Today marks the beginning of the last weekend of Art Trail.
I love Art Trail. We meet the most amazing folks during these two weekends. Oftentimes these chance encounters become long term friendships. Last weekend was just fantastic. There really is nothing quite like having folks excited about being in your studio, seeing how pots come into being. It really changes how they view pots and the making process.
Here's a great Art Trail this weekend!
4 comments:
Glad to hear the Art Trail was a success!
Not only was it a success (which is really a tough thing to measure these days)... but it was our BEST year since we joined the Ithaca Art Trail over 5 years ago!
The big question is why? I think part of it is how we've become more comfortable having people throughout our studio touching EVERYTHING. Sort of like having toddlers... you gotta make sure they can touch EVERYTHING... so we did that this year, and it has made a huge difference. Much more fun for all!
That's really great news! So many potters are struggling because customers are reluctant to buy right now... That's interesting about letting people touch everything in the studio. My studio is in the same building as my gallery space. Right now, I have it set up so people can see the studio, but can't freely flow in... Maybe I should have open studio days, when the whole space will be opened up (and cleaned up and I won't be covered with clay!)...
I think our expectations this year were also a lot lower. We've never made much money doing Art Trail. In fact, probably our biggest spenders during Art Trail are folks who have no clue about the Trail. They are just out doing the WINE trail and hopping from one winery to the next, found us and figured it was a nice break from tasting vino.
We usually do a lot of special things for Art Trail, massive cleaning, lots of "wow" factor... and this year, we didnt do nearly as much. We didnt figure we would see as many people. WE WERE WRONG. It has been awesome.
The nice thing is that since we didnt stress out before the weekends, we have tons more energy to actually engage folks. That ends up making their time spent here much more focused and enjoyable!
Always a learning experience!!
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