensive. There was a lot of really young people there and they all loved my art, who knows they might eventually might buy something, but not today. I was surprised by the guy who could pass for a 14 year old who purchased a $100 piece. It just goes to show, you never know.

Im chalking this show up to “exposure” even though you guys know I hate saying it but that’s just what it is. We did have 3 people say they saw us at Downtown Denver and I'm sure I'll be seeing a lot more of them as we do other shows around Colorado.

two of the best visters we had

The Good: Glenwood Springs is a beautiful place surrounded by beautiful landscapes and even more beautiful people, very clean too (the porta potties hold a dark truth no one dares to speak about).

The Bad: Hannah didn’t get a chance to enjoy the hot springs.

The Ugly: we would have been in the same place had I stayed at home and drank beer all weekend.

Next up? Well I got a list for ya:
Cherry Creek Arts Fair - Denver, Colorado
Boulder ArtFair - Boulder, Colorado
Oklahoma City Arts Festival - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

We Are On The Move But Not On The Road….. Yet

good bye old place

hello new place

old view

new view

Located off the end of the biggest art district here in Denver - “Santa Fe Arts District” and about 2 miles from downtown, our new studio apartment is just what we needed to sort through our belongings to see what we really needed to keep. We got rid of our red leather couch and (if you've ever been to our place) we got rid of that huge mirror we had. With all that gone we still have tons of crap.

There’s still stuff we need like 10 big bins with art and my drawing tables, then there’s all the stuff we use for the tent shows and then there’s clothes and kitchen stuff and all the other crap you need to have in a home. Some how its just too much stuff. I sit here everyday looking at everything and wonder what I could get rid of, its not all going to fit in a van with us. I still cant believe how much stuff we have gotten rid of. Do you guys have any ideas how to purge even more? And no storage is not an answer.

Ok back to the studio, its down the street from Laurie Maves so I might be coming out on her little show a lot more, check her out, she paints live almost everyday. Since we live farther away from Hannah’s work she has to ride her bike into work so I tag along with my skateboard, then I go for a little skate on my way back. Also living in a neighborhood it’s a little bit easier to just step outside. Back on 16th Street if you just stepped outside you had to take an elevator, walk though a lobby and about 100 people were waiting for you. So now we have a yard with trees and even a pretty dog name Cinder:

We also got word that our van is “on the water”. Overseas shipping must suck, oh well, they say it will take like 3 to 6 weeks to be assembled in South Carolina then another 4 to 6 weeks to be finished out in Austin. Now that’s a long time. But we are still planning ahead and booking shows like crazy and talking to people about doing other things - here’s what we got so far:

Booked
Strawberry Days Festival - Glenwood Springs, Colorado
Cherry Creek Arts Fair - Denver, Colorado

Boulder ArtFair - Boulder, Colorado

Waiting
Oklahoma City Arts Festival - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Carefree Fine Art & Wine Festival - Carefree, Arizona
Georgetown Art in Square 2010 - Georgetown, Texas

We are still looking for more shows and galleries all the time, so speak up if you got anything for us to get into!

Galleries

I know I missed all the parts in Jack White’s book that talk about galleries and artist representatives and all that mess. But I wanted to say a little something about how I work my galleries and what I think about representatives, agents and managers.

At the beginning of my career I was just making art to fill extra time I had, I didn’t care about showing off my work much less selling anything. However I was lucky and worked at a place with lots of art minded young professionals who went outta their way to help me have a show (not to mention buying up a good part of that show) and make me feel as if I was an artist. I did pull as many strings as I could and started having a few shows a year.

Before we bought our house I stopped showing my work until I met an art dealer who started showing my work at his venues, which was probably the 1st time I had eyes on my work that didn’t know me. I was also one of those artists that hides in the back hoping no one would ask any questions or would want to speak to me. Just a side note: I still work with that dealer and he carries all my acrylic work that I don’t make anymore and a few prints of my pencil work.

