HyArts Artist Shanties... Those Aren't Fishing Shacks on the Dock

This weekend was really my first public exhibition since owning my Gallery. For those of you just joining us: I showed at the HyArts Artist Shanties on the waterfront in Hyannis, MA. I worked long and hard getting a large enough body of to artwork to show and feel good about. I really wanted to  "WOW". The Universe works in funny ways. Two days before the show started (Wednesday),  I received an e-mail re-directed from my online store. A woman had seen my work online, liked it and wanted to know how many  originals I had available. I told her what I had and she bought them all sight unseen and had me run them down to Fed Ex and send them out immediately. I did so, photographing them first. It took two trips on my Bicycle to get them all to the Fed Ex office. She was the mother of the bride and wanted them as gifts for the entire wedding party. I was really excited. Ten paintings in one day! I gave her a deal since she bought so many. Friday morning I received an e-mail from her saying that she loved them all and thanking me for my quick response. The wedding was on Saturday. Nothing like last minute... I can't really fault her for her last minute action. First of all, I, myself, had just finished them... For a show that was starting in two days mind you. Secondly, She bought them from me!

Okay , so now it's Wednesday afternoon, I have a show starting in two days, and I'm down the ten paintings that I was going to showcase. What the (heck) do I do now. Prints! I grabbed my camera, with the pictures that I just sold still on the card, and attached the USB to my computer and down loaded the pics. My camera and computer are set to erase the card after down loading.... Some how the USB cable disconnected during the download. The pictures didn't make it onto my hard drive but the camera thought that they had and erased them from the card. Two weeks of work down the drain! I don't charge too much for my work, mostly because the real money is not in the originals, but in the prints. For artists reading this, remember, the odds of finding a buyer for a $500 painting are not really that great.  How many people actually get to see that painting? 100? Maybe 200? Now put that picture online and up that number to 1000... If your lucky... Out of those, how many like it enough to own it? Then, how many of those that like it enough to own it, actually have the $500.00??? Now lets make some prints. It is easier to sell a matted print for $10 dollars than it is to sell the painting for $500. You can find a printer that will charge about $1per print, and your still making $9/ print. Sign and number them and you can charge more, lets say $25. find ten people to buy them and you've made $240... and you still own the original which is potentially worth more the more prints of it that are sold.  With todays technology you can buy a decent printer and print them yourself for even less, and providing that you find the right outlet, a cash cow could be born. Some artists may think I'm selling out here, but remember, my goal is to make a living doing what I love doing! Picasso said,"Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, A dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time." I once sold a painting for $30.00 that has made me hundreds in sales of its prints. (Click here to see and own it!) Now, all that being said, I ended up selling my artwork for way too little, and can't reap the benefits of repeat sales through prints. But, live and learn. There are now ten more people out there that know I'm an artist and own my work so it wasn't in vane.

That was a bit of a tangent... So the weather This weekend was probably too nice on Friday and Saturday and too cold on Sunday to get any real traffic through. But hey, this is Cape Cod, so what did I expect? Right? And... Given the weather we've been having it's amazing that it wasn't raining. I managed to sell a few works originals and prints alike. So I'm happy about that.

All-in-all I think my Shanty looked pretty full I scraped together some of my not-so-Capey stuff, which actually received a pretty warm response from the tourist crowd which I thought would be more into my  landscapes, seascapes, and skyscapes. I also managed to find a printer in Hyannis that really stepped up to the plate and dropped everything to help me out of my dilemma. So thank you to the folks over at Minute Man Press on Barnstable Rd. (tell them Greg from CapeNative sent you.) for putting in a little overtime and knowing what the heck they were talking about. (I will no longer even think about getting anything done at Staples... They were so easy to deal with and came out considerably cheaper...)Also, If your interested in selling prints of your work, you're going to need to mount them, mat them, and wrap them. So you may want to check-out Documounts, they have some really affordable starter packages.

 (Documounts is gone  and I haven't found a decent replacement yet...  let me know if you have in the comments please...)

I learned a lot about doing these kind of shows this weekend and I'll be back next weekend with a slightly tweaked business plan and some new artwork.  So, if you find yourself in Hyannis between 11AM and 5 PM, Friday through Monday, Memorial Day weekend, stop by and check it out!