My First Art Fair
Last year, 2020 marked a change in everyone’s life. It marked me in so many different ways; it made me see life with a different perspective. Let me tell you more about it.
I’ve painted my “whole life”, that is since I can remember. I’ve talked about my story to different people explaining how my mom made me realize that I was only 4 years old when I decided I wanted to begin painting lessons rather than ballet. I owe her big, not only because she heard me, but because she believed in me. She has always supported me and now that I am a mom, I can tell how we see different talents in each one of our kids.
So, long story short…she’s always been my biggest supporter and admirer and I owe her big time.
Fast forward to last year 2020, I thought I was ready to take a serious Business for Creatives Workshop to get back to my dream of pursuing my Art Life. I asked my husband for a “loan” to pay for my workshop and he did. I was pumped and ready to go, but what happened next? COVID =(
He was sent home from his office and took over my home studio space, my girls were sent home and invaded every corner of my dining and living room for homeschool, and I had a crawling baby beginning to walk over everything around the house. It became chaotic and stressful. Nevertheless, I decided I’d keep painting whenever I could and in fact, applied to an Art Show without being completely ready.
Art Shows were eventually cancelled and I was not accepted anyway. So 2020, gave me a chance to rethink what life was bringing. It also gave me time to mentally and emotionally get ready for the next years’ Art Fair applications.
2021 arrives and I was veeeery hesitant on even trying Art Fairs because the only way to apply to Art Fair was having a tent of my own (which is not cheap) and fill it up with all the artwork to be able to showcase what I want to exhibit and sell. So I wasn’t motivated but my lovely husband always pushes me. He’s my awesome supporter too. So we went forward, ordered the tent, kept painting and by the time the tent arrived and we figured out how to set it up, it was already too late to apply to two big Art Fairs I knew about!
Luckily enough, I then learned that only in the State of Minnesota, where I currently live, there’s more than 50 fairs!!! So Minnehaha Art Fair was the first one, they’ve only organized this fair once in 2019, 2020 was cancelled and this year was their 2nd. I had worked so hard that I gave my very best ignoring so many prep details.
The time comes, my husband had to leave town, we flew my mom from Mexico to help out and thank goodness for the beautiful community I have around me, that friends were able to help me set up the day of the event.
It was a tremendous amount of work put into the before, during and after but after all, I finally had made it!
It hadn’t passed and hour, when I had already sold 3 pieces of artwork. People were here for the art, I was there fulfilling my dream of sharing my talent with the world and more than the sales, I was networking!
It was a looong 3 day event, I starved myself all weekend because I was just too busy greeting people and didn’t want to leave my space. The kind words I heard, the appreciation of my artwork and the connections I made, all filled my heart.
Last day came, my jaw had been hurting from smiling so much, and all of a sudden, the event’s organizer approaches me and says: I’m here to hand in an Award… the juries received the highest scores from your booth, and you won The Best In Show!
My heart was pounding, my smile became ridiculously bigger and I just wanted to call my husband and cry my self out. But guess what, people kept coming and now even more with my Award hanging.
BEST IN SHOW
…my smile became ridiculously bigger and I just wanted to call my husband and cry my self out.
It was just an AMAZING experience, I’m ready for the next and I am so grateful to so many people.
Thanks for reading me till’ the end. I could’ve gone longer but it’s all now kept in my heart.
xo,
Jessica