My First Art Show

Last weekend I exhibited at my first art show ever, the Lincoln Arts Festival in Lincoln, NE. The event took place on Saturday 10am-6pm and Sunday 10am-5pm. Setup took place all day on Friday. The whole ordeal was exhausting but completely worth my time and energy. I'm writing this blog about the experience to describe the process to any others than might be considering their first art show, and so that my family and friends can have a better idea of what it is I went through.

I've been considering trying to get into an art show for about a year now, maybe more. My parents used to do art shows, so I had a wealth of knowledge to pull from. I knew that I wanted to try for a juried show, which is a show that you apply to and your work is judged before you're let into the show. These shows hold a little more weight in the art community, and I wanted to see if my photography would hold up to this higher standard.

To apply to an art show, I first had a find a show I wanted to do and that would fit into my school schedule. I found the website "Zapp", which lists art shows around the nation. I signed up to get their weekly e-mails and in one of these e-mails towards the end of April was the Lincoln Arts Festival. I read up on their show and decided the timing was right and the show was about the caliber I was looking for at 15,000 people attending and about 100 artists.

So here I was, ready to apply for the Lincoln Arts Festival. Ready to commit to exposing my photography to the world. Two things were hard to do: first, I had to pick my four best photos for the judges to see; second, I had to figure out what to do about the "booth shot". The booth shot is typically required to apply to an art show, so I got creative with powerpoint. A booth shot is meant to show the judges your body of work and how you plan to display this work. I worked carefully to place a bunch of photos in an appealing order on a slide, and then made this a jpeg. This is what it looked like:

After I uploaded my files and paid the application fee ($25), the waiting game began. I applied in early May and was supposed to hear back by the end of May. I went to the field for my first season of data collection in the Nebraska Sandhills. Things were tough. That first month of field work went by excruciatingly slowly, but reconnecting with Bryn was one of the benefits. After the expected response date passed, I was disappointed that I hadn't made it into the show, but I also hadn't had any official rejection letter. My Mom encouraged me to send an e-mail just to make sure, since they used to send rejections letters.

About a week passed before I finally decided to send the e-mail to the show organizers to confirm that I hadn't made it. I had the best surprise when, instead of a response to my e-mail, I got the official invitation to be in the show! Now I had to make my final decision whether to attend or not. I had to think about the time it would take to prepare for the show and the time I would need to spend during the show, which was at the beginning of a busy semester. Despite the time commitment and my already-time crunched schedule, I decided to go for it. I booked the booth space and was ready to start.

I spent my summer here, in the Nebraska Sandhills.

Towards the end of my field season, the beginning of July, I began deciding which photos to put in the show and where to print them. I had already made a quick decision when I put my booth shot together, so all of those photos had to be printed. I also printed the four "best" photos that helped me get into the show. When all was said and done, I had printed about 170 photos ranging in size from 5x7 to 16x20, I ended up using Nations Photo Lab, who I've used in the past and really liked; I of course chose the non-corrected option since I do my own editing in Photoshop (expensive) and/or Zoner (free).

I had everything sent to my parents house because my parents had all the tools I needed to put together my photographs, and I was headed there at the end of July. The tools I needed included a mat cutter (big heavy piece of precision equipment), a mounting press (another heavy piece of equipment, less precision), a heavy-weight paper cutter, a tacking iron, and all the leftover foam board and mat board for me to pick through and "borrow".

This photo shows the tools from left to right: mounting press, heavy-weight paper cutter, and mat cutter in the back. I was glad I didn't have to work in the basement!

The first task we took care of when I went home was finding the display. My parents hadn't really used it in 20 years or so, but we knew where most of it was. My Mom and I managed to find 7 of 8 metal panels, the bucket of feet, and the PVC rafters. We set this much up and then pondered for a few days where the vinyl sides and top might be, along with the box of other supplies (like the knuckle buster for taking credit cards).

Finally my Dad and I decided to head over to my Grandpa's old house, which is now being rented out to a family. Dad was just out of surgery a few days before so he had to take it easy. While he went over to the house to let the renters know what we were up to, I headed over to the old dilapidated shack. Wouldn't you know the first place I looked was where the eighth metal panel was, leaned up against the outside of the shack. Then I went into the shack (I wish I had pictures of this part...) and rummaged around for a bit before Dad and the renter walked over. I saw something that looked like vinyl, and was white-ish in color. It had zippers. I had found one vinyl panel! It was like a miracle had happened, I had no hope of finding these things in the falling-down shack, but there was one of them. After I pulled microwaves and bricks and piles of dirt and other debris off, I pulled it free. Underneath that was another one, and over in a corner buried under squirrel's winter food stash was a third and fourth. I was feeling ecstatic--the display tent is probably the single most expensive investment when doing your first art show. I was lucky. Underneath even more metal scraps and bricks and piles of dirt was the top of the display tent. It had not fared so well; the mesh window panels were completely rotted through and the vinyl itself was in bad shape.

