Show Report- September

In September, we only had one craft show and one gallery show. 


Indie Craft Parade is a indie show in Greenville, SC.  We were really thrilled to be accepted this year since they are very selective.  The show is run excellently, with music, food, wine, gourmet coffee, and amazing talent.  The organizers were all very nice and helpful, and we enjoyed the show a lot.  They had a VIP ticket holder night on Friday, which we thought was a great idea to draw interest.  The rest of the weekend it was pretty busy.  We had heard that this was a big money making show the last time they ran it, so I think we had our expectations high.  We did well there, but didn't hit our goal for the weekend.
The biggest thing that bothered us at this show was that we had to apply in two categories: one for art and one for the plushies.  We got judged in each category, and they only accepted the art work, so we had to leave half our inventory at home.  I think that hurt our sales a bit.  Regardless, we hope to be back next year with ALL our stuff!

On Sept. 17, we did a one night gallery showing at Cafe Chartier/The Watershed in Lexington, SC.  The Chartiers are a wonderful couple who let us come in and take over the space with all of our artwork.  Throughout the night, they provided awesome treats like sopapilla cheesecake danish and italian sodas.  It was a fun event with a pretty good turnout and we hope to do another one soon. 

Upcoming Gallery Shows

So, if you're a fan of us on facebook, you've already heard most of this.  But here's a little more information for you guys.

September 17 is Lower Than Lowbrow, a solo show at Cafe Chartier in Lexington, SC.  We'll have tons of paintings, prints, and plushies.  There's going to be live music, and we also will be doing some Q&A about our craft.  Extra bonus: the show is part of a charity function, so if you bring a pair of gently used shoes to donate, you could walk away with an original painting.













September 24, Joe is doing a group show at Art Bar here in Columbia called Art Bar Agora.  It is a really cool place and we're excited to be part of this show. There will be something like 20 local artists there as well as local bands.  Coming to the art show is free, and going inside to see the bands has a small cover fee.




October 6 is the opening reception for Cartoon Violence/Cartoon Love, a solo show that will hang for a month at S&S Art Supply on Main St.  It's part of First Thursdays on Main, a monthly gallery crawl in town.  There will be drinks and snacks.  We've also decided to hold our book release party in conjunction with the gallery opening, so it will be an extra fun night!





Nov. 5 is the opening reception of the Day of the Dead show at Young Blood gallery in Atlanta, GA.  Each artist gets one or two coffins to paint up for the show.  It looks totally awesome. 

Hope to see some of you guys out at these shows!

Show Reports- August

Only did two shows this month, so this will be a very brief post. 




SLAM!  Saturday local art market in Greenville, SC is a market they've started doing every Saturday this year.  It's still new, and therefore not extremely busy.  We decided to try SLAM a few weekends to fill in some gaps.  I think we will be going back once or twice more.  It was very small, but these things take time to get well known.  Regardless, we got to meet some nice people and see some friends while we were in town, so it was worth it.

Grant Park Summer Shade Festival

Oh boy.  This was supposed to be a BIG show, so it was a disappointment, even though we still did decent.  The issue I had with it was the organization.  They took so long getting back to us to tell us if we were in the show, and I had to hound them for a week before they would return my phone calls or emails.  They had a lot of rules about the color and type of tent you could use, which they then didn't enforce.  There was no vendor parking, so we had to fight with everyone else to get a spot in the morning.  They came around once the entire weekend to provide small bottles of water for the venders (the water wasn't even cold, so ew.)  I guess we've been spoiled by smaller shows where the organizers go to great lengths to make the vendors happy. 
     We knew several of the other vendors at the show, and after talking to everyone, the general consensus was that this was usually a top notch show and it was just a bad year for whatever reason.  We're not sure if we'll be back next year, as it was a rather expensive show to do. 

Kickstarter, Undefined magazine, and new shows

We have some great news!  Our kickstarter project was fully funded, so we are progressing forward with our book Tales of Wonk and Woe.  We couldn't be happier!  Kickstarter doesn't let us touch the money for 2 weeks, so after that and turnaround time on the printing, we expect the book to be out towards the end of September.  We are also planning to have a release party for the book at S&S Art Supply, but we are still ironing out details for that.  A HUGE thank you to everyone who donated or shared the link!

We just did an interview for Undefined magazine, South Carolina's arts mag.  The next issue comes out Sept. 1. The interview lasted about 2 hours and we also did a photoshoot.  It was a lot of fun and we can't wait to see the article.  I think the interviewer did a good job of splitting the focus between our dolls and Joe's artwork. We are really excited about this!

Our next show is SLAM!  in Greenville, SC.  SLAM! is something that happens in Greenville every Saturday through October, so we hope to be able to attend this show a few more times.
After that, we will be at Triple 7 Studios in Chattanooga, TN on August 26 for a group gallery show premiere, and the following two days staying in Atlanta for the Grant Park Summer Shade Festival.  I think that about wraps up our August schedule.




We also have just been asked to do a one night gallery showing on September 17 at Cafe Chartier in Lexington, SC.  Cafe Chartier is holding a shoe drive during the day, and everyone who brings a pair of shoes will have a chance to win an original painting!  More info on this as it gets closer. 

Show reports- July

Freedom Fest- July 4th show

This went better than last year, seemed a lot more people came out to it.  Too bad it ended in a horrible downpour.  We scrambled to pack up and had to miss the fireworks this year. 

The Big Crafty
We had done the holiday show before, but this is the big one!  It was so huge I didn't even begin to see it all!  There were a ton of awesome vendors there, many we knew, and many we're glad to have gotten the chance to see.  We unfortunately got stuck in a far corner of the show, so I think location played into how well the show went for us.  As always, free beer and great food!

Virginia Lake Festival
A one day craft show amidst a 3 day festival in Clarksville, VA (on the water) boasting 100,000 attendees!  With the sheer numbers we felt we couldn't go wrong.  The show ended up being much more traditional that what we usually do, so our stuff sort of stuck out from the rest.  Regardless, it was a good day, although we're not sure if we will go back to it. 

Otakon
One of the largest anime conventions in America.  We had done very well last year at this show and were really excited to come back and bring our paintings and prints with us.  Joe was also able to put several pieces into the art show.  We unfortunately had a lot of difficulty getting a table this year, and when we finally got one, we had missed a day and a half of sales, and also were placed in the very very back facing the back wall.  Nevertheless, we managed to about equal what we made last year, and Joe sold 6 original pieces!  We saw a lot of awesome friends and artists from other conventions and had a lot of people remember us from last year, which is always cool.  We plan to only come back to this show if we can get a table early, though.