So I have three prints up at the New Members Exhibit at the New Hampshire Artists Association Gallery in Portsmouth, and there is a show opening on Saturday (1/12) from 3 to 5. I intend to go hang out Everyone I know in Portsmouth will be there! I don’t know anybody in Portsmouth.
I am not sure what I’ll do there, or what I’m hoping for.
The three prints are $110 each, the gallery gets 40% so its not enough lettuce to make me go all Cheesy McCheesball sales guy, “how YOU doin?”
I generally loathe small talk. I mean, I do it, I’m not an animal, but I wouldn’t drive to Portsmouth for it.
Building my email list, I guess? (do you want to be on my email list? It’s delightful! I haven’t sent out an email yet) It’ll be fun to meet the other artists, but they’ll be a pack of introverts like me. My crowning social skill is listening, I’m a fantastic listener:
Me: “How are you?”, other introvert: “Good, how are you?”
10 print “Ty: how are you?”
20 print “Other artist: how are you?”
30 goto line 10
1980’s BASIC humor will catch on if I keep at it.
Here are some good things that can happen:
A wise man wish a cosmic sagacity about him could to step out of the crowd, take me by the arm, focus his agelessly spiritual eyes on mine and say “Your work is relevant, Ty, it’s not a fool's errand, your time creating this artwork was spent with more life value then it would have been binging Game of Thrones season 7 even though it’s really good, or then by getting a real job, with dental”
Maybe a sorority of art students will show up and want booby drawings.
A blind person could push through the crowd, stand in front of my artwork and suddenly see, that would be cool! Oddly ranking lower than the sorority but still, cool!
A gigantic international corporation could give me a private office and studio off Central Park in New York and say “Don’t worry, Just do your art and take our money, and go to nightclubs, for some reason, even though you’re old for that”.
Fireworks? Blue Angels flyover?
Realistically what I’ll get is a crowd of middle-age people having pleasant conversation. Best case scenario I think is to meet gallery owners who might have space to put up a bigger show, or some other art contact like that. The second best case scenario is get advice from other fine art printers as to how to make my stuff better. The third best scenario is entertaining conversations with smart people, so I’ll focus on those things.
I’m thinking of printing a smallish artwork and just handing out prints of it to people, with my social media and website on the back. My 10 year old daughter says that would devalue the art (she’s smart), so maybe I’ll just give them to people who are interesting. FIRST TEN PEOPLE WHO MENTION MY INSTAGRAM FEED GET A FREE ARTWORK just kidding.
I wish I could say I was looking for commissioned artworks! That would be a great thing to market in an event like this. I might sometime in the nearish future so put a pin in that.
some fireflies