Reflective Essay for College Hill Art Fair
Originally, my experience was to involve renting a booth at an annual art fair in my neighborhood to showcase my photography work. I was planning to treat the art fair booth as if it were a gallery space and to set it up as an exhibition of my work in order to prepare me for future shows I might have to design for my work. I have also never sold my artwork before, so I spent some time researching how to price my artwork to sell.
Unfortunately, this year the art fair was put on hold due to scheduling issues, and so I was unable to complete my experience as planned. My mom has a booth at the Ohio Valley Antique Mall, and I decided to do the same sort of set up there as a solution to the art fair being cancelled. I took over my mom’s booth for a month (at the art fair I would have been sitting at my booth for about 8 hours; at the antique mall, you do not have to be present at the booth to make a sale) and chose a theme so the booth would seem cohesive. I decided to go with a Christmas theme and, since it was a booth at an antique mall instead of at an art fair, I bought and found some other items to go with my theme instead of going with all photographs, as my original plan was to do at the College Hill Art Fair. I still did the research on pricing my prints, and then did some additional research on pricing the other items that I put in the booth. Before setting up my booth, I spent a couple hours walking around the Ohio Valley Antique Mall looking at other vendors’ booths to see how they were set up, what sort of items they had, and how the items were priced. I set up the booth and stopped by the antique mall weekly to see if anything sold and if I needed to rearrange the booth to accommodate for the items sold. I feel like the experience was still beneficial in the ways my original experience was, because I did the same research on pricing items and setting up a show. Using the booth at the antique mall was beneficial in a different way, as I learned how to set up a space with items created in different media instead of solely photographs.
I enjoyed setting up the booth and playing around with the arrangement until I felt like it was successful, but I missed the interaction with customers that I would have gotten from having a booth at the art fair. From seeing what sold and what did not, I feel like I learned somewhat how to accurately price artwork; there is a little bit more room for unknown reasons with this project, though, since I didn’t get to hear customers’ comments. At the Antique Mall as opposed to the art fair, there is also the element of what people are looking for – not everyone is there to buy artwork, and many people are looking for one specific piece. I did try to combat this a bit by adding other antique pieces to the booth, so I could be more on par with the feel of the Antique Mall.
Even though the experience differed from my original plan, I feel like I was still able to gain a lot of the insights and growth that my original plan had proposed. I still had to think about how to “curate” a selection of pieces to create a show and how to effectively (and, through trial and error, ineffectively) price work. One aspect that I do feel was lacking was the interaction with customers and the knowledge gained from speaking with them, which I feel did hinder my expected growth with this project. If I had access to customers’ comments and questions, I think it would have helped me to gain even more of an idea of how they felt the pieces were priced (too high, too low), and how they responded to my work in general. Knowing how to price artwork is a great tool that I can easily apply to my life, as I plan to continue making ceramic work and taking photographs. It is really important to me that my ceramic pieces are used in the home, and so knowing the correct way to price them to make them affordable while not losing money by making them is an important skill to have. In addition, knowing the correct way to price work will ensure that I am able to be competitive with artists creating similar works; if I priced my work too high, it would be unlikely to sell, and if it was priced too low customers might feel it was poor quality and would pass it by. I feel like this experience also helped me to prepare for the future (and especially our upcoming senior thesis show) by forcing me to think about how separate pieces relate to each other, and making those pieces work in a space together and feel like a cohesive collection.
Originally, my experience was to involve renting a booth at an annual art fair in my neighborhood to showcase my photography work. I was planning to treat the art fair booth as if it were a gallery space and to set it up as an exhibition of my work in order to prepare me for future shows I might have to design for my work. I have also never sold my artwork before, so I spent some time researching how to price my artwork to sell.
Unfortunately, this year the art fair was put on hold due to scheduling issues, and so I was unable to complete my experience as planned. My mom has a booth at the Ohio Valley Antique Mall, and I decided to do the same sort of set up there as a solution to the art fair being cancelled. I took over my mom’s booth for a month (at the art fair I would have been sitting at my booth for about 8 hours; at the antique mall, you do not have to be present at the booth to make a sale) and chose a theme so the booth would seem cohesive. I decided to go with a Christmas theme and, since it was a booth at an antique mall instead of at an art fair, I bought and found some other items to go with my theme instead of going with all photographs, as my original plan was to do at the College Hill Art Fair. I still did the research on pricing my prints, and then did some additional research on pricing the other items that I put in the booth. Before setting up my booth, I spent a couple hours walking around the Ohio Valley Antique Mall looking at other vendors’ booths to see how they were set up, what sort of items they had, and how the items were priced. I set up the booth and stopped by the antique mall weekly to see if anything sold and if I needed to rearrange the booth to accommodate for the items sold. I feel like the experience was still beneficial in the ways my original experience was, because I did the same research on pricing items and setting up a show. Using the booth at the antique mall was beneficial in a different way, as I learned how to set up a space with items created in different media instead of solely photographs.
I enjoyed setting up the booth and playing around with the arrangement until I felt like it was successful, but I missed the interaction with customers that I would have gotten from having a booth at the art fair. From seeing what sold and what did not, I feel like I learned somewhat how to accurately price artwork; there is a little bit more room for unknown reasons with this project, though, since I didn’t get to hear customers’ comments. At the Antique Mall as opposed to the art fair, there is also the element of what people are looking for – not everyone is there to buy artwork, and many people are looking for one specific piece. I did try to combat this a bit by adding other antique pieces to the booth, so I could be more on par with the feel of the Antique Mall.
Even though the experience differed from my original plan, I feel like I was still able to gain a lot of the insights and growth that my original plan had proposed. I still had to think about how to “curate” a selection of pieces to create a show and how to effectively (and, through trial and error, ineffectively) price work. One aspect that I do feel was lacking was the interaction with customers and the knowledge gained from speaking with them, which I feel did hinder my expected growth with this project. If I had access to customers’ comments and questions, I think it would have helped me to gain even more of an idea of how they felt the pieces were priced (too high, too low), and how they responded to my work in general. Knowing how to price artwork is a great tool that I can easily apply to my life, as I plan to continue making ceramic work and taking photographs. It is really important to me that my ceramic pieces are used in the home, and so knowing the correct way to price them to make them affordable while not losing money by making them is an important skill to have. In addition, knowing the correct way to price work will ensure that I am able to be competitive with artists creating similar works; if I priced my work too high, it would be unlikely to sell, and if it was priced too low customers might feel it was poor quality and would pass it by. I feel like this experience also helped me to prepare for the future (and especially our upcoming senior thesis show) by forcing me to think about how separate pieces relate to each other, and making those pieces work in a space together and feel like a cohesive collection.