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Since earlier this  year, I ’ve been thinking about participating in local artists markets or fairs. Art fairs can be costly and time-consuming. Most art fairs cost an average of $150-$250 to participate. There also the costs of display equipment, marketing materials and tents. Furthermore most art fairs are 2-3 days long and require an artist to stay at a booth for 8-10 hours each day.  While I have been doing research and looking into participating in some local art fairs in 2012, I heard about a local artist market that was a very affordable price and only required  four hours of my time on a Friday evening. So I thought  that this smaller venue would be a great opportunity for me get my feet wet.

I reserved a booth space near the front entrance in hopes of making a great first impression on the people attending the event. Unfortunately (for me), my booth sat next to a talented jewelry maker and across from a well-known local artist who attracted most of the incoming traffic. While I was able to meet some potential customers and pass out postcards, I did not sale any work. But, I did learn some valuable lessons.  Lesson #1-Having a booth in the right space is critical to how much you sale. While it is important to be in a great space, you do not want to be overshadowed by the artists booths that are adjacent to yours. Lesson #2- Bring lots and lots of work to display. Quantity is as equally important as quality. Lesson #3- Make sure you have professional display equipment to exhibit your work on. I still have not made a final decision as to whether or not I will participate in any more art fairs in the future; yet I am glad that I had this experience.

On the 16th of September I attended my first official gallery showing in a group exhibition at the Avisca Gallery in Marietta, GA. IT WAS SO EXCITING! The show was entitled ”Shout” and explored the aspects of gospel music in the United States from a visual perspective. In the picture above I am standing next to one of the pieces I created entitled ” Granddaddys’ Prayer”.

 The gallery owner and other exhibiting artists were so gracious and supportive. They gave me wisdom and advice about navigating the “treacherous waters” of the art world. I left the show feeling inspired and invigorated.

When I made the decision to focus on developing my career as a full-time visual artist, I was optimistically naive. I thought “my work is strong, so surely gallery owners and collectors will see my vision and want to display my work”. Wrong! I quickly found out that I fell into the category of being called an “emerging artist” which is basically an artist who is still looking for a core audience of collectors and gallery owners to support their work/ vision. 

Once I accepted this “revelation” , I embraced it. I began working on developing a networking system with various artists, learning about the business of being an artist, and taking my artistic skills to the next level. So far, I have become apart of a great social network for artists and collectors, secured a business mentor who is giving me business education 101 and began creating better crafted pieces.

I am more focused and determined to accomplish my goals as a visual artist. From time to time, I’ll update where I am on my journey.

Over the years I have looked for creative ways to teach art history. As you know any type of history or social studies based lesson can be very boring if it is not presented in an interesting way. Meanwhile, I have created and purchased various art games as a method to encourage my students to pay attention to the basic information about a particular artist. This video is one example of how I am able to achieve this goal.