Art Fair

The Thursday before last I was invited to participate in an art fair. It's been a goal of mine to participate in one of these things, so ,even though the notice was short, I said yes. I spent the next week busting my butt and spending loads of Steph's hard earned dough to get myself ready. This Saturday morning, with the Neon loaded up with 16 framed paintings, a cooler, some tv trays, easels and miscellaneous hardware, Steph and I shoved off for Northfield, Il and the Ascension Church Inreach Art Fair.

The rain started about an hour after we arrived and continued on and off throughout the day. Those of us without tents realized before long that we wouldn't make it to the end of the day without them and made Target runs. Erin, our next door neighbor at the fair, and I got the last two Greatland $69 specials!

As you can imagine, not a lot of people show up for an out door fair in the rain. My estimates might be way off, but I think I only saw about 150 people there the entire day. And I bet many of those were either artists or folks assisting the artists. Even so, I was able to sell one small painting and get some names on my mailing list.

Financially the fair was a bust, but I'm not very disappointed by that. From the moment I decided to do the fair my motiviation was not financial. It was more about being faithful to my goals, building up my confidence, connecting with other Willow artists, and getting some much needed experience. In all of those areas the fair was a great success.

I met some wonderful people, and am especially happy to have met Gloria and Erin. They are two painters from Willow who are very talented and were full of great information and ideas. Erin helped us price our paintings when we arrived and Gloria gave us some great information about getting prints made.


The three of us painters didn't do nearly as well as Christine who was selling hand made baskets and jewelry. I think the people who came were expecting more of a craft fair than a fine art fair and I don't blame them.

I did get some wonderful compliments and talked to a few people about doing portraits on commission. I'm going to follow up with some email and see what happens.







Thanks to everybody for all your prayers and encouraging words. I had a great time and learned a lot!