Carlyle Art and Wine Festival

Last weekend was so much fun.

I shared a booth with Cheryl Roberts. We quickly found out that we both probably had enough work to fill a booth by ourselves. The weather was perfect and the music was great. I can not wait until next year.  The traveling was tiring, but getting to see my family both during and away from the festival, gave me enough energy to keep going.

I didn’t sell any original painting, but I am less disappointed than I thought I would be. I considered lowering my prices the second day, but I could not bring myself to do it.  Painting is my profession and I have a degree. It’s not a hobby. I do not think my prices were too high for my paintings, just the location. A lot of people haggled or said they couldn’t afford something that was $100.  That’s also why I brought prints and postcards.  If someone loves a painting enough, but they can’t afford it, I want them to be able to enjoy it anyway. It’s also why I offer all of my paintings on any of the products at my cafe press shop.

I handed out all of the business cards that I brought and I received 17 new names for my mailing list.  I also had a lot of great feed back from other artists that came to enjoy the festival. Of course there were some people that balked at the price or made a snide comment here and there, but it was pretty rare and much less than the positive feed back.

Cheryl does a lot of abstract work. I thought we complimented each other pretty well and we didn’t have to worry about competing with each other’s sales because we were so different.
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I can not wait to do the festival again next year. I am thinking about adding two or three more during the summer.

I am currently cataloging all my paintings and I am about to add new images to my American Frame shop. I think before the night is over I will be updating the images on my business cards as well.

Note: Originally posted on 9/17/09 at blog.limitedpalette.com