Weekly iPhoneography

Hi There. How are you?

 Not much to say today.... Here is my week in photos.

I got some more good snaps on my workday walkabout. 

  

I stopped to visit my friend Heather's roosters along the way. 

 

We went up to Rockford this weekend to visit Jack. 

He's at the age where he hates when I take his picture, so this is the only one I got. 

Aren't Matt and Jack twinish?

 We spent some time shopping local in downtown Rockford. 

If you live in Rockford and haven't been to the Rockford Art Deli, you're missing out! 

It's an awesome space and you'll enjoy their humorous Rockford themed t-shirts.

I'm obsessed with the late afternoon autumn light these days. 

Matt and I are catching the train down to New Orleans tonight. Expect some great snaps next week. Happy Thanksgiving!

P.S. I'm have a stupid big Black Friday Sale. Read about it on the blog later today or tomorrow! 

Ta-Ta

Weekly iPhoneography

Hi. How are you? 

Daylight Savings is over and the days are getting ever so short. 

The lack of sunlight that winter brings can take a toll on me.  

I'm thankful that these first short days of the season have been bright and sunny. 

This weekend's holiday craft fair didn't go so well, but I did get some quality drawing time in during the show.

I had an exceptionally nice lunch time walkabout at work yesterday. The sky was so blue! 

 

I hope you are having a nice November week! 

Can you believe that next week is Thanksgiving?

Ta-ta for now.

Learning how not to take failure personally

Hi there. How was your weekend?

I participated in a local holiday art & craft fair this past weekend. I was really excited about this one....I attended this show as a shopper last year and was impressed by the large crowd in attendance. The show was so busy that it was almost hard to shop! I like my odds at those kind of events. I really thought this was going to be a good show for me.

If you read the title of this post, you've probably deduced that my experience as a vendor this year was not what I had expected....In fact, it was awful...I didn't even make enough money to cover my booth fees. It was the worst show I've ever had! Ouch. 

It's so easy for me to work myself into a funk after I've had a bad show....I take what I do very seriously and very personally.  I wonder,  "Is what I make sub-standard? Do I really have talent?  Is it time to hang up the "artist" towel and go back to teaching?"

After a little pouting, I put on my "critical thinking" hat and tried to figure out why this show went so wrong. I quickly deduced that my lack of sales had little to do with the quality of my work.  It had more to do with the venue and my placement in it. My booth was placed in an almost hidden portion of an immense show. At any point during the show you could walk into the main area of the show and be met by throngs of people, while only a trickle would make it back to my locale. The numbers were against me.  Had more people seen my work, I'm quite confident I would have been more successful. 

 I jotted this down in my sketchbook during the show.

 
This will be my goal in the coming months.....I need to find that target audience, and maybe it's not at the local craft show. Maybe I have to think bigger and beyond local.  All I know is that I'm not giving up. Creating is a part of me. I will make and eventually...the buyers will come more readily than they are today.

So my fellow maker friends, how did you connect with your target market? Any advice for me?

Thanks for reading. Ta-ta for now.