Outdoor Show Awards

This weekend marks the end of the outdoor show season, with a two-show doubleheader; the 10th Annual Art on the Avenue show in Alexandria, Virginia on Saturday, October 1 and An Occasion for the Arts in Williamsburg, Virginia on Sunday, October 2. With the end of the outdoor season eminent, I would like to make a brief rundown of some of my most memorable shows.


The Picture Perfect Locale Award- The 4th of July Celebration, Yorktown, Virginia

This show had the prettiest location of all my shows. Located on the Chischiak Green on the bank of the York River, I had a great view of people in their sailboats cruising up and down the river, people sunning themselves on the beach, and had a great breeze to counteract the scorching 4th of July in Virginia heat.

The Bug Attack Award- The Hanover Tomato Festival, Hanover, Virginia and Princess Anne Arts and Crafts Show, Virginia Beach, Virginia.

This category had a two-way tie between the Hanover Tomato Festival and the Princess Anne Arts. Bugs and all manner of creatures are inevitable when doing outdoor shows, but their presence in these two shows are quite memorable.

Ever heard Japanese beetles? Around these parts, they are called June bugs for reasons unknown to me. In case you've never seen one, June bugs are big dark green beetles that fly about as if they have no of sight or direction. You can hear one coming since they have a buzz like a miniature chainsaw. And the only way you can hurt these suckers is if you hit them with something heavy...like a bank safe. Seeing one fly around is interesting...seeing a swarm of say 500 is something a little more than interesting. At the Hanover Tomato Festival, swarms of these bugs flew all over the field in which the festival was held in which they dive bombed festival goers, landed in people's hair, and fell in and drowned in people's drinks. People were seen swatting at the bugs with the cardboard fans festival officials handed out and some were seen actually running from these clumsy pests. Several customers were chased out of my booth when a pair of June bugs flew in and got trapped as they buzzed from one end to the other. One lady actually had one fly into her mouth, and I had a bug hit me in the back of my head while I was talking to a customer.


The other Bug Attack Award has to go to the Princess Anne Art and Craft Festival. My body has an interesting reaction to mosquito bites. When mosquitos bite me, the bites turn into huge bright red welts which in time fades into dark bruiselike areas on my skin. The picture above is a picture of what my legs looked like after I did the Princess Anne Festival when I got bitten approximately 3 dozen times by some pretty vicious mosquitos. I had forgotten the cardinal rule of outdoor shows and had arrived without a pair of long pants or some type of bug repellent. This moment I stepped out onto the show grounds, I was promptly attacked by swarms of mosquitos. Within five minutes, I was running to a neighboring artist begging for bug repellent, which he graciously allowed me to use.


The Shiny Happy People Award- The 3rd Annual Festival of the Grape, Powhatan, Virginia
Generally, the crowds at most festivals and craft shows are typically in a good mood, especially if the weather isn't too hot and they didn't have to park too far. But I've never seen a happier crowd than the one I saw at the Festival of the Grape. Of course, the fact that it happened to be a wine tasting festival may have had something to do with it. As the day wore on, people steadily got friendly and happier until they began to dance on the courthouse green. This was actually one of my favorite shows of the year because not only was everyone friendly and watching the festival goers was great fun, but as one other vendor had put it, people buy anything when they're drunk enough.

The Dry Shirt Award- 21st Annual Christmas in September, Richmond, Virginia

Summer in Virginia can be a hellish experience. Visitors to my booth constantly remark on the energy draining and debilitating effects of humidity and heat and ask me how I can stand it. If you do outdoor shows, you pretty much just get used to it. After about the third or fourth show of the year, your body and mind adapts to the heat and you remember to carry plenty of water. But no matter how much you get used to it, you still go home at the end of the day hot and sweaty with your shirt plastered to your back. So it's always a treat when the weather turns tolerable and you have a nice pleasant day like the one I had last week at the Christmas in September show. With weather in the seventies and no humidity I went home with a dry shirt that day.

Honorably Mentioned

This weekend during the 26th Annual Princess Anne Festival, I received an honorable mention for my work. While I always have a great time at shows, it's always a thrill to get some recognition. My thanks to Caroline Ansel of Virginia Beach Parks and Recreation Special Events and all the volunteers who made this a great show.

It must be great to just work on the weekends...

One of the reasons I enjoy shows is because it gives me an opportunity to meet my customers. It's a thrill to get feedback on your work. There are many changes I've made to my work that is due to a particularly astute suggestion by a customer or a remark made by a show attendee. I do get sourpusses at shows from time to time, people that offer criticism that is hurtful or even downright insulting. Fortunately those are in the minority and veterans to the circuit learn not to let these sourpuss ruin their day.

