My First Art Show
I participated in my first art show.
It felt like what I imagine a coming-out party to feel like. To introduce this version of you to your loved ones, and they smile and celebrate you in love. This coming out party is the one where they smile because they’ve always known this to be who you are, but were just waiting for you to accept and own it.
For me, art will always be there. It’s an old childhood friend that never lost touch which is why art was not the focus this weekend. Art is incredibly subjective. It’s meant to give us something to talk about and relate to, so is it really art if there’s a beginning and end? Is it really art if everyone likes it? Is it really art if it’s not an extension of the evergreen story or the artists themselves? I ask these questions hoping to give you a push to do the “thing”.
You know what thing I’m referring to. Anything we are brave enough to conjure does not stop at inception, so even though the celebration of milestones is vital, it’s important to note that the “thing” doesn’t stop once the party is over. That’s why I say the art will always be there, no matter if stays in the sketchbook buried at the back of my closet or displayed in a private, high-scale gallery for people to gawk at. Deciding that I wanted to share my art with others as well as having my community share this with me were the first steps to giving my “thing” legs.
So here are my 2 takeaways:
You do not have to do all the things.
I wanted to do all the things. I’m not sure why I thought I had to have stickers, journals, quality prints of all my originals, completed series to display, etc. at my first vending booth to be considered legit. I put an incredible amount of pressure on myself, which stopped me from being excited about the experience. Three days before the show, I received in meditation to just show up with what I had. When setting up for the show, I realized I had actually done way too much, and everything I had was more than enough.
The artist in the booth next to me, Amy @amytoday, had been doing this for the past five years and had some really great advice. Through the years she found that prints sell the best, so she has prints on hand and one or two original paintings for display. “I’m not bringing the originals back and forth like that”, which made sense. She had canvas duplicates of her most popular painting, and just overall kept things simple. She gave me her suggestion on where to get good quality canvas prints for a good price and was just overall a warm spirit. 10/10 interaction.
2. What I deemed unsellable and not worthy of being on the display table, sold first.
Long story short, I painted this couple with a yellow background and absolutely hated it. I even made a TikTok about the paintings highlighting how done is better than perfect, with the sound “a win is a win”. What do you know, those were the only original paintings to sell
After getting my 16” x 20” prints of my Oya and Serena Williams paintings, I was heavily disappointed in the quality. I became annoyingly aware that I needed to sharpen my photo editing skills and thought that the lighting was too bad to sell. There were only 6 and still in my car from when I picked them up, so I brought them inside while setting up my display table. What do you know x2, towards the end of the show when I pulled out the prints to start cleaning up, people saw them and immediately wanted one. I even got a scolding from my friends for not bringing them out earlier. Another artist friend, Kamon @kamonsherriff, put me on game and let me know that the hardest part of creating a print, especially from a 3D painting, is getting it flat so everything looks even. Everything else can be finessed. This was backed up by Amy, who showed me how she corrected one of her prints with some glitter glue to add a pop effect.
So I’m learning to not overthink things - even if YOU don’t believe it’s your best work, give the people something to talk about. We can be so critical of our work because it takes hard work to pull an idea from the ethers into the physical realm, not realizing others enjoy it because it’s simply something only we could have created.
I pray everyone deciding to share a part of themselves is embraced with 1000x the love and support as I received this weekend.
Now comes the work.
Declaring something is followed by creating routine, community and goals to honor that declaration. We must give our declarations legs so they can walk, run and eventually fly. The great thing about community is the feedback, so I’m excited about the new projects that were inspired from this love affair of a weekend.
Oh to be young, Black, and creative.