It's getting close....

Pretty soon we will be officially in holiday season. It usually starts sometime in October and runs, of course, all the way through January. My focus turns from art fair prep to retail prep and I feel like a full-time chicken without a head. It's okay, though, I get my head back after New Year's. :)

I think it might already be time for starting to think of New Year's resolutions. Last year, my resolution was to start becoming more focused on organizing my finances. I've done a pretty good job so far, but it's gotten a little lax. I need to start knuckling down and getting all those receipts and paid invoices entered. Regardless, because I've taken the time here and there to enter things in, it won't be that same nearly month long process of entering in everything into a spreadsheet. This year will be much more streamlined. I'm thankful that at the end of the year I will have a lot less work to get my taxes done (and especially thankful for the assistance of my accountant friend!!).

My other resolution this year was to get out of my comfort zone and do an out of state art fair. Luckily I was accepted into one and I was able to produce enough work that was outside of my normal body of work (the location collages) to fill an entire booth. I put the time and effort into doing something that I've never done before. It was scary, exciting and in the end, disappointing. However it was an experience that helped me realize what my real goals are and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

This next year, as I tend to say every year, will be the year that I finally start really working hard and trying to separate myself from the reliability of the part-time job. I know that I don't work as hard as I could because in the end I have that regular paycheck that will be coming. While it's nice, it also takes away from the work that I really love doing and it makes me a cranky artist. And just ask my friends and family...nobody likes a cranky artist. :)

The thing about limited editions

I've always been on the fence about limited edition works. I've seen people have limited editions of 1000, or 2500 and I wonder is that REALLY limited edition? I mean, I suppose if you're a wildly popular artist, perhaps 2500 prints would sell very quickly. But usually limited editions fetch a higher price, so depending on what the price was, perhaps it would take years to sell 2500 prints. 

When I started my business I was making things by hand. Greeting cards and other small gift things, mostly, and here and there I did some photography. When I started doing the collages, I didn't think anything of having them limited. To me, I wanted my artwork to be accessible by as many people as possible, and while not cheap, I wanted it to be fairly affordable. So all my location collages are open edition. Now that I've decided to start pursuing art fairs outside of the state, this is a problem.

A lot of the prestigious art fairs require that most of your booth be originals, and if not originals, limited editions. Now, I've seen people take open edition work and make it limited edition by treating it in a particular manner, like a special type or size of print. This is what I'd like to do with my artwork but I have NO idea what to do.

I was considering having it mounted to acrylic block. This, I found, is not only incredibly expensive, it's only done in the UK, or so it seems by my research. Somewhat silly to spend tons of money just to have displays in a booth because truly, that's all they'd be. I have a feeling people would still purchase the matted prints over any big fancy limited edition piece I had. My next thought was to have them framed in lightboxes. The neon light collages would glow awesomely in a lit-up frame. However, that's also expensive and I'd have to have electricity in my booth. Then there's the other option: ignore the art fair directions. Well, I just don't want to push my luck.

So, I'm still stuck and I'm open to any ideas anyone has. The applications for next year for a few out of state shows will be coming up in a few months and I'd like to have a better idea of what the heck I'm doing if I'm going to be applying!

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!