Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Come, Sales, Away With Me...

It proves quite surreal to repeat the same story over and over. One gains a strange confidence and perfunctoriness in this repetition. By repeating the same story about my art repeatedly, I became both more confident in my story, more exacting in my telling it, and seem to have forgotten what I was saying, while at the same time never forgetting it. 

I noticed three types of fair-goers: the first were the ones that were more immersed in their thoughts and activities, that they paid very little attention to the contents of the booths which they were passing. There were few of these, but some did manage to pass by. The second group moved more slowly and deliberately down the aisle, their bodies facing forward while their faces were turned toward the booths. They rarely made eye contact unless greeted with a "Hello" and most often after that continued to navigate down the aisle, never stopping, eyes searching the booth until they passed the threshold of the next and repeated the procedure until something caught their attention.

The third group of people were the ones with which we had the most success. They  were similar to the second in their metered gait, but they often walked straight up to the both, their heads and bodies facing the booth. They would examine the work from afar and pause, as if waiting for a cue to engage.

Either my assistant or I would then greet the prospects and then after a moment, when we felt confident that more information would be welcome, said the following:

"The works that you're looking at are actually text."

At this point, every person who had expressed some semblance of interest showed a visible intensification of curiosity. It was almost as if a light had switched on, somewhere in their confidence. I must admit that this was highly gratifying; the notion that something that I created could generate this level of fascination. I continued the story:

"All of the visuals you see in the artwork are the exact same text as in the passages that are pinned beneath them. I have created a new way of writing Latin alphabet-based languages that I call 'Englyph,' and all of these works were created using that writing system. I created a unique set of fonts and a method for organizing the letters and words that takes something that we know quite well and makes it abstract, once again, but still readable, using the rules that I have devised."

"I called this show 'Primary, Black and White' because I limited my color palette to the primary colors, red, blue and yellow, as well as black and white. The text comes from the book, The Primary Colors, by Alexander Theroux."

Eventually, this spiel resulted in sales, of which I am very proud. Onwards and upwards.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Art Fairs Are Interesting....



After spending only one day here at Booth S189 at Artexpo New York, I've learned a lot about how they operate. It's actually possible to read the body language enough of passers-by to understand when they're interested or not. In a way, it's like meeting someone new in a "flirting" situation (when we used to do that).

I can tell by just how long a person has looked at the work to gauge whether they should be engaged further by giving them information about the work. I've also found a great way to reel in those persons who seem interested. By telling them "the work that you're looking at is actually text," it serves as a great icebreaker and piques interest. It has often succeeded in stopping some people in their tracks and encourages them to engage with the work in some way.

I also have a new found respect for the gallery owners who travel and ship and smile and stay on their feet and tough out the fairs. Not an easy task. But enlightening and fun, nonetheless.

The response to the pieces has been phenomenal, which helps me understand that I have an intriguing and novel conceptual framework, turning the language we know so well into something fresh and abstract, but ultimately with a "message" behind it.

Friday, March 25, 2011

At The Fair...



I am sitting with my personable and lovely booth assistant, here, at Artexpo, New York. It has been a true whirlwind getting to this point, and I will retroactively comment on all of the preparatory parts, in later posts. As for now, I'm posting some pictures of the booth itself.


Another Shot....

Thursday, March 10, 2011

We Have Winners....



I've been quite on the go, the last few weeks or so: A trip to New York for Art Week, at which I saw an exhaustive amount of work, as well as printing the winning pictures and ordering and retrieving frames for them. Just a moment for me to sit down, add to the blog, as well as some pictures of the framed work.

I was pleased with the results of the voting and am looking forward to the show on March 25-27 at Pier 94.