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Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa.  Yup, that Jefferson.  The one about an hour northwest of Des Moines, close enough so that it was perfectly logical to drive in and spend the day, just to review an art show that I was not exhibiting in.

And so, here we are:  a review.

Saturday, 1PM.  Husband and I park the car at the nearest parking ramp and head towards the southeast corner of the festival.  First impression:  food court.

We instantly ask the question:  "why do we need this massive a food court in an area of Des Moines replete with excellent cafes and restaurants?"  Later we realize there are TWO food courts.  Hmmmm....

As we round the corner from Locust onto 15th, there is the green space with the "Interactive Arts Activities".  Please insert "sponsor booths" at your convenience.  Way more than a few.

Now let's talk art.  We stopped and looked at every booth, except for jewelry  (sorry y'all) and it did not take us long to notice something.

Packages.   All seven of them.  We were there four-ish hours, and saw seven packages of note.  Yes, again we are ignoring the jewelers - but this time, because as everyone knows, jewelry packages get tucked into a pocket or purse, and just aren't all that visible carrying around. But let's get back to my point:  visible packages:  seven (7).  Yes, I know we were only there for four-ish of the 31 hours of the event.  But do the math, and we sincerely hope that the hours we weren't there were a lot more productive.  (math at the 7/4 rate equals 54.25 packages for the festival)  Artists please utter in unison:  ouch.

Okay, enough rant.  Let's dissect.  If you click on the festival map, there's a legend in the lower left corner to help you find things.   I cut out the restrooms/parking/firstaid for you.   At your leisure, buzz down the rest of the list, and note the things that will involve visitors time. Also please note that none of the performance stages were included in the legend.

Arts Festival Shop

ATM

Beer & Wine

Food Vendors

Information Booth

Interactive Arts Activities

Artist Village

Soda & Water

Hy-Vee Recycling Station

West Food Court

Interactive Sculpture Project

DMAF Sculpture Garden

Emerging Iowa Artists Demo

Nurturing a Student’s Vision

East Food Court

T-Shirt Painting

Artists, who wants to be the first to ask:  are we exhibiting/selling art, or are we entertaining the masses for the weekend?

And I'm not out to get Des Moines, I like Des Moines.  But they are a convenient example, an example of art festivals in general, and the now present trend of "how can we entertain them?"  Attract the populace?  Get that top ten rating?  Be an award winning event?  Because everybody knows you are not an award winning event if you don't draw a crowd.

 - This statement is from the 2013 artist prospectus:

DMAF is a show dedicated to the highest standards and works diligently to maintain a positive environment for artists and their clients.

 - And this statement is from the DMAF mission statement:

We strive to educate, inspire and engage our audience toward a heightened appreciation of visual and other forms of art.

I contend that art festival directors all over, not just Des Moines, are telling the artists one thing, and the patrons another.  I believe in the back of their minds, the festival directors know that they wouldn't have much of a festival if all the willing artists and their little white tents didn't show up.  And they think if they get the crowd, all's well.  The crowd I saw was not buying art.  I know, I know, I was only there four hours.  But, still, they weren't buying art.

Possibly all the great art purchases were made at 5:07 on Friday, and 1:31 on Sunday.  And I know we will hear from an artist who made thousands of dollars on the weekend - but I didn't see it.   And I witnessed, all the rest were not.

So, what to do, what to do?  

1.  Personally, individually, artists can stop following the carrot on the stick - I had a lot of empathy for the woman who drove 900 miles from the south to help entertain a crowd that wasn't buying.

2.  As groups of artists, we need to share with show directors that the size of the crowd is not nearly as important as the intent of the crowd. A carnival atmosphere discourages serious art buyers.  Competing for sidewalk space with slushy sipping toddlers, and taco dribbling cell phone texters is not their gig.

Personal note:  Omaha, I crossed you off my jury list this year because of that Nebraska Lottery sponsor roulette wheel that cluttered your event with non art atmosphere for the past several.  

Are we entertainment, or are we showing and selling our art?  You tell me.

And thanks for reading.  :)

Cooper

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa.

Let's talk about websites for a minute, shall we?  I just came here to write this, straight from someone else's. Yes, that someone else is also an artist.  Also a writer of books.  In fact, I read a brief article about his recently published book on painting technique, and I was encouraged to look at his paintings to see if I appreciated his painting style enough to buy the book.

At this point in time, I am sincerely hoping someone else put his website together for him, because if he designed the website AND the book, the book is going to be a nightmare.

Hoops.  Front page of his website:  15 or 20 thumbnail images of paintings with a blue film over them, with one painting image clear.  Off to the right, a menu bar of groups of paintings - landscapes, still lifes, figures, etc.  So I guess the website visitor is supposed to click on the menu bar item of interest, whereupon the little opening through the blue film moves to the image subject of your choice, and then you get an option button of "more".  

Am I annoying you yet??  You should have been there.

But wait.  There is more.  The blue film is light enough to see through, somewhat.  I wanted to see the painting in the middle row, 5 spaces to the right.  What category was it in?  Landscapes, figurative, action?  Who knows?  Not me.  I never found the right category to "illuminate" or remove the blue film from that painting.  And I don't give up easily.  But when annoyed....