But addition to suggestions and criticism, both useful and hurtful, are remarks that leaves many a working artist either scratching their heads or suppressing an ironic grin.

Here's an example of such a remark. At my last show, after spending several minutes deciding on a pair of earrings, a lady selected a pair of Paper Bead earrings to purchase for a friend. While I tallied her order and boxed the earrings, she chatted about how much she liked my jewelry and how much her friend will love the earrings. I smiled at her and told her how much I appreciated her compliments. It's always a good feeling when someone compliments your work, and I always appreciate positive comments and helpful suggestions. Then as I handed my new customer her package, she said, "It must be wonderful to only have to work only on the weekends and to have free time during the week." Inwardly I said, "Hah!". To my new customer I said, "Well, shows do give me an opportunity to get out of my studio for a change. I always have a great time at them," and thanked her for her purchase.

A saltier artist may have taken this comment as an insult or as a sign of the lack respect for the arts and would have used this as an opportunity to inform this lady on the trials and difficulties of being an artist. Personally, I don't believe in chastising customers for remarks such as these because, 1) People come to festivals to have a good time, not to get a lecture on how hard it is to be an artist and on how art is under-appreciated in the world of Wal-Mart and cheap goods from Asia, 2) Many people have this romantic vision of what life is like as an artist, and I really hate to burst their bubble, and 3) I've learned to decipher the difference between what people say and what people actually mean.

I found out that what most people actually mean when they say "It must be wonderful to only have to work on the weekends" or "You must have some much free time during the week" is that "It must be great to be able to make a living doing what you love and to have the freedom to set your own hours...I wish I could do that." If you scratch the surface, most people do realize that artists do have to work on weekdays too. Most of the time, they are expressing their fascination with the concept of the artist's life. The fact that artists can be creative and do something that they love and make a living at it.

I've been in and out of the craft industry for fifteen years on a part time basis until very recently and had daydreams of sitting in my studio with my dogs at my feet making jewelry in the middle of the day instead of when I could scratch out time after work or on the weekends. With these daydreams came the thought of, "If only I could afford to do this full time, then I'll get a lot more work done and I'll have time to expand".

Then in late January this year, I was told that my full time job of web designer was being eliminated and just like that...I had the opportunity to make my daydreams into a reality. I wasn't completely naive, I knew that being a full time artist wouldn't be all fun and and games and that it would take a level of discipline and sacrifice.

It's true that I now spend many a day sitting in my studio with my dogs at my feet making jewelry. But that's only about 40, maybe 45% of the time. The other 55 to 60% of my time is spent sitting in front of the computer making out budgets and marketing plans, logging in sales and expenses, filling sales taxes, updating my web site, and answering email. It's also spent talking on the phone with customers, chasing new wholesale accounts, and ordering materials. It's spent processing and packing orders, taking daily trips to the post office, biweekly trips to the bank, and monthly trips to the half dozen local galleries to check on sales and to fill orders. In other words, 55 to 60% of my time is spent doing the same things that other small business owners do, actually running a business. In reality, I'm actually working much harder than I ever did when working at a full time job. Instead of working an 8 hour day, I typically work a 10 to 13 hour day and sometimes longer if there is a show coming up or a large order due.

Do I get to set my own hours? Sure, I can choose what part of the day to work my 10 to 12 hours. Do I get to make a living doing what I love? Well, I get to do what I love and I hope to one day soon be able to live off it. I'm quite lucky to have a spouse that has a regular job with medical benefits so that we have at least one steady paycheck and medical insurance until the day comes that I can equally support the household with my jewelry. The number of artists without medical insurance is pretty staggering and many must take part time jobs to get by while building their business. Art is pretty much a feast or famine enterprise. Do I get to do work that excites me? Most of the time, yes. If an artist is lucky, the type of work they love to do and that type that sells are the same thing.

Perhaps what the salty, lecturing artists most want their customers to know is, yes, it's great to be able to set your own hours and to go to the gym, the bank, and the store at 10 a.m. on the week days., and to not have to punch a time clock, to be able to decide the course of your own destiny, and to be able to work on what you enjoy. Yes, all those things are great. But life as a successful working artist is not for the faint of heart. It's not for the lazy and undisciplined. It's not for the thin skinned and for those who lack perseverance. That the myth of the temperamental, suffering, starving artist is just that, a myth (well, it's mostly a myth). And most of all, life as a working artist is not for those who don't have a passion for what they do.