Art Shows

They should be the one thing I treasure and seek to fill my months with. Well, that and lists upon lists of freelance clients, but that's another face of my art world we'll address later.
Art shows help get you exposure and let the world know who you are and what you do and what you'd do for them. It gets your work "Out There" and in the hands of possible buyers. They help you meet new people, make connections, make new friends, all that great jazz.

But, they also shove you in a room full of strangers who you're supposed to "sell to" without making that so obvious and be social. I am not a social cat. Never have been, even as a veryvery small child, and it takes a serious amount of energy for me to be the social cat.

Not to mention the stress you feel, as an artist, to create new and exciting work for each show. Cause, even though Nashville is a larger city, it's art community is pretty small and the chances that the entire crowd from Show X will be at Show Y are high....and I still have that mentality to "Do something Big, New and Ground Breaking!"


Another "But" to the art show thing is that I balance on the dividing art ling like a trapeeze artist:

I am not a Fine Gallery Artist. Not a Craft Artist. Not a Graphic Designer.

I do it all. Maybe I'm not the best, not the most inspiring or the most ground-breaking, but people seem to like what I do. Most importantly, though, I Love what I do, no matter the style. My drive to art is to Make Something. Anything. I joke about making art from whatever doesn't move fast enough out of my grasp, which is a bit of truth.

That's why I'm going through the effort of making and putting my own wedding together. Sure, I might save a bunch of time buying two boxes of invitations and crap, but it's WAAAAY cooler to say "I designed and made alllllllll of that." When the save-the-date postcards went out I got compliments on them and felt a little pride saying "yeah, I designed those." I'm really enjoying putting the invites together too even though the time I need to design, print and assemble is more than just printing on store bought or ordering everything from a supplier.
I'm betting that in the long run I'll be spending less money, but that hasn't been calculated yet. But, hey, I know at the least that 500 sheets of paper for $12 is definately a savings that wouldn't happen if I outsourced the printing. That's enough paper for Everything I could possibly print.

But I digress, sorry, bride-brain takeover.

My trapeeze analogy is that I don't fit very neatly into one type of art. I have a little fine art stuff worthy of gallery shows, but not much outside of the Bible Series. I've heard that the Heartwork stuffs are more crafty and not so much "art show" material, which I can understand. (see, I would rather not be social and be able to eavesdrop and hear the honest opinion of the viewer. the person I heard this from didn't realize they were speaking to the artist. sorry :) I'm not upset, just collecting critizism.) I do a little graphic design to make ends meet, but I'm definately not going to be breaking ground in that feild either.

I want to do more shows, yes, but the time and cost combined with the constant back-and-forth with feeling like I don't fit in keeps me holed up in my Shire with Future Hobbit Husband doing my own art thing. Maybe I'll be like an Emily Dickinson of the Art World and have post-humus fame after a life of seculsion. Either way....I have a home full of art, which I would love to make my Bread & Butter of life, but without having to be Social Cat :)