The local Art Walk at Intatto Coffee was yesterday. Length-wise it was somewhere in between a weekend festival (two or three full days) and the First Fridays Art Walk (four hours), with setup starting at 9:30AM (7AM at home, for me) and breakdown around 6PM. Daytime show in a shopping center meant plenty of casual walk-up traffic over the course of the day. Nothing like the downtown art walk, which typically has tens of thousands of disinterested people walking by in a rush every hour, but since people weren’t trying to ‘see everything’ and fight the crowds at the same time, it was easier to take a few minutes and talk to people about my books and my art. Usually people at First Fridays want me to be able to explain 8 books and 10 years’ worth of art in 30 seconds, and -oh, yeah- they didn’t bring any cash with them. This environment was somewhat more casual; people were willing to take more time and discuss the works.
Over the course of the day I sold (and signed) several books (good thing I brought them along, instead of just the art, eh?), and talked to a lot of people about the paintings I brought, and ran into a couple of old friends. Then, when I thought for sure I’d make more money from books than art at an Art Walk (which is about the opposite of my typical average sales numbers), in the last hour of the day, I sold one of my latest paintings, ‘fibonacci series #1’. Yay!
Between these actual sales and the fact that I didn’t have to pay for the privilege of setting up (well, aside from all the $$ we spent eating and drinking at Intatto over the course of the day…), it was infinitely better than First Fridays. No, seriously, I’ve never sold more than a single paperback (and usually less) at the First Fridays Art Walk. Maybe in the fall, but until and unless and in a few weeks I’ll be at Intatto again. I’ll let you know when I know more.