Finally, Success!

Last weekend my friend Erika and I did our first art fair.  We had a booth at the Glenwood Ave Arts Festival in Rogers Park, right around the corner from my apartment.  WE KILLED.  It was so much fun, we were a lot more successful than we thought we would be, and we got a lot of good feedback from people.

As we were setting up our tent we were saying, "Oh no, we're going to look like such amateurs, we have no idea what we're doing..." but it came together really well aesthetically, especially the second day.  We both had paintings and jewelry, and I had pottery and little handmade journals as well.  We had three tables set up and arranged in interesting ways, then paintings hanging from the side.  I think the result was very eye-catching, then we had a nice flow from one table to the next, so we had a lot of visitors to our tent.  Most people just looked around, some people wanted to talk to us about our work, and some people bought stuff.  I had business cards right in front, and a lot of people were picking up my cards.  I've already had one person contact me asking me to do another fair next weekend, but the entry fee is $350...so, unfortunately I can't do that.  But it was flattering that he asked!

This is what our tent looked like:

All in all I sold 8 paintings, three pots, and one pair of earrings.  To be fair, most of the stuff I sold was to people I know, but that's ok!  My parents bought my Delicacies triptych, my friend Libbey bought Georgia O'Keefe, Noel bought my Mushrooms, Jake bought the Lightbulbs, and I made two little skull paintings specifically for the festival and a stranger bought one and my friend Kasey bought the other.

I feel like I finally broke the seal in selling work, and now all I have to do is keep the momentum going.  I also feel like I got some recognition at this festival.  People took me and Erika very seriously as artists, and probably assumed we were a lot more experienced and professional than we actually are.  I can now say I've sold some paintings and had a couple shows.  I'm setting up another small one today at this cafe called the Kitchen Sink, and then another bigger one at Dolce Casa Cafe.  Since I've now sold 6 large pieces, and I have two simultaneous shows coming up and another one in October, I've got to get to work making new paintings! This is the only new one I have other than my little guys above:

Shiny Things Three
Acrylic on Canvas
16" x 12"