After I developed my Graphique Couture style, we knew we had to get it out there as much as we could. So every weekend we would pack up the car and drive to gallery after gallery asking if we could show with them and we wouldn’t come home till we found one. We racked up about 15 or so really quick. Many have gone outta business or we dropped them cuz they weren’t working out for us. Now we keep a close 10 galleries and about half of them are actually making us money and a few are really pulling their weight. I am in the middle of making them all profitable or dropping them right now. But we wont add any new ones until that’s all worked out. Collecting galleries is cool when you 1st start out, you can carry yourself differently knowing your work is good enough that most any gallery owner you talk to will want your work. However hanging in a gallery and getting a pay check from a gallery are two different things.

Now we study and research a gallery before joining. We expect to be friends with the owners and speak with them on a daily basis and to have them really understand how and why I make my art. But these days we find we do well without the need for a gallery. But I am a people person and I love to talk about me and my art at shows and I do try to talk to everyone at a show or who comes near my tent at a fair (that’s why fairs work for us, if you're that way it should work for you too).

Now representatives, agents and managers and all those people out there promising you riches. 1st off if they are e-mailing and calling you chances are they cant do crap for you, if they could they would already be making loads of money for another artist and would be too busy to chat with you about selling your art. And if they want money from you there’s even less of a chance they can do anything for you. I have had many of these people contact me trying to get me to pay crazy prices to get my work shown to “important” people who could do great things for me or to pay for art shows that would bring me mass amounts of exposure. Don’t believe them folks, I have given into a few things like this and nothing has come from it. I find the people who co-sign your art and only get paid if something sells work much more harder and most do a hell of a job too.

The way we do it around here is I make the art and my wife is my agent, that’s the only way I would have an agent, but remember I believe in if you want something done right do it yourself, then you know what went wrong and know how to fix it.

I would love to hear your stories about this subject and how you handle any of this.

Downtown Denver Art Festival

here's a shot of our booth




we had nice light above


Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, Oh man, the Downtown Denver Art Festival was one hell of a long show. I am really glad we got in tho, we meet so many cool people and some cool artists. Since it was only about a block over from our studio it was really easy to get our stuff over there and it was cool that we could just run home real quick and use the restroom or grab forgotten stuff.



Friday started off at about 6 am with the raising of the tent, and for it being the first time using it and with only using the sides, it looked good. Cant wait to see the whole thing at Strawberry Days in about 3 weeks. We set up so fast and since the show didn’t open till 4 pm we sat around waiting for about 9 hours. We made a few fast sales and we were off to a great start. We were so tired after the first day, its been a whole year since we had done an outdoor tent show and we forgot about how hard it is to be standing and chatting. Not to mention the heat, oh the heat!

Saturday and Sunday we only had to get out there at 10 so it was nice relaxing mornings and we took our time to get out there. We made most of our sales during the weekend and the weather was great, Saturday dark clouds came out but no rain, it did hail like crazy just north of us. Sunday was actually cold but it felt great.

Monday was trash tho, no sales at all. However we ended up selling 13 pieces and picked up a commission. We did mange to build one hell of a mailing list, this show I had an idea to ask people to sign up for our newsletter every time they asked for a business card. I figured there was a better chance of them going to my site if I sent them an e-mail and who knows they might even show up to the next show. Also, I gotta tell ya'll it never gets old watching people read my “I draw all the circles freehand” sign and say “wow” then get really close to one of the drawings to check it out. What we need to do is make a bigger and better sign.

hannah at work

The Good: With this show we proved that life on the road isn’t going to be that bad, even tho all our shows might not go as good as this show. This was a real “fine art” show so if we don’t get stuck in many “craft” shows we will do ok. We won the merit award, which means we are automatically juried into next year's show (which saves us the time waiting to see if we get in and the 30 bucks it costs to apply) Best thing of all? My hand is rested and ready to go…

me and my award

The Bad: Not as many people as I thought knew who I was already. We only got a few people notice my work from other places and only one person read my write up in “Fly Mag”. We had to smell the oil paints from the lady next to us since she painted all 4 days, then there was that 4th day that we could have done without.

And The Ugly: We gotta move now!!! (blog to come later)