Monday, March 3, 2008

ArtSmart 2008 - An Artists' Conference

The Missouri Artisan Association, dba The Best of Missouri Hands , held their annual conference this past weekend. The conference is called ArtSmart and the theme for 2008 was Stayin' Alive. It was held here at the Lake this year and as a newly-juried artist, I decided to go and hopefully learn a lot more about this crazy business called art and doing well enough to "stay alive" in the art business.

One tremendous advantage at the Conference is being able to get quality, professional pictures taken of your art at a greatly reduced rate. With so many artists applying for the shows now, professional pictures are a must if you want a shot at getting juried in. So Terrie and I took four of my best pieces and lo and behold, we sold one of them at the show! We also learned a lot about the jurying process at one of the break-out sessions.

We would like to expand the wholesale side of our business, and we learned a lot about about wholesale shows, wholesale pricing, and a lot of other great tips at the break-out session covering this topic. Another session I attended gave great advice on writing and distributing press releases and how to develop a good ad. And there was a session, facilitated by an art show promoter, on what promoters look for when considering artists for their shows. We probably would have learned a lot more on the second day, but unfortunately we couldn't be there on Sunday.

I also learned that as a Juried Artist of BOMH, I have my own page on their website. Check it out!

All in all it was time and money well spent and I wish I could have taken advantage of both days!

Hummingbird fact for today: Because of their small size and daring acrobatics, hummingbirds are rarely caught by predator birds.

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