post Celebration post

Our last show of the year is DONE. The next events will happen at home in our own studio. No packing, no traveling, just tidying up the home gallery. The Celebration of Seagrove Potters is the big event of the year here. We are still the new kids on the block, and the show is not our best for sales. This year we made about the same amount of money as last year... in a smaller booth that was much easier to set up and tear down. Booths are assigned by the luck of the draw, and we were very lucky to get a corner right at the entrance. Everyone had to pass by us at least twice!
We helped our neighbor Phil pack up his van and we were home mixing  cosmopolitans at 7:00 pm!

 We have found that being at this show also brings many collectors to our shop throughout the year. Jeff and I are looking forward to the holiday shopping season!

recovering...

Jeff and I have survived another outdoor show. I wanted to post some photos sooner, but I woke up with a stomach bug on Monday and spent the day napping on the sofa. Tuesday, I took things slow.

We had great weather for Festival in the Park, bright sunny days and not too warm. 

 Our booth location was shady and we backed up to the trees, which meant we could store boxes and stock behind us without anyone seeing the clutter. Our booth walls are set up so we have space to exit from the rear and reach shelving that we have for extra stock. The booth to our left was a no show, so it was nice to have the extra space when setting up and breaking down.

When we were in NH in August, our host Lou, gave us four empty oxygen cylinders (he is a respiratory therapist). Jeff filled them with sand and screwed an eye bolt into the top. A great alternative to the cement blocks we were using. They blend in with the tent and tuck in out of the way.

Freedom Park in Charlotte is beautiful. The booths are set up along a walkway that goes around the small lake.

 The crowds were thick everyday. Sometimes it was hard to even walk around. Jeff forewarned me that the last time he did this show people were not buying on Friday night. He was right... we had one sale.

 Sales were slow on Saturday and I was starting to get really irritated with the festival goers questions. I lost count of how many people asked, "Did you make this stuff?", or the best one... "What do you call this?". If we got a dollar for every "nice work" or ""nice booth" comment we would have needed suitcase to take our money home in.

 As you can see in the photo above, our neighbor was a "make a candle" guy, and next to him was face painting. Unfortunately, on our side of the lake they mixed these types of vendors in with the craftsmen. The candle guy's booth was busy all weekend with kids waiting in line to make a candle in a jar or wine glass. We also had the kettle corn guy a few booths down. Sometimes the line snaked all the way down to us. Jeff has a friend in NH who is a glass artist and a few years ago he bought a kettle corn set up and started doing fairs. He said when he opens up for the day everyone says "Yay, the kettle corn guy is here!". In all his years selling his glass art, no one ever said "Yay, the glass guy is here!".
The food vendors make way more money than the artists.

Thankfully, Sunday redeemed itself. Many of the people who visited on Saturday, returned and bought something. We actually came home with money in our pocket. The next show we do will be an easier, one day show and we will be using a simple booth set up with covered tables and my abstracta unit. I sometimes question whether a fancy booth makes a difference in sales or not. I would like to know other artists thoughts on this.

A well deserved treat after a tiring weekend... good sake, Asian dumplings and spring rolls

... and now it's time to get back to work.

adding a little color

last fall after the Celebration of Seagrove Potters, we decided to put a portion of our booth into our gallery so that we have a display area with clean lines. displaying work in a log cabin can be challenging. 

we had to dismantle the gallery walls a few weeks ago because we needed the panels to take to the NH show. after spending a week looking at different booths, we decided it was time for a change. the last two days have been spent prepping and painting all the components...

the walls were black and white before... now we are this green and cream color.

the pedestals are two shades of an earthy color... all the colors were from Martha Stewart's "Potters Clay" collection... how fitting is that?! i took this picture in the evening so it is sort of dark.

these are the panels that snap into the Abstracta system... we painted one side the green and the other the cream color. this will give us the option of flipping them to either side so that the shelf will compliment the pots that are on it.

a friend of jeff's, who has retired from the doing shows, offered us some more booth panels (they are hollow core doors). the next time we are in NH we will bring them back with us. we will get them painted in our new colors and then we won't have to disassemble our gallery to go to shows.

today we should get everything reassembled and i will take some after pics.

Booth set up

a few people have asked about our booth set up at Sunapee so i figured i would post some pictures. 

the League of NH Craftsmen sends a jury out to score your booth. my understanding is that your booth score dictates how high up on the list you are for choosing your preferred space for the following year. there are also awards given out for the best booths.

sometimes Jeff has done a carpet, some craftsmen have wood floors that they build on site. we wanted to keep it easy this year so we went with the grass.

the booth is set up so that we can walk behind and have storage space, out of view, between us and the booth behind us... it got messier as the days passed so it's a good thing it was out of view!

Jeff has typically left the booth open in the evening. the fair has very good security. many craftsmen cover the front with a tarp at the end of the day but a few people were using this deer netting that you see above. our booth neighbor Jennifer Mitchell gave us a length of it. it really is only meant to stop people from wandering in after hours and knocking things over. we didn't use it every day because we thought it was a pain. every time we got it strung up we realized we forgot something inside!
more pictures of demo booths in upcoming posts. today we are off to run errands and visit a new smokeless wood kiln that was recently built here in NH... happy saturday y'all!

recovering from the celebration...

i have been an absent blogger the past few days... right after the celebration i came down with a stomach bug, therefore monday was a total loss.  here are a few pictures from the big show...

Jeff chatting with our booth neighbor, Eck McCanless of Dover Pottery

booth shot... jeff caught me texting my daughter

i sold the vase that had our flower arrangement in it... at least the buyer got to see how well Jeff's pitchers pour!

this covered oval came back to the gallery with us... it will get posted on etsy this week

a glance down the aisle on Sunday... on Saturday this aisle was jam packed with shoppers!

...back to work now.  we are COMPLETELY  rearranging our gallery today and putting up some white lights for the holidays.  we are open this weekend so if you are in the Seagrove area please stop in.