Here are the side panels and the top (right side). You can see how amazingly well the side panels did in that junk pile for 20 years and how not-so-well the top panel did.

So Dad and I had succeeded in finding the remaining parts of the display tent. We celebrated with a trip to George's. My Mom could hardly believe it when we got home and announced we'd found everything we were looking for. We spread the panels out and cleaned them as best we could. Dad and I took the top to a tent manufacturer and asked them to make a new one for us and explained the dimensions and what we needed it for (it had to be water tight).

Dad enjoying our success and his burger.

After securing the display booth, I was free to turn my attention to my photos. I spent about a week while at home preparing my photos for sale. I had to cut foam mounting board to size, cut dry mount tissue to size, and cut mat boards--both to size and the window. My Mom doesn't know this, but I was cutting my foam board on the rug in that room (you can just see the corner of the rug in the bottom right corner of the above photo)...you can't even tell! I didn't have a space big enough to do it anywhere but the floor.

My 16x20 prints were damaged during shipping--the corners were all bent. I sent
an e-mail to Nations Photo Lab letting them know and they got a re-print started right
away and had new ones to me in just a couple days. My Mom later informed me that
the corners would not show in a frame and they would probably be pressed out in the
mounting press (which they were...). So I ended up with a free second set of 16x20 prints!

At the end of my time at home, I had gotten a lot done, more than my parents expected me to get done (probably because I don't get distracted easily once I'm on a mission). I also knew I would not get a lot more time to work on anything with the semester starting and not having the tools in Lincoln. I spent long hours in that room, sometimes with the company of Tullah, the family dog. I had managed to get almost all of my photos mounted on mount board and most of them matted as well.

The 16x20 prints on 20x24 mount board were tricky because I had to do them in two presses in the mounting press. Luckily I had a couple photos from a botched batch to test it out on. I managed to get a huge bubble in on of these, but fixed it by poking holes in the mount board and pressing it again in a cold mounting press. I decided to wait on putting anything in plastic bags for display since I was running out of time and wanted to play with my nieces and nephew! I'd be back at the end of August to collect everything and would have some time then.

I drove home at the end of August for my cousin's wedding and to pick up all my art show supplies. I picked up Bryn at the Cleveland airport and we got home very early Friday morning. We spent most of Friday putting the finishing touches on the photos, putting them in display bags or frames, and mounting/matting some new photos that my Mom printed for me. We were busy the whole of Friday until the bonfire and then again on Saturday until we had to leave for the wedding.

Bryn helped me all day Friday. I think he appreciates the work that goes into art a little bit more!

Bryn and I had to scramble to get to the wedding (almost) on time. We had to go shopping for wedding-appropriate attire for Bryn before the wedding! We managed to get to the wedding just as Lindsay was about to walk down the aisle, and I proceeded to barge in the church doors while everyone was eagerly awaiting Lindsay. Whoops.

Lindsay was literally about to walk down the aislde when I
strolled in. Bryn was a little more hesitant because he saw
what was happening...

Bryn touring the harbor in his fancy new clothes!

After the wedding I did some final prep work and then we headed to bed, anticipating the long drive ahead of us. We were driving back to Lincoln on Sunday. It took longer than anticipated to pack the car the next morning, but we managed to fit our luggage and all of the art show supplies (except for the director's chair) into my car and put the metal panels on top. I love my car! The drive to Lincoln was uneventful, and after Bryn changed his flight from Monday (!) to Tuesday it was a bit more relaxed. We got to Lincoln and unloaded everything into my basement and grabbed some Chinese take-out.

For the better part of September I was brainstorming ways to set up my booth and how to best display my photos. I didn't want to invest in expensive displays like you see the pros using, so I had to get creative. My weekends were spent either doing more prep work on the photos themselves (some still needed to be bagged or framed) or wandering around hardware stores looking for ideas. I think what I ended up with turned out pretty great.

It all came together Friday before the show when I was finally able to set everything up at Southpointe Pavilion. I have to quickly thank Felipe, my Brazilian neighbor, for carrying the heavy panels from my basement and helping me get them onto my car. I packed up the rest of my supplies Thursday morning, grabbed my friend Nathan, and headed to set up the tent.

My tallest friend, Nathan, who helped me get the top and sides on my booth.

After the tent was set up, I took Nathan back to school, went to a meeting, and then loaded up my photos to put the actual display together. This was the fun part. I could finally see how all my plans were going to turn out, and I was liking how it was looking.

