Brad Sondahl on mon 6 jun 05
I went to see the art fair in Spokane yesterday associated with the
local art museum. As usual, the potters there charged 2 to 3 times what
I charge. Most of those were more carefully decorated. Most of the
artists came from west of the Cascades, both in Washington
and Oregon. This is true of all the big art fairs here. It may be
true anywhere that the good shows bring in mostly out of town artists.
If you go to the small town celebrations, you are much likelier to find
the local artists, but also generally a lower level of craftsmanship.
Spirit Lake is planning a first annual art fair, which like all art
fairs, is intended to raise money for something (in this case the
chamber of commerce). Fairs which begin altruistically to encourage
local arts grow and outgrow the local artists, resulting in the fairs
such as I mentioned at the top. As they grow, they become a self
perpetuating oligarchy, with their purpose being sustaining themselves,
at the expense of the exhibitors, who pay hefty fees to the organization
to be there, which either goes to the sponsoring organization, or just for
advertising and the hefty overhead of security, portapotties, insurance,
etc. If they don't grow and gain success, they falter and are bad for
both the sponsoring organization and the artists. I winced when I saw
the local chamber trying to start one--birth pangs of art fairs can be
pretty depressing in terms of low attendance and sales.
You can guess I'm not an avid art fair exhibitor. (did I mention it
was raining when I went to the fair?) I did buy an album of harp music
from a Seattle harpist. Few musicians have what it takes to try to hawk
their CD's at art fairs, but Philip Boulding has been doing it for 20
years or so, as I first bought a record from him about then. Of course
with the rain, and being about 30 feet from the stage with the rock
band playing, he wasn't playing his harp, only a boom box sampling.
My heart goes out to art fair exhibitors, but I'm happy not to have
to join them this year...
Brad Sondahl
--
For my pottery how-to videos, original art, music, pottery, and literature, visit my homepage
http://sondahl.com
| |
|
