Ann Peterson, an artist friend of mine, plays a game at art festivals. The game: Best Quote of the Show. The artist who comes up with the dumbest, rudest, or just plain out there quote from a customer/show attendee wins the game.
Here’s an idea of the type of quotes we’re talking about. Ann is a fine art photographer who travels the world in search of her fabulous images — like the one below. At any given show Ann will probably be asked if she knows where that photo was taken, if she know who took said photo, if she’s ever been to Italy, exactly what type of camera/lens, filter, shutter speed and f-stop did she use to shoot the image, etc. You get the point.
You can connect with Ann through her website here: http://www.mundoimages.com/
My quotes tend to be of a different nature and revolve around the three main themes of my artwork: animals (mostly cats), alcohol and yoga. I could tell you COUNTLESS stories of people who have 25 cats and exactly how they found each and every one of them — but I won’t 🙂
My personal winning quote for the 2012 Allentown Art Festival (held June 9th and 10th this year) is of a different nature. I’m happy to say that I had a successful show and was a bit overwhelmed and bleary eyed by mid-day on Sunday, so the exact details aren’t clear, but here’s what I do recall:
Maybe 5pm or so on Sunday, a well dressed, articulate woman struck up a conversation with me about my artwork. She may or may not have purchased a small item before the conversation began — I don’t remember — but I DO remembered that she gushed about my work: it’s so happy, so colorful, so much fun! Then she stopped her praise and said: “well — you make REAL art too, don’t you? Surely you paint Fine Art images as well as these”.
Ouch! There it was again. That back handed slap across the face. Another version of “Surely Alison you don’t call what YOU do ART, do you?”
After two successful days at the festival the sting wasn’t as bad as it can be. I felt less of a need to defend the legitimacy of my “Fun Art”. Instead, I looked at her and replied: “What you see on these walls is as Fine as it gets”. The conversation ended there, probably because another small line of purchasers had formed in my booth. Purchasers who, like many others throughout the weekend, have an appreciation for the Fine Art of Fun Art 🙂
You can find prints of my work and a few originals in my Etsy shop at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/SilentMyloStudio?ref=si_shop