This was my 4th year having a booth at a local art show put on by the Draper Visual Arts Foundation. I decided that this year’s spot was my favorite… which I have said a few times in different spots, but nope, this one was the winner. It was a perfect amount of shade when the sun moved, the side of the barn that I think gets more people, and where I can see or at least hear when musicians perform. It was awesome to get to be next to Jacque from High Elevation Photography again and it was awesome to meet a handful of new-to-me local artists and gush over their awesome art.
This year, I did my best to put imposter syndrome aside and I shared about the show in more than a few group chats that I am in. I shared with our competition taekwondo team, our Wolfpack track & field team, a group chat with some of my son’s friends, and on my social media. In our Woflpack chat, I told everyone that Wolfpack athletes can have a free sticker.
Well, it worked. I sold THREE original paintings, two of which were framed, and a bunch of prints and stickers. Most of these customers were from my Wolfpack family, and I will forever be grateful for them.
I sold my original painting of Horseshoe Bend to my friend Rachel, who bought it because it was the location of her first ultra marathon. Even the frame I used was sentimental to me as it came from the picture framing store I used to work at when I was in my 20s. I loved the moulding and hung on to the frame for about 20 years until I had artwork to put in it. You can watch a timelapse video of this painting here.
I sold my original painting of misty trees. This painting was me trying a different technique last year. I painted it as part of a 10-day painting challenge I saw online. I have been wanting to do another painting in this style since I get so many compliments on it. My friend Heather, who bought the painting, told me I need to get on that and paint a few larger versions too. I need to make that happen asap. Here is this painting’s timelapse video.
The 3rd original painting I sold was to my girl Winnie. She’s one of the awesome athletes who runs with Wolfpack (along with her two older sisters). She fell in love with a starry night study I made back when I was trying different galaxy skies using limited color palettes. This painting was sold matted, but unframed, so I hope Winnie chooses an awesome frame for her painting when she hangs it in her room. Here’s this painting’s timelapse video if you’d like to watch.
I also sold a handful of giclee prints along with some stickers. One Wolfpack family bought a framed 11x14 print of Delicate Arch.
This year I tried displaying the prints for some paintings alongside the original paintings or a framed version of them to see if it grabbed people’s attention a bit more. The past few years, I have only had prints stored in a few bins that people could look through. My oldest suggested that people might not want to buy the framed version, but also won’t always come into my tent to see if I am selling prints too. I really liked how this setup worked and I will definitely do it again.
This grid wall display was a new thing for me this year. It let me use some of the vertical space that I have with my tent. It let me hang artwork on both sides and in a way that still let some wind through. I liked it enough that I will probably buy another one. It was easy to hang with zip ties.
I do want to work on a different way to display my stickers though. I have this tall and skinny board with mini clothespins glues to it. It has worked fine in the past, but I now have way more stickers than space on that board. I am thinking I may get a second board. One can display stickers of my paintings and the other can display my other stickers.
Quinn and Fletcher bought these prints to hang in their rooms. *They (and their parent) gave me permission to share these images.
I displayed my iPad that showed a handful of timelapse videos on repeat too. It helped grab a few people’s attention. I do want to make a few changes for future shows and maybe look into more shows that I could possibly enter.
Extra special thanks to my amazing husband for helping me get my booth all set up and for building some very sturdy weights to keep my tent from blowing away. Last year’s storm caused me to close up my booth early and this year the DVAF required all of us to have 40lb weights in each corner of our tents. I appreciated it.