First off, I wish to thank all of you who helped pull together this event. This being the first time for this show my expectations ranged from just meeting people to seeing members sell their work.
I am overjoyed to share that over the run of the show there were more than 30 people who identified as artists and expressed an interest in coming to a meeting and potentially joining our group. Being able to meet these artists who were looking for others and just wanting to belong made the days past very quickly. The show organizers shared that they had numerous people express very positive views on our being there too. I had several show exhibitors approach me and request that we be sure to participate next year too.
I was not as optimistic about the selling opportunities for many reasons. Most of them centered on not being familiar who is attending and if they actually would be looking for art. I was very pleasantly surprised when three works did sell.
Looking forward what we have now is a data point or an understanding of the potential for the show. Participating next year will give us a line and the third year will give us a trend. Work is in progress now for understanding what went well, what did not go so well and how to improve both our experience and the experience of the audience.
In closing I wish to share my heartfelt appreciation for everyone who volunteered to help with the setup, manning the booth, moving the works and so much more. I would not have been able to accomplish this without the support of all of you, Carole Murphy, Andy and Russ Ford.