Sheila M. Evans

After last year I was absolutely done with my art fair booth. No more changes. Ha.

As always on the long trip back from Sausalito last year, Paul and I, sick of tedious setups and tear-downs, discussed how we could make things easier. Of course it would be easiest to just skip all the extra stuff I’ve added, set up the Pro Panels and be done with it. But if you have read my previous stories (rants? storants?) about how all of that came to be, you may understand that at this point I am kind of attached to the look.

So how, without sacrificing the basic feel of the booth, to make things easier? Well, we came up with a plan. And although this plan will admittedly make life easier in future, it did definitely NOT make my life easier the past few weeks. Read more

What else could I possibly need to do, I believe I asked at the end of my last post about my art fair setup. Ha. Well, there were just a few things.

As expected, I did have to do some fiddling with the walls. Since I use wooden pieces at the tops of the panels, I realized I would need to make more in order to fill a double booth. Happily, I devised a method of using the old pieces from my original setup which would save money, shop time, staining and lumber. Happily, that is, until I actually looked at the original top rails and realized they were narrower than the new ones and therefore unusable.

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It’s getting to be that time of year again. It’s officially Spring, although it will NOT quit snowing here in Spokane. We just broke the all-time annual snowfall record here. Yesterday. Joy. All the more reason to start thinking about summer!

Over the next 2-1/2 weeks I will be getting the last of my art fair jury notifications (I would say which, but I don’t want to jinx them!) And, I just ordered a 5′ x 10′ extension for my tent. While this probably guarantees that I will not score any 10′ x 15′ outdoor spaces, it at least gives me an excuse to set up my stuff out in the back yard in what has become my new Rite of Spring. Setting up my display in the yard is a ridiculous amount of work, but it gets me in the right frame of mind for the coming months, works out the bugs, and helps me look like I know what I’m doing again when I get to my first real setup day.

People often ask whether artists own the tents and display things we use at art fairs. Oh, yes we do. Usually several times over, in fact. I don’t think there is an artist alive who has an art fair setup and isn’t constantly fiddling with it. It can always be easier to set up, lighter to carry, better looking, etc., etc. But it’s getting started that can get really interesting.

It’s not as if anyone can just run down to Costco and pick up a professional tent  and some nice carpet-covered display walls. Most of the time artists have to be in a few fairs before they even find out what those things are called, who makes them and where to buy them. A few artists do the research first, buy nice professional equipment at the beginning of their art fair career (probably taking out a loan to do so) and as a result spend a lot less time and money in the long run.

The vast majority probably do what I did. That is, invent their own homemade display system, spend the absolute minimum money (and maximum time) on a display at the outset, then spend that amount five times over in improvements until finally giving up and buying the nice professional display. While not an economically advisable approach, it’s not without its entertainment value. If you are mildly nuts, anyway. Just for fun, here’s the story of my own booth… Read more