After the Wood Coop Gallery closed down, we took our wares door to door and came upon the Arnold Mikelson Mind and Matter Gallery. Mary Mikelson felt my work worthy and accepted us into her gallery. At the same time she encouraged us to participate in her annual Festival of the Arts in July. To make a long story short we altered our summer plans, burned the midnight oil to produce a body of work large enough to enter the festival and got our display organized. As you can see from the photos it was an outdoor affair in a wonderful setting.
It was generally a poor year, with all the regular attendees complaining about low sales volume. We only sold three pieces but there were many who sold nothing. We learned a lot about presentation, what people liked and that people in fact truly admired my work. One lady had to be convinced that “Venetian Trilogy” was not glass and another lady asked “What am I looking at?”. She was confused because some looked like wood, other pieces looked like glass and she couldn’t believe that the coloured, highly figured wood hadn’t been hand painted. She meant it as a compliment and I was most grateful. We got some very good exposure, had direct offers to show my work in two other galleries and one to participate in the Arts at Darts festival as a result. Well worth the time, I would say. 
Although we didn’t sell much (times are tough) I would still encourage any artist to participate in an art festival (not a craft show) simply because of the exposure and how much you will learn.
As always, I encourage your comments and questions, so please refer to the tag line at the bottom of the article to post a comment.
Ed:
Your booth display was great. I’m glad we made the trek out there.
By the way, I just discovered your blog & I think it that so far it is looking like the best woodturning blog I’ve seen. I hope it doesn’t drag you too far from the newsletter though ;->
Regards,
Dennis
Thanks on both compliments, Dennis, and I am glad you made the treck. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be in the Circle Craft Gallery. That was good timing. No worries about getting too far from the newsletter. I putz away at this thing regularly but still have time for articles. That reminds me, now that the symposium is over I have one to finish for Canadian Biker. 🙂
Hi Ed, don’t know how recent this is. Mind and Matter Gallery is a few blocks away from my house, interesting place. I would love to have one or two pieces on display, have a few I think might work.
Derek
Hi Derek,
I’m pretty sure it’s not happening anymore. It was on it’s last legs the year we were there and the lady who runs it was getting on in years then. Maybe that was 8 years ago. You never know how things change, however. Perhaps go into the gallery when it’s open and check with them. They used to have pretty irregular hours so you’ll have to check. Good luck