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.

Creativity After Art Shows

I started a new project the same week I sold my van and gave up art shows. I've been shooting jury slides for the past few years and have a studio set up in my living room. As an ongoing project, I've decided to photograph everyone that comes to my house with something they brought. I keep a book of prints by the door so I can show prospective subjects what I'm doing. You can see the complete gallery of images on my web site.

Poetic Justice

Read about this on one of the forums. At Tulsa Mayfest, a few artists had some pieces stolen. They gave a description to the police and a few hours later the police informed them that they had caught the guy with the stolen work. The artists were reluctant to prosecute because they were from out of state and would be required to return to testify at a trial. When arrested, the guy also had $600 in cash. So the police struck a deal. The guy went free, but he was required to pay for the work he stole.

Guy McDonald Supports Art Show Community

Guy McDonald has supported the art show community for over 18 years providing a credit card solution for artists. Even I use his credit card services having switched when my old credit card machine died early in 2008. But what prompted me to write about Guy McDonald is that his company, TeaMac Inc., is absorbing the latest rate increase by Mastercard and Visa and not passing it on to the artists. Also, you should read his about page to see some of the other things his company has done for artists.