Sweet work –
Parallax Art Fair 25-26 July 2015 was my first time showing in an international artist-based fair (where the artist hangs the art and works the booth instead of a gallery). It was a great time, and I learned a few things in the process that I thought I’d share-
- Bring an extra outfit for opening night. You can have a catastrophic tear issue or coffee spill that leaves you rummaging in the suitcase. I know this from experience.
- Read through the show requirements and make your shopping & packing lists well ahead of time. Get them in your scheduler. Pay attention to the details – the specific hangers Parallax required aren’t available in the states and had to be shipped from overseas.
- Practice the coinage ahead of time. It makes purchases so much easier if you can count it out correctly (and you don’t annoy the people waiting in line behind you).
- Set up social media ahead of time on a scheduler like a Hootsuite app. If you are in a different time zone than most of your fans, you can at least schedule it for when most aren’t asleep.
- Might be worth paying for some cellular data roaming ahead of time. Delete or disable apps that use data roaming (ones you won’t need while on travel).
- Bring a signup sheet – and I suggest adding a section for Comments. Some people won’t want to give you their email address, but might interact with a comment if they like your work and add it anyway. Sometimes, when someone’s stopped and looked and said, “Lovely!” or, better yet, made an insightful comment on the work, I’ll write that down myself. Some people then sign up as a result – and if not, I have that lovely comment down on paper!
- Aside from a signup sheet, have a reason for them to sign up. For me, my DIY Pouring Paint (No it’s Not Resin!) blog coming out in late August was an incentive. There was a lot of interest in the medium – it really does look like resin.
- Ask questions ahead of time. The Parallax Manager was wonderful with me, answering whatever question I had. As to questions, make sure you understand sales procedures. If they don’t explain ahead of time, ask early, and long before you start making sales. You don’t want to appear like you don’t know what you are doing.
- Especially if you are flying a long distance, go a few days early to get over jetlag before hanging and opening night. It is hard to be enthusiastic about your art when you can’t stop yawning.
- During times when the attendance is low (our Sunday was very rainy, and it didn’t pick up until later), take short breaks, explore and meet the other artists, especially those whose work rings a bell for you. Pick up their cards so that you can contact them afterwards. I met a few new friends that way – plus, if you are at all like me, I love when the show is busy and I’m constantly talking with patrons. I’m not great when it’s slow. Taking breaks to interact with others keeps me from getting antsy. Patrons can smell antsy a mile off and they don’t like it much.
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Just plain advice:
I remind myself of this at any art exhibition I participate in: It’s Not All About the Sales. It’s about contacts, handing out a ton of cards, engaging with people interested in your art. You started the art conversation by creating the work – engage in that conversation with the people that get your work. And, often, the best things happen after the show.
Follow the Flow from California to London
In 2014, California artist Linda Ryan was faced with preparing for an upcoming exhibition with her painting hand in a cast. Rather than cancel, she chose to move away from the abstract figurative work she is known for and challenged herself with creating art using gravity, flow and Liquitex Pouring Medium, to capture luminous “stopped” movement.
Ryan found the process and results so exciting that she reduced her employed hours in order to focus on her art, and is taking 20+ new pour paintings to exhibit at the Parallax Art Fair in London the last weekend of July.
“It’s a bit challenging,” says Ryan, “The medium is opaque while it’s workable. You have to have a good visual memory to recall what is on the under-layers, understand how your pigments react in the medium and with each other, and stop the movement at just the right time to create a strong composition.” But, she adds, when it works, they come alive with motion and depth. And when it doesn’t work? Ryan adds another layer, or two, or three, or sands them down and starts again.
Ryan will be traveling to London to exhibit Flow 2.0, her newest pour art, at the Parallax Art Fair at the Old Chelsea Town Hall, King’s Road, the last weekend in July 2015 and exhibits at ArtSanDiego in early November.
Ryan is an award–winning artist whose work is in collections across the States and in Europe. In 2014, Ryan received an Arts Leadership Award through her County’s Arts Commission. She has created and managed many arts events and exhibitions in the East San Francisco Bay Area, and has managed the Bothwell Arts Center, a project of the Livermore Valley Performing Arts Center, for 9 years.
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I had a bit of a fall in the Fall of 2014 and couldn’t hold a brush. This is how it ended up. High-fiving the Alien in the living room in a purple cast. That’s me in the cast, not him. I’m the one on the left..
I had a show coming up and had scheduled a bunch of painting time. And had that intensely edgy feeling that signals the need to paint. Stupid thumb.
It didn’t dawn on me that maybe this was one of those things that would change my art. I just had to get some paintings done, and they had to be good.
I’d been exploring, testing, playing and teaching using the recently introduced Liquitex Pouring Medium to make small, luminous, motion-based paintings. These were built on years of experimental play with a bunch of gels and mediums – and were the kind of resin-like finish I’d been trying to get to for years.
Time to order a bunch of cradled board from my friend at Way Up Art & Frame. Hired a young friend to gesso the boards. Ordered a couple of gallons of pouring medium. Got tarps (lots) and the largest latex gloves I could find.
It got kind of exciting.
Had to go back for the largest janitorial rubber glove I could find, split it down the side and duct-taped it together (with purple duct tape. You’ll just have to imagine it. I was too busy painting and way too into it to take pictures.)
Then I started on big squares. Man, those knocked my socks off – and were super challenging, to try and create a solid composition within a square, interrupt circular references and create places for the eye to travel along, all within the constraints of a fun but tricky medium – milky fluid that hides what is below and sort of shows what floats (the benefit of all that experimenting!!).
Cool, huh?
Intense yumminess. That sense of aliveness, being one with the paint, inside art with the art, me and the art and then it’s just the art (thanks Audrey Flack). And then the next fun part – watching them dry. And then just living with them.
Only got a little paint on the cast. Got a bunch on my tarps to strip off and give to my friend, Virginia, who uses them to make collages. More about Virginia later, you’ll love her.
And later, I’ll post more about the method, give you a little DIY tutorial and more about following the flow … catch up a little on my belated blogging.
The takeaway here is – sometimes things that are painful on the surface help define us, show us a new path. Open a new door.
At least, that’s my takeaway….walking through the open doors….following the flow.
-linda
lindaryanart.com 
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