Manayunk Art Show favors sponsors over artists

When will they learn that the public doesn't attend an art show because businesses with bull horns stand in the street and hawk their products. There was a recent review of the show posted to one of the art show forums. Here's a condensed version:
I Just did the Manayunk Art Festival in Philadelphia. NO MORE. Crowds were huge, that is the only positive point. Everything else was negative. The Manayunk Development Corp. which runs this show has probably given space to every sponsor who applied. So, every 6th-8th booth on each side of the road was a sponsor booth. They created a major distraction by being loud and noisy, and at least one using a bullhorn to hawk their products. The same problem with the food. Every 10th booth was either a food booth or one of the restaurants that expanded into the show perimeter. Again, this is where most of the money went from visitors. They also created noise and played loud music. It was reported that when one of the artists complained to the show staff about the sponsor using a loud bullhorn, they were told that the show wouldn't do anything about it. In addition to all this, young kids vandalized a few booths at night and broke some windows of a few shops. Music was very loud, coming from all direction, which was extremely annoying. There were at least 70 low end flea market type jewelry booths, about 25% of all exhibitors. So, Manayunk is no longer an art festival. It's a food plus sponsor plus music festival.

A little personal perspective here. I used to do the Manayunk show. Of all the shows I've done, it was the only show where I could hang the outside wall of my booth with my 1970's basketball photos and feel like I fit right in.

Patriotic Puppy Dog

Xena's July Fourth portrait

You can see more pictures of Xena on my web site.

ZAPP User Conference Aug 19-21

Bruce Baker and Larry Berman

I've been asked to be a speaker at the ZAPP user conference in Denver and at my recommendation they've also asked Bruce Baker to be my co-speaker. Though our talk is tentatively scheduled for Friday morning August 21st, we're still negotiating on the amount of time we need. I will be donating my digital imaging services as a door prize to one lucky attendee - $140 value. You can read more about my seminar and download my seminar prespectus from my web site.

Throwing Away Art

Dumpster filled with art

I recently started cleaning out the garage. The photographer Emerson once told me that he envied me changing styles every few years but that I must have a garage full of old photographs that hadn't sold. Right he was. I started throwing away everything older than ten years old. Most of that was the thousands of teddy bear, kittens and baby duck photographs that were left over going back almost twenty years. The interesting thing is that they were probably the most commercial photography ever sold at art shows. Many a week that I sold in the 500 print range. 


For as well as they sold at art shows, it was a total bust trying to sell them from a web site. BermanBears was my first web site and I don't think I made even four sales from it. The dumpster picture is really the third time I filled it and I still have more photographs to throw out from that era.

Setting Up an Art Show Booth

Josh Trefethen created a time lapse video setting up his booth at ArtFest Dallas in May. He used a Nikon D300 with 18-200mm lens, set to take one shot (at low quality JPEG) every 15 seconds for 3 hours and 40 minutes. He then created a 12 frame per second video using Quicktime and iMovie. You can see the video on YouTube in high resolution.

Artist offered Waiting List Space for $100 over Booth Fee

Posted to one of the art show forums. An artist was on the waitlist for the Virginia Highland art show, which has a $300 booth fee. He said the show contacted him and offered him a space for $400. Another artist, upon hearing of this, said he had a similar experience with the same show. He was offered the opportunity to set up one day early if he paid a $50 additional fee. Considering the congested area and set-up hassle, he decided to do so but when he pulled out his check book, the show staffer told him cash only. After a few words he relented and told the show person to give him a receipt. He was told no, they could not give him a receipt. The artist refused to pay cash without a receipt and the show finally gave him a hand-written receipt.

According to their web site, the Virginia-Highland Civic Association is a volunteer-run, non-profit organization. I wonder where the extra cash collected by the show staff goes.

May the Best Jury Slides Win

According to the Reston web site, the 2009 award winners will have their work for sale at the preview party the evening before the show starts. If I'm reading it correctly, they must have juried for awards months before the show and that sends a message that the images of the artwork are more important than the actual artwork - NOT. Art shows are about art, not pictures of art.

In a post Ginny Herzog made on the NAIA forum, she verified that this was true and that the art center charged $50 - $75 admission to the preview night plus took a commission from any work sold by the award winning artists.

This would have never happened when Mary Saunders was director and the jurors walked the show on Saturday (like they specified in their application) and chose the award winners by looking at the actual artwork. Where are the artist advisors when you need them. Ginny, Paul Germain and I were artist advisors to the old regime and Mary Saunders would have asked before they would have made such a decision.