My booth at the open studio.
The first three weekends of May are dedicated to the Silicon Valley Open Studios (SVOS) where artists open their doors and showcase their work for the public. I had to register way back in December in order to get in. The whole thing is very well done and organized in my opinion. Their website is well curated and even has dedicated bio pages for each artist. Physical catalogs are also printed out and distributed throughout the Bay Area. I had participated in the first weekend of May leaving me feeling physically and emotionally exhausted.
Another view of my booth.
Saying I learned some new things that weekend is an understatement. First off, the open studio was outside. I arrived to the site the day before with just my paintings and prints for sale. Unbeknownst to me, I would require so much more. Naively, I thought the location would be indoors and have spaces and hooks for me to hang items. Sadly I was wrong.
I first had to get a fold out canopy and a fold out table considering we were going to be outside. I also needed to figure out how to hang my paintings. After doing some quick google searches on displaying artwork for sale, I decided on what I needed to get. I made my homage to Home Depot with my dog Chewie as my companion. He sat in the carriage while I perused the store. The hardest thing to find was the canopy but thank god for the Internet telling me exactly which aisle to head to.
Once I purchased my items I headed home to brainstorm how to hang my paintings. Since I was lacking prep time at this point, I found a tip from a fellow artist that you could use pants hangers to hang your work. As you can see in the photos, my layout is a little more informal (at the least) than my neighbor's. I call it the ghetto style but it worked. Basically we used the clippy ends of the hanger to clasp onto the wire on the back of the painting. Using the hook from the hanger, we placed the painting wherever we thought it would look nice. Voila! In the future I do intend on investing in some accessories for my canopy such as detachable walls and some sort of foundation to hang my paintings neatly. After setting up my paintings, I then laid out the rest of my work including my art marker drawings on the table for display.
The next thing I learned from that weekend was to bring layers. There were times during the weekend where I sat in my section feeling freezing cold. My fingertips would feel so numb as I tried to do some work or talk to potential customers. Since the open studio site was in a residential neighborhood rather than somewhere more commercial, traffic was on and off. So basically there was a lot of downtime. I busied myself with writing my latest blog post and then starting a sketch of the Castro Theater in SF. Fortunately for me, that kept me very preoccupied during slow times.
Actually selling my work is a very difficult hurdle for me to overcome. As an introvert, it is very difficult for me to start a conversation with random people. Some people would be very excited about my work and others would just glance by and not say a thing. To each his own I guess. I also had to explain my art marker drawings and demonstrate using some of the materials. Some people would take my card and some wouldn't. I didn't fully expect to sell anything that weekend. I used it as a way to get my name out there and to befriend some fellow artists. I also noted to myself that I need to invest in square or some system to accept credit cards. But I would only consider that if I do this type of thing more often.
I think in the future, I would definitely have a better layout of my business cards and prints. I'm going to have to brainstorm on some cheap ways to display my products, maybe a trip to the local thrift store is in order! I also would have liked to have prices labelled next to my pieces but as I kind of scrounged this up last minute, that's just something to consider for next time. I think that if I was more prepared, I would have been more comfortable selling my work and myself. But there is a first for everything right?
Overall I think it was a successful weekend for me. I had to overcome some of my insecurities and learned a new part of the business of being an artist!