Spring Break is Over

The 2007 Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival is over. I'd say it was a complete success. On Sunday afternoon, Nancy and I returned about 1/3 of the artists their slides -other groups returned the rest. We collected marketing surveys from them. Some artist were in this show for the first time, and they told us it was the best show they'd had so far. Some artists who'd been in the show many times said the same. A few artists didn't do well. I have my opinions as to why; over priced art, not unique enough, not well presented. Some artists aren't good with customer service, or with dealing with people in general. Most artist who tour the country doing art festivals are good with people, or they wouldn't be able to make enough money doing it.

I have two favorite things about the volunteering for the festival:

1. Learning about art- the main reason I joined. I never got to take art appreciation in school, so I never learned what to look for in art. My father, Wayne Thompson, was a photographer -among many other things, so I have a pretty good eye for that. I like watercolor painting, and digital art. I'm learning about the other categories now. To do that, I sometimes follow the judges around, listening to what the look for. That's my best art education so far.
2. Meeting the Artist - Most artists aren't much different than me. I don't take to following the normal path of life, and they don't either. I like that. I like the different personalities, views, and perspectives on life they have. Artists usually have no pretense - they wear themselves on their sleeves, or art.

The picture above was on Saturday afternoon, right before the Artists Party. Everyone was tired, and ready for some food. We get to sit and eat with the artists. It's interesting to see how the interact. Some hang with others in their category, especially the glass artists. Some like to meet other artists, but most are just ready to eat.

This is a picture not even 10 minutes after the show is over. Some artists have breaking their tents down to a mindless procedure. Newer artists struggle to figure it out at first. Some artists will stay open as long as they have a customer willing to purchase, or until we tell them, "You gotta go now."

I know it doesn't square with my anti elitist, under-consumer bent, but if I could, I'd buy a good bit of art. Especially functional art. I could live in a single-wide, with rotting floors as long as I could put some art I like in the place.

After the show, the volunteers eat, drink, be merry, then go home and crash. Nancy and I did.

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Back to school today. Luckily, I didn't have too much work in my Windows XP class. Managing printers was the subject. It can be the bane of many business, especially ones that depend on older impact style printers. Those things seem to last forever, but connecting them to anything can cause mental problems. Getting them to work in a network is even more difficult. I think we have a specific class for that. I'll probably wait and let it be my last class before I graduate.