October Art Party

Need something to do tonight? This evening, Friday, October 16, I will be at the Artist in Nashville October Art Party! We'll be at the Center of Symmetry in Nasvhille, off of West End, at 212 Louise Street. Come for awesome art, good music, and free food and wine!

You Can't Do It All

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed today, so I'm going to talk about the most efficient ways to sell artwork. Efficiency will be a bit of a trial and error game, and it will depend a lot on what works best for you. What works for me won't always work for someone else. But here's what I've found to result in the most money for time spent selling artwork.

• Consigning to stores. Most boutiques and stores are willing to take work on consignment, because it doesn't cost them anything if the work doesn't sell. It just takes a few emails and phone calls to line up a place that will take your work. Once you've got the account, though, all you need to do is create and watch the money roll in! The major drawback to this is that you're not making as much money (usually only 60% of the item cost) and you're not guaranteed a sale. But if you have several stores consigning your work, and you make 5-10 sales a month for a $20 item in each of those stores, the money does start to add up. Just make sure that your items are priced so that even at 40% off, you make a profit.
• Art Crawls. Also referred to as Art After Hours or Art Parties, these are shows that take very little time. The most common ones around here last from 5-9 on a Friday night and include free food and wine! Even more important in the South, they're indoors and air conditioned. If they're well promoted, you can walk away with quite a bit of money. Most of the time, the people that come to these are looking for real art. I sell more of my bigger pieces at these shows than I do anywhere else. You can also utilize a mailing list to promote where you'll be when.
• Online Sales. This is probably the easiest place to jump in, because you don't need a ton of inventory or strict product lines. Online selling can suck up some time, though, because it's a lot of work to photograph and edit pictures for all of your items! Most of my online sales come from two or three popular items that I can remake over and over again. I recommend finding something like that for you. This cuts a lot of the time out of the process, too, because you don't need to take and edit new photos. Promoting online sales takes a lot more effort than any other venue, because you can't rely on an event promoter to bring traffic to you - you must generate your own traffic. This requires a good understanding of SEO (search engine optimization) or a way to direct your "personal" customers back to your website.
  

Excellent Wedding Invitation Giveaway!

A fellow blogger and Etsy seller is giving away wedding invitations! For details on the giveaway, check out her blog:

http://www.majoiepress.com/blog/?p=1003

A Differnt Kind of Piece

Ok, so there's this really great stuff out there for glass artists called fiber board. I like a particular brand of the stuff, Kaiser Lee board, because it lasts forever and carves up especially well. Anyway, the reason this stuff is so awesome is that it reacts to the heat of the kiln the same way the glass does. So you can completely encase it with glass. While the glass would crack if it were put over a ceramic or steel form, when you put glass over this fiber board stuff, it doesn't crack.

This means you can do some neat stuff. You can create your own molds, which is very nice, and, you can use those molds in ways you can't use regular molds. Here's a piece I made with this board, with a reactive glass:


With this piece, I've used a base blue glass. The blue glass reacted with the oxygen in the kiln, and any place where it was not covered with the clear glass overlay, it turned silver. It looks like steel - which is very cool. I've never gotten that kind of reaction out of a piece of glass before!

Now the clear glass is draped over the sides of the Kaiser Lee board, and in four corners, actually rested against the bottom of the kiln. I was actually amazed when I pulled this out the first time - I thought for sure it would crack. I actually threw it in the dishwasher to make sure, and it's dishwasher safe!

So I've Been a Slacker

I was doing OK until earlier this summer with posting here, but as the Saturday Farmer's Market started eating into my weekend time, and other personal and family things started to eat into my time, I've sort of let it drop. I want to come back this fall with a fresh start, and let you in on some of the things that I've learned. Here's a preview of some topics I would like to go into in detail later:

1. You can't do it all. Especially if you work full time. So you have to pick and choose the promotional materials and methods that will work best for you.
2. I know you don't want to spam everyone, but you need a mailing list. How more "target market" can you get than a list of people who say they like your work so much that they want to buy your work or learn more?
3. Love your style, but grow your style. Be unique - and experiment.
4. Keep a journal.

Got to get back to work now, but more on these topics later this week!

Modern Artisan Gallery Show

Show on the 18th and 19th: The Grass Window Gallery (in Madison) - I've got a table.

The Grass Window Galleries
1160 Gallatin Pike South
Suite 300
Madison, Tn 37115

Open to the public 9am- 7pm on Saturday, and 12:30pm to 5pm Sunday. Love to see you there!

I've Been Stalked!

My ruffle bowl was featured on Etsy Stalker - thanks guys!

And The Winner Is...

I said I'd announce the winner of the bead giveaway today, and I'm happy to congratulate rush8888! She was chosen randomly from a computer program.

Rush, if you could send me an email at moonofglass@gmail.com with your mailing address and the colors you're interested in, I'll get those out to you right away!

Thanks to everyone who participated!

Craft Show Results

Well, this weekend was the Firefly Fine Arts Festival. It was HOT! On Friday, it reached 100 degrees; Saturday it was 97! I think a lot of people stayed home because of the heat. Sunday, it came down to about 89 and a lot more people came out. I made my booth fee up Friday and Saturday; Sunday I doubled what I made Friday and Saturday!

Since this is my first big, juried show, I expected more. I usually expect to make 3-4x my booth fee back, so I would have considered a show successful after about another $300. But, it was the first year of this show. I spoke with the other artists there, and apparently, most shows have a lot more traffic. The consensus seemed to be that between the heat, the economy, and the fact that this was the first year for this show accounts for the lack of traffic and sales.

I definitely want to keep doing shows, and I'm learning more with each one I do!

One other thing I'd like to note is that while I had all of my home decor and art out, the only thing I sold all weekend was jewelry. Maybe it was the venue - or maybe I should look into just selling jewelry at craft shows, and holding the art glass back for galleries.

Haitus

Well, I was hoping I could continue with my regular blog posts this week, but between the ever-present day job and preparing for the Firefly Fine Arts Festival, I'm swamped! I'll try and pick back up next Monday, June 29th...with a review of the festival!

Just a reminder - if you're in the Nashville area, stop by the Firefly Fine Arts Festival this weekend! It's at the Renaissance Center in Dickson, June 26th, 27th, and 28th, from 10 am - 8 pm. I'd love to see you there!


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