This was my unusual idea. I bought closet baskets like this one and hung them on my panels.
Then I bought closet rods and attached L-joints to provide support for the baskets. They take
up very little space and worked really well. If you have mesh panels, like a lot of other artists,
then something like this probably won't work. My panels are rigid and could take the weight.
I went with this idea because I didn't want to have photos so close to the ground, and
I only needed three of them.

The day of the show I arrived a little early to do some finishing touches on my display. My neighbors were really awesome, providing me with some support, tips, and chatting during the lulls. I logged into my PayPal Here account to be ready for any sales by credit card, and double checked that I had brought my change ($100 worth of 5's and $100 worth of 10's--this turned out to be far more than I needed). I put my business cards in their holders, put out the Starburst candy, and was ready to roll!

My display all ready to go! My desk, which all the blogs said I needed, was made of three stacked cubes with a window curtain wrapped around it. Those fancy desks the pros use can be very expensive, but mine cost me about ten bucks, did exactly what I needed, and looked good, too. Plus, I could use it for transporting supplies more efficiently. You can see another of my closet baskets in the bottom right corner, this one without sides. They worked better than I even anticipated they would. I had to add bubble wrap to the L-joints to prevent the photos from getting dented.

The two days of the art show were the most exhausting days I've had outside of long days of field work. You're constantly on alert for someone that might be interested in buying a photo, and want to engage with anyone that looks vaguely interested. It was also so much fun. Not one person said something bad about my photos, and most people that came into my booth said how awesome they thought the photos were. I even got a "Patron Award" from a lady who donates to the Lincoln Arts Council. Just getting this positive feedback from the general public and other artists made the show worth it, the sales were an added bonus!

One of my photos (bottom left) was even featured on show advertising!

I ended up making back almost half my investment (not including what my parents spent to help me get ready...), which is pretty awesome for a first show. A lot of my friends stopped by to check it out, and some of them even bought a photo. One lady fell in love with the "Road to the Ranch" photo and bought that one framed (exciting!). A man around my age loved the black-and-white photos and bought two--the "Grainery and Fence" and "Derelict Corrals." It doesn't get better than that. After a slow start to Sunday, sales picked up for the last two hours and my Saturday and Sunday ended up being about equal in terms of sales.

My friend Ilonka and her boyfriend Ivan came Sunday afternoon to help me pack everything up. We managed to get everything into my car, which makes me glad I didn't rent a van. They were such good helpers, too, it would have taken three times as long without them there. Thank goodness for friends!

It fits! (Ilonka, ever the model)

The whole thing was a success! Big thanks to all my helpers and especially my parents, I couldn't have done this without their having done it 20 years ago and their willingness to make lists and talk me through things while getting ready.

Things I hope to change next time:
1. Make my booth a little taller. It was a tad shorter than the rest of the booths, and the taller folks bumped their heads sometimes. I could set it on cinder blocks?
2. Buy a dedicated rug instead of sacrificing a rug I really like.
3. Make up price cards for my photos. A gallery owner mentioned that people might think my work is too expensive if the prices aren't right there with the photos.
4. Put name labels next to the photos. It seemed like people wanted to know the title of the photo, whereas I thought this would be irrelevant if they liked the image.
5. Try to be a little more region-specific (or learn to lie?). Potential buyers seemed turned off once they learned most of the photos weren't in Nebraska. Darn!
6. Put more springs in my larger framed photos--the art show bugs really liked to crawl under the glass (as my parents warned me would happen). I think if the seal is tighter they won't be able to get in.
7. Find some re-usable zip ties. I zip tied my desk together, zip tied the vinyl to the metal panels, and zip tied the weights to the panels. I want to find something that I can re-use each time, and I think I've seen re-usable zip ties somewhere!

Tips for your first art show:
1. Make friends with your neighbors. They can provide support and also supplies if you forget something. My neighbor Kyle borrowed my step ladder a few times and I borrowed bubble wrap from my neighbor Dale.
2. Bring a lunch. Eat it! By the end of the second day I hadn't eaten much and was pretty faint when I had to pack up my car.
3. Drink water! Especially if the show is on black pavement. It can get really hot.
4. Sunscreen could be really important.
5. You can't print everything in every possible size; don't kick yourself when you don't have something in the size someone wants--you can't predict this sort of thing!
6. Price your images how you're comfortable. I picked my prices based on how they were priced at the gallery in Saskatchewan; some patrons said my prices were high and others said they were reasonable. Just do what you're comfortable with and if a person loves your image, they'll buy it.
7. Sleep well before each day of the show! It is exhausting.
8. I made some tweaks on the second day of the show (put a show-advertised photo out front to try to gain some attention and added price labels) to see if I could increase sales. This sort of thing is fine, but in my case it didn't make much of a difference. Be prepared to change some things if you think it will help sales.