ART_GiRL

New work in the studio.

As I was bisquing my first round of work from January I took on 2 tasks. The first being a photo shoot for work for my web shop. Also known as "my least favorite thing to do". Bleh. After le photo shoot I decided to work on some pendants. I can say I have any clear direction right now with my work. I'm just playing and figuring out what juried gallery exhibits to enter and which festivals this summer I wish to endure. I can tell you this, it will be a lot less than last year.

Shows are tedious for many reasons. The first being I'm a ceramics artists and my work is heavy. I love lugging it around in the hot summer weather and trying to set up the stupid tent. Then I get to answer questions like, "Did you paint this yourself?", "Why is this so expensive?", and of course "Do you make a living off of this?". Welcome to my hell.

Next are the show organizers and fellow vendors. Not everyone can organize a show. You have to take on the task of dealing with a lot of complaints and anticipating everything that could go wrong and planning for it just in case. Some people in this town = epic FAIL at organizing. And most of the time you get good neighbors but everyone once in awhile you get the loud mouth who I like to call sale stealers. You are sitting there talking in a normal tone of voice but the person next to you is so loud that it distracts half your customers all day long. Usually this person has mediocre work and an excessive amount of entitlement.

This is why I enjoy 2 things: my open studio sales and online shops. The studio sales draw in customers who want to see where artists work. Intelligent questions usually follow. And with online I can spend less time dragging ceramics across town and more time actually making work. Hopefully more gallery representation will follow this year. I'm a better artist than a salesperson and I would like to leave the selling up to someone else most of the time.