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June 22, 2016 by Kat

You just never know…

…what is going to happen at an art fair.

Will there be sun, rain, wind? Will the people show up, and will they like my stuff? Will I meet someone interesting?

Actually, for that last one, I think the answer is always “yes.” I always meet interesting people. 

And now I’ve met someone famous too! 


My travel hero, Rick Steves, stopped by my booth at the Edmonds Arts Festival this weekend. We traveled all over Europe with his books when we lived in Italy, so it was great to meet him in person and to say thank you. I was an embarrassingly gushing fangirl, but I had to ask for a picture. My husband and son were jealous! 

This was a fair of a lot of firsts, and not just meeting a celebrity. It was my first time out of state, to Washington, and the farthest I’ve gone for a fair. It was the first time I’ve driven my husband’s truck, since my Jetta Sportwagon was totaled in January. First time collecting tax (Oregon has no sales tax). First time using AirBnB. 

And you know what? For all the firsts, it all went great. It was wonderful to get back out there and share my art with a new group of people. I met some really wonderful people, some who’ve participated in the Liberate Your Art swap or have met online before, some who were ready to learn iPhone photography, some who just wanted my art on their wall. 

Here’s my booth this year:


The banner and books on display are new, otherwise pretty much the same display as last year. What you can’t see is a new inventory control system I figured out this winter, complete with bar codes for easy check out, all run with my iPhone. It saved me soooo much time figuring out what sold and what I need to replace before my next show! Very happy with it.

Next art fair is this weekend: Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts!

Will I see you there?

Filed Under: The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: art fair, edmonds, Washington

May 6, 2016 by Kat

Coming up on Art Fair Season

My studio is a disaster right now, covered in paper, mats, and frames. I’ve just received my all new, redesigned promo postcards and other supplies have been arriving regularly in the mail. That can only mean one thing — we are coming up on art fair season! 


This is always am exciting time of year, full of anticipation. Waiting to see which art fairs I get into. Implementing changes to make things run smoother for me. Wondering which new art my patrons will like. I can never predict, and it’s just fun to get out and interact around my art.

Here are my committed art fairs for the 2016 year. I hope to see you at one of these!

Edmonds Arts Festival
June 17 – 19
700 Main Street
Edmonds, WA

Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts
June 24 – 26
George Rogers Park
Lake Oswego, OR

Salem Art Fair & Festival
July 15 – 17
Bush’s Pasture Park
Salem, OR

Corvallis Art Guild Clothesline Sale of Art
August 6
Benton County Courthouse Lawn
Corvallis, OR

Corvallis Fall Festival
September 24 – 25
Central Park
Corvallis, OR

Philomath Open Studios Tour
October 22, 23, 29, 30
My Studio
Corvallis, OR

I’m waitlisted for several fairs, so I may add a fair or two mid-season. Stay tuned.

Now, back to the preparations… Want to come help mat some prints?

Filed Under: The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: art fair, Oregon, Washington

June 26, 2015 by Kat

Going to Market

Do you feel uncomfortable with the idea of marketing and selling your art? If so, you are not alone. For a long time I was uncomfortable with everything around marketing and selling my art. In my mind, “marketing” was equated with someone who wouldn’t stop talking about what they were selling, and “sales” equated with a pushy salesperson who just won’t take no for an answer. But you know what? There are lots of other ways to market and sell, and there is nothing inherently wrong with selling your art.

In fact, there are a lot of wonderful things about selling your art… You connect with other people. You make them happy. You learn and grow. The beauty of selling art is that no one buys art because they HAVE to; they buy it because it makes them feel good. So when you get to the right people for your art, you have this fantastic connection that you and they wouldn’t have had otherwise, and you don’t have to push anyone to buy. They just do, because they want the feeling the art brings them.

It’s taken time, but I no longer feel “icky” about marketing and selling my art. I’ve found ways to share what I do that work for me. One of those ways is to take my art to places people are looking for it: Art Fairs and now, a shop on Etsy.

