art party

The RISD Art Sale last weekend was my very first, and it was kind of exactly what I expected, plus physical and emotional exhaustion. And trying to look engaging but not over-eager. That's a facial expression I'm going to have to work at for next time. IF there is a next time. I don't know how people do this for a living.

My mantra gearing up for this event was that it was all a learning experience: It doesn't matter if I break even, I'm LEARNING! It doesn't matter if I spend too much money on prints, and varnish my paintings at the eleventh hour, and change my mind a hundred times about what I'm going to hang... I'm LEARNING.

It was overcast all day and a little misty, but it never rained outright, so there was that to be grateful for.

I shared a table with my friend Elizabeth, who is the real RISD alum, and the maker of these great ceramic rhino heads. I decided to show my five remaining kami kami pieces, from the show I did in Kyoto in 2007.

 

I was mainly there to drum up more business for the portrait project, so I made postcards to advertise and created a portfolio of the pieces I've done so far. Maybe a dozen people took a card... not as many as I'd hoped, but better than none. I sold a few prints, and an original mixed media painting, so it was not a total loss.

I think we had some overcrowding issues at the table... Elizabeth's daughter was showing some of her prints, too, and it made our space a little busy. There's too much to look at and no central theme. See? I'm LEARNING.

 

People saw the mints, though. Those were gone by the end of the day.

Now I'm going to go hawk some cheap prints on Etsy...

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