Art shows are not for the faint of heart
What are the lessons learnt from participating in the 2021 Dunedin Art Show? Calm and order are slowly returning to my home and studio in the three days since my return and I’ve gathered a few thoughts.
Unpacking artwork, setting up the display, and then selling; followed by packing up and driving back home, is not for the faint of heart. But, what a great experience.
The price for total focus
To achieve putting the show together, I intentionally ignored mundane but important things. They seemed to scream out to me on my return home.
Bill is great at filling in the gap, but while I was in Dunedin, he was flat out helping his students finish our southern hemisphere end of school year.
I’ve done 5 loads of laundry today whilst preparing photos and videos of my works for social media. Sorting through all the art and framing debris and packaging remnants helped me think about where to go from here with my arts practice.
Lessons learnt from my art show experience
Due to my contemplative nature, it will take a while for me to completely process my experience at The Dunedin Art Show. However, there are a few things I learned right away:
- The landscape market was well served: Whilst people loved my cloud-filled landscapes, I found the number of outstanding landscape artists at the show vying for landscape buyers’ attention was a well-served market.
- People were intrigued by my Inktense drawing creations: They are what sold. So, I will focus on my abstracts. They will be larger. It takes a great deal of effort to install small works compared to the larger ones. The large ones make a bigger statement and impact.
- The QR code business cards I printed did not seem to catch on. Hmmm. Maybe people are QR code weary, with the government QR code app for Covid efforts.
- Even though I do treasure the solitude of my studio, I found I really enjoyed the camaraderie of other artists. This alone made it worth participating.
And now it’s time to enjoy our summertime Christmas and New Years! I truly hope you have a great Christmas and Happy New Year.
Have you ever participated in a commercial art event? Did you enjoy the experience? What did you learn from it? Is there any other thing you’d like to know about my experience? I’d love to know in your comments below.