Kat-Sloma-Photography-111534

I’ll be at an art fair this weekend, Lake Oswego Art in the Park, from Friday through Sunday. I love the interaction that art fairs bring. What other way can you get a whole bunch of your work in front of a whole bunch of people, and then be there to talk with them in person about it? I’m learning to talk about my art, how I do it, what I love about it. I’m learning to engage people and ask them what they like about it, what connects for them. I learn more about them, and I learn more about myself. And, along the way, I sell some art! People hang it on the wall, they send a card with my art on it to connect with someone else, it’s all good.

And if people don’t like my art? They can walk on by. There are no hard feelings from me.

Etsy-Shop

Last weekend I also opened an Etsy shop, you can find me here. I chose Etsy because I want to be where people are looking for art. Sure, I’ll have to do marketing of my shop personally, as well as learn how to best utilize the Etsy platform, but at least I’m out there where the people are looking. I have the chance to connect with people, and maybe make someone happy to have a piece of my art on their wall. If you have time… Stop by, check out the shop and become a follower. I’ll be adding new items regularly, once I get into a groove.

If I love creating my art and I love sharing my art, why in the world shouldn’t I sell my art? There is nothing wrong with making money from something you love doing, especially when you make other people happy along the way.

I’ll see you at the market!

Filed Under: The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: art fair, etsy shop, marketing art, selling art

May 29, 2015 by Kat

Looking for Art in Oregon? Got you Covered…

Oregon is wonderful in the summer. Sunny days, cool nights, low humidity, few bugs. And lots of art! Last week I finalized my art fair schedule so I can finally share it here with you. I’d love to meet you at an art fair this summer, share my work (it looks even better in person), and chat about art, photography, creativity… or life in general. Mark your calendars!

KatSloma_2015NewWotk_Postcard_Front

Lake Oswego Art in the Park
June 26 – 28
George Rogers Park, Lake Oswego, OR
More Info

Salem Art Fair & Festival
July 17 – 19
Bush’s Pasture Park, Salem, OR
More Info

54th Annual Clothesline Sale of Art
August 1
Benton County Courthouse, Corvallis, OR
More Info

Northwest Art & Air Festival
August 21 – 23
Timber Linn Park, Albany, OR
More Info

Corvallis Fall Festival
September 26 – 27
Central Park, Corvallis, OR
More Info

Philomath Open Studios Tour
October 24, 25, 31 and November 1
My Studio, Corvallis, OR
More Info

Kat-Sloma-Photography-5093

You can always see a current listing of my events and workshops on the calendar on my website. Fall workshop dates are posted now too!

PS – If you’d like to get a copy of my 2015 schedule postcard (shown at the top of the post), email me your address. I’ll add you to the list!

Filed Under: The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: Albany, art fair, Corvallis, Lake Oswego, Oregon, Salem

March 31, 2015 by Kat

Something from Nothing

My studio is filled with prints right now as I start to get ready for art fair season. Seeing this abundance of imagery, I find myself in awe of the artistic process. Of how we can create something wholly new from seemingly nothing.

 

Think about how amazing this is…

I walk through my daily life. On occasion, I am aware enough of my surroundings to stop and notice something interesting. I pull out my camera, frame an image or two, and then move on.

Later, I edit the images, working with the raw material to alter mood and message. I print, finish, frame, and hang on the wall.

From almost nothing, a momentary observation, to something real and tangible on the wall of my home. Or, even better, someone else’s home. I take the makings of my ordinary life and transform it into something I can share. Something that other people can and do choose to have in their space.

  

How lucky am I, to be able to do this? How lucky are we all, that we have art to show us the extraordinary in the ordinary? I am amazed, humbled, and grateful to be part of the process. 

If you haven’t printed your work lately, or finished and framed a piece to hang on the wall, I encourage you to do so. Finish the process of creating something from nothing. Become a piece of the world that gets observed as part of daily life, fueling even more creation of art.

You won’t regret it.

