RT | THE FESTIVAL CIRCUIT
Traveling takes toll on artists
Art Festival circuit artists say business can boom -- if you can face the road.
BY HOWARD COHEN
hcohen@MiamiHerald.com
No one said touring is easy -- least of all the artists who find themselves on the South Florida winter festival circuit as the economy slowly warms its way out of its big chill.
``It's been tough out there,'' said sculptor and circuit veteran Fredrick Prescott of Santa Fe, N.M. who hits all the Florida festivals, including this weekend's Las Olas Art Fair.
``A lot of artists get tired of gambling and when you go to these shows, it's a big gamble. Someone could be right next to you in a booth and you have a great show and they sell nothing. That's just the way it goes.''
It's no small bet. An 80-square-foot booth ranges from about $395 at the Las Olas fair to $750 at the recent Coconut Grove Arts Festival. Add in hotel, transportation and other costs, and participating in a show can cost as much as $3,000 per day.
``Every person you see out there that does art shows has to be it all: creator, manufacturer, bookkeeper, accountant,'' said Duncan McClellan, 54, a glass artist from Tampa. ``Except our store we bring to the public.''
And a stormy weekend can wreck sales. ``If it rains, the show is toast. Everybody loses,'' said Prescott, 60. ``There's no insurance. There are no refunds.''
Thankfully, the skies are expected to be clear for this weekend's festival -- good news for artists like Ed King, a Miami-based ``neo-pop'' painter, who expects his Las Olas sales to equal his strong showing last month at the President's Day weekend Coconut Grove Arts Festival.
King, 35, in his third year on the circuit, sold 20 of the 60 paintings he brought to Coconut Grove. The 20-by-20-inch acrylics embody Chinese and Hindu symbols representing love, life and light. Price: $1,500.
``I literally sold enough pieces where I had all these blank spaces in my booth and had to have my assistant run back to the car where I had a reserve pile,'' King said.
Prescott fared less well at the Grove festival, selling only three of the 25 works he trucked with him from Santa Fe on a circuit that will include stops in Fort Lauderdale, Sarasota, Stuart, Bonita Springs and Winter Park. The animated steel elephant and giraffe sculptures -- priced at $5,000-$70,000 each and weighing up to 3,000 pounds -- aren't for every house or every wallet.
But the investment is still worthwhile, Prescott said.
``We don't do the business right at the show. . . For me, it's like advertising. If I'm in a gallery for a year, let's say not even 10,000 see the work. But at the Grove show maybe 150,000 people see the work in a weekend. A lot of those people are CEOs and captains of industry who can afford these sculptures.''
Still, you can't always count on future sales, said King, who will show later in the month at Key Biscayne and then in Baton Rouge, La., and Hilton Head Island, S.C.
Ultimately, said McClellan, ``Artists are like fisherman, always tomorrow you are going to catch the big one. We have hope.''
