Apply, apply, apply

Ah, the beginning of the year. Preparing, preparing, and more preparing. I've applied to 3 shows this past weekend: Stone Arch Festival of the Arts, Wayzata Art Experience and the Maple Grove Art Fair. I'll be applying to the Powderhorn Art Fair at the end of the week. I should see my schedule start to fall into place by the end of April. 

As always, my schedule will be continuously updated on my website!

Side note: I will not be applying to the Rivertown Art Festival nor the Highland Art Fest this year. Both shows have gone downhill in quality and sales the past few years. I am hoping to replace the Rivertown Art Festival with the Wayzata Art Experience. As far as Highland, there is not another art fair I have found at that same time (towards the end of July).

Friday.....

Nothing spectacular to report today. Just working towards finishing some custom collages and getting some other small things done, like printing cards for my collage cards. Dreading doing my taxes because I know it won't go well. Just a ho-hum day and a very short blog to match.

Try, try again

I just finished the applications for the Telluride Festival of the Arts and the Vail Arts Festival. After the rejection from Ann Arbor I am very hesitant to be spending money on jury fees to shows that I have very little chance of getting in to, but if I don't try, I'll never know. It's exciting to think about doing something new somewhere different, but on the flip side the idea of that makes the rejections that much harder.

I ordered more of the concentration word game images so I'm hoping to add to the series of new collages that I posted about a week ago. I have decided they will be a limited edition of 50 and will sell for $50 each. I will have them for sale at the first art fair of the season, Arts at the Oval, coming up at the end of March. Visit my website for details!

A day late, but still at it!

I was out of town last weekend and managed to get a blog in on Friday, but couldn't swing it yesterday. I'm going to keep up with my 3 day a week blogging as I promised myself (one of the few resolutions I've been following through on, actually), so I'll be blogging both today and tomorrow.

Nothing too noteworthy actually, so not much to blog about. While I was out of town, I updated my website schedule to reflect a new store that has my collage cards as well as 2 art fairs that I will be at in the upcoming months.

As postage rates continue to rise, I'm not quite sure where I stand on continuing to send out my snail mail postcard schedule. I know quite a few of my customers look for it, but as my list grows, so does the cost. (That's kind of a "duh" statement, huh?) I'm debating whether I should send out a postcard that invites people to join my email newsletter instead and notifying them of the switch to system. OR, send out a postcard and ask them which they'd rather receive, that way I know my customers will continue to be notified in their preferred method and I save costs in the long run!

Wow, while I'm not sure anyone reads this, it sure does allow me to babble "out loud" and figure out what I'm doing!

Anyone have any ideas for me as far as direct mail goes?

It's a "no"

I received my rejection letter from the Ann Arbor Art Festival today. As I said in my last blog, I'm not holding out a whole lot of hope for these out of state shows and I'm thinking that perhaps this is fate's way of telling me that perhaps now is not the time to try to expand my reach. Maybe I should work on developing my art more first rather than just tossing it out there. I'm just not sure. It's hard to stay focused when you're disappointed in how things are going. I've done the same art fairs for 6 years now and I would like to change it up a little, but maybe I'm just not ready.

All in all, kind of a downer of a day. Hopefully something good will come up soon.

New things coming up

Today I received the acceptance to Arts at the Oval at the John Rose Oval. It will take place March 28-29. I'll post the art fair to my website schedule soon.

I'm applying to an art fair in Beverly Hills in May. I applied to the show last year and was rejected so maybe things will come through this year. I'm not 100% happy with my booth photo of my "other" art (I wouldn't bring my Minnesota collages to Beverly Hills) so if I did get rejected again I wouldn't be surprised. I'm going to be applying for quite a few out of state shows this year but don't have much hope of getting in to any of them. I know positive thinking is important, but my location collage work is so much more popular than my other collage work that it's just hard for me to keep my hopes up.

Hoping to continue working on new collages and as I said in a previous blog, I want to get down to Chicago sometime very soon. I'll keep the blog posted!

NEW ART!!

As I've mentioned in previous blogs, it's been awhile since I've felt very creative and had the desire to create some new art. Today I was doing some printing to keep up on inventory while I have some down time and thought, "I should make something!"

I never have any preconceived notions of what I want the art to look like when I start. The new thing that I'm trying is making a background using traditional techniques: painting, stamping, drawing, etc. Then I scan it in and go from there.

Also as I mentioned in a previous blog, I've been collecting vintage papers and other goodies. I've had the word game papers for quite awhile and didn't know what I was going to do with them (I NEVER know what I'm going to do with stuff when I buy it!). I just love the graphics on them, very 1960's and so I decided to go with a somewhat retro style to the art.

I've always loved square pieces, so these are 8 x 8 square. They'll be printed on a cotton rag texture paper and will be a limited edition of 250.

Right now they don't have titles and probably won't have any until I print some out.

I'd love to hear some feedback if you have any!