Filed Under: The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: art fair, artistic process, creativity

November 20, 2014 by Kat

Lessons from my First Year in Art Fairs

IMG_3687.JPG

My first “art fair” season wrapped up with the close of Philomath Open Studios a couple of weeks ago. You might think I would have a couple of months of downtime, but no, it’s actually time to start applying for art fairs for next year. It is a break from preparing work, but it’s not a break from the business of it.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been taking stock of this year of events and summarizing what I’ve learned. If you are just getting in to this world, you might be interested too…

On Space

I always thought if I could get more of my work together in front of people, if they could really see a range of what I create, I could connect to an audience and my sales would be better. That proved to be true. A 10×10 booth is a fantastic way to show off enough work to catch the eyes of the people who might love it. For the events where I didn’t have a booth and didn’t have as much space to show, my sales weren’t as good. There are definitely other factors playing into it than space, but I believe having a cohesive space really helps.

I agonized at the beginning about whether or not to spend the money on the booth I really wanted, because it was a big investment and a risk. I am so very glad I did! The tent and display worked beautifully, looked professional and met my needs. I can set it up and take it down by myself, one of my main criteria, yet it’s sturdy and weatherproof enough I don’t have to worry about the safety of my work.

Now that I’ve made this investment, in future years I can play around with my display knowing I’ve got a solid framework to design around. I also know that the booth, this space that is all mine, is one of my best allies in selling my work. It’s my personal gallery. I need to figure out the best use of the space for presenting my work.

On Inventory

Managing that much work — at least 24 large framed pieces, at least 100 matted prints and hundreds of greeting cards for every show — gave me the opportunity to learn a few things about managing inventory.

First, I learned that I need to ruthlessly standardize on sizes. I had mostly square pieces but threw in a few rectangular ones too. Since I have at least three sizes of each shape (framed, large matted and small matted), it’s twice the work to find solutions for storage, transport, packaging and display. It would so much easier to standardize on one format and display them well. Next year, I will focus on square only, which is my primary format, and leave the rectangles at home.

Second, keeping an inventory is vital. My system used simple tables in an excel spreadsheet which listed my stock for each image in each size. I wasn’t able to track exactly which images/sizes sold as I went along, things got too hectic in the booth, so I would do a quick inventory of remaining work at the end of a show. From there I could analyze how much, what format, and which images sold for each show and for the year.

Being able to look at which images sold the best was huge. Now I know my best sellers, which I want to always have in stock, plus extras in my back stock. There are some images which will sell out in every format in every show. I also know which images will not sell in any format. It’s eye opening to get a view of my work this way. Some of my favorite images didn’t sell at all! But no matter how much I love them, there’s no point in dragging the artwork around with me in the future, just for my own edification. I will ruthlessly prune the list of works I showed this year, to make room for new pieces. Thankfully, my tracking tells me which to cut and it’s not a gut decision.

You might ask, has knowing what sells influenced what I create? No, not yet. I create what I create, and then I see what happens with it. I’m not so sophisticated to be able to create a specific type of work.

On Connection

My art business is a connected system, between the fairs, classes and writing, and everything works together to form a cohesive whole. By doing art fairs, I was able to fill more spaces in my workshops. By doing workshops, I get people interested in my art and following my writing. Once I have my book published, I can see that’s going to feed into the fairs and workshops and vice versa.

I didn’t really expect the synergy between all of these different aspects of my business, but now that I’m in it, it makes sense. All of these things are connected to my art. And when other people connect in to one aspect, they are exposed to the rest. It’s an interconnected system.

So the best thing this year for promoting workshops and increasing attendance? Yeah, art fairs. Who knew.

There is one other aspect about connection to comment on here… The selling of art is really about connection. I don’t mean “connections,” as in who you know, although that can play into it too. I mean human connection, one person to another. If people connect with me about my art, we start to form a relationship and they get to know me a little, and that makes the art they already like more meaningful. I want to do things which increase this connection.

So I’ve learned how connection matters, in more ways than one.

What’s next?

I’m taking what I learned and looking at what I want to do next year. Really thinking about how I want to proceed, how I want to change things up, and what I want to keep. It’s a grand experiment, which suits me just fine. I like the idea of trying new things, learning and improving every year.

It was a successful year for me. Not just in the sales, but in the knowledge I’ve gained. I tried something new and learned from it.

It’s time to get those applications for next year in. I hope to see you at an art fair next summer.

Filed Under: The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: art fair, autumn, painterly

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