Hoops.  Don't make your website visitors jump through them.  It's why I have a FASO website.  Clean, concise, easy to navigate.

Think about this:  if the power goes off in the middle of the night, can you walk from your bedroom to the kitchen without running into something?  And if you have a guest at your house that night the power goes off, would they be able to make it  to the kitchen unscathed?  I will venture a "yes" to the first part, and a "no" to the second.  Knowing something like the back of your hand, plays a big part in the art of navigation.

If you insist on a website with "stuff" on the front page, you know, random moving parts, clever little windows, optical chases across the page, do yourself (and your art sales) a favor.  Enlist the services of a couple of strangers to your website, and carefully consider their thoughts and actions.  Getting to the kitchen (paintings) might be easy for you, but what about your visitor?  Does he have to crash into the table?  Sideswipe a chair?  Sit down in the middle of the floor in dismay, because he sincerely doubts he's ever going to get there???  To the kitchen?   (er, I mean, paintings?)

Btw, call me dubious, but I'm holding off on the order for that book.  Thought you'd like to know.

Later, Cooper

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa, where I have enjoyed reading an article and the resulting comments over at Fine Art Views.  It's got that crazy wonderful title:

Defining Art: This is not art... or is it? Why does it matter?

Written by Brian Sherwin, it's garnered a heap of interesting comments.  The fun part is, we all know the question will never be answered.  Is it because art is so personal?  That's actually good news, right?

Anyway, the direction of this blog post here from the Cooper studio, is to pick up a piece of thought, mentioned lightly in the comments on Sherwin's article, regarding the written word about art.  Sometimes it comes in the form of an artist statement, sometimes in the form of an art critic's review, sometimes a gallery curator's analysis.  Whatever.  It's all about the art.  Or is it???

I read an artist statement while I was at Old Town Art Fair in Chicago, a couple of weekends ago.  The artist was obviously in the wrong business - she should be writing science fiction.  Her written word, the artist statement, had way more creativity going on than her artwork. And isn't that often the way it goes?  When it seems like there's not much happening with the painting/sculpture/installation/whatever, someone get's really creative, outlandishly creative, with the words that tell us why the piece is so important.  And then we are supposed to believe.

A comment to the above mentioned Fine Art Views article, spoke of the importance of knowing the setting the artist created in, possible historical references, that sort of thing.  Yup.  That makes sense.  To tell the viewer what inspired the artist to create the piece, hey, that's good, too.

For the artist to tell me in her printed artist statement that she "creates emptiness for the viewer's soul to rest and heal in", let me just say that I came away from the experience, not rested, but highly annoyed.   Please, don't insult me with your nonsense.  

And absolutely do not tell me how I'm going to react to your creation.  I can figure that out on my own. 

When you write an artist statement for me, give me truth.  If you are reviewing an artist's work, I might be interested in how it affected you, but don't tell me what it does for me.

Art is personal - we respond individually.  If it takes a bunch of wordy hype to make your realize the importance of a painting, then it's probably not the painting for you.

Thanks for stopping by.

Later, Cooper

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa.

I was at Old Town Art Fair in Chicago this past weekend, and a good time was had by all, for sure.  But something happened that I'd like to tell you about, in a minute or so.

It's been written about before.  What to do when an art fair patron tries to get a better deal.  Artists have shared how they handle those folks. And there's almost always a sub-sentence about the discount an artist sometimes gives, if a patron is seeking to purchase two or more paintings at once.  It does seem like an okay thing to do, considering.

So, at the Old Town Art Fair, when I had a person looking to do just that, I mentioned that I usually do a 10% discount when two or more paintings are purchased at once.  They were not large in size or dollar value, but she took three, so okay.

Fast forward to getting back to the Jefferson casa, and a few minutes on the internet.  Surely other artists get curious too?  Sometimes we just like to know a little bit more about our folks.  She really wasn't stretching her budget at all to buy three.  In fact, I now feel a little silly offering a 10% discount.  I'm guessing it was pocket change to her.

But the question I want to ask is, how much are we held back when we underestimate our clients?  And should we be estimating at all?  Is it better to assume that every person who looks our way and slows for a minute is our next fan?  We read that expendable income is scarce, and we put that aura on our people.  Could that be a mistake?  A wrong turn?  Yup, I'm wondering.

And then next time, we're going to talk about the 100% nonsense at Old Town Art Fair.  Stay tuned - it was pretty crazy.

Later, Cooper

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa.

Did you know that the upper tier art shows keep a "wait list"?  That list of a few artists who made it almost all the way through, to exhibitor status, but stopped just shy of a point or two.  Yours truly would be one of those folk, at Chicago's Old Town Art Fair's jury a couple of months ago.  Sometimes they need that substitute person, usually not.

But I got the call from Joan yesterday.  The wait list call.  And so our bags are packed.  More importantly, the paintings are packed. 

Hope to see you there.  Here are the details copied over from my schedule page:

Thanks for stopping by!  Hey:  now and this weekend!

Cooper