There is a marketing outfit for citrus, at least I think it is for marketing purposes. They have bought many pieces of orange-themed art from me through the years and are a pleasure to deal with.
Their annual banquet is coming up, and someone in the office asked me to lend them orange-themed art to decorate the lobby leading to the banquet room.
My 30+ years of experience tells me that my art won’t sell there. When the artist isn’t present and people are simply mingling, art does not sell itself. I am not invited to the banquet, and most likely I would decline the invitation. I have run out of the internal fire to schmooze and chit-chat in a loud room with the hopes of making connections that may or may not turn into work, and doing it in the town 30+ miles away at night when I am ready to park my patoot with a book and some knitting.
But this organization has been good to me, so if they want to borrow some art, my response is, “Certainly! How many pieces would you like?”
I took inventory and found 8 available pieces (one has to be borrowed from a gallery which is never open on the day when I am down the hill, but I will figure it out somehow). These are all similar scenes, and I decided that eight is not enough.
Here is a sample piece of my normal citrus scenes:
And here is what I need to paint, title, scan, and deliver DRY in time for the event:
This is a 10×10″ and a 6×18″, both a little different from my regular orange still-life paintings. Those regular ones sell steadily, but I bet most of the attendees to the banquet will have seen, bought, or received one of these already.
4 Comments
“Irish goodbye?” What’s that?
And I agree. Loud music is annoying *anywhere* where conversation is encouraged (e.g., restaurants, banquets, receptions, weddings).
“Irish goodbye” is when you just disappear without notifying or drawing any attention to yourself. I don’t know where the expression originated. . . well, I know where, but I don’t know why.
I was never fond of the schmooze-fest, networking, smile and pretend you’re interested in what the boring dude is saying, I’m only there to sell my art, I can’t hear anyone in this noisy room – type of gatherings. I get annoyed, weary, and sneak off to a corner to check my email and play Wordle on my phone.
But you do you!
Sharon, I feel the same but minus the phone. I just do an Irish goodbye, unless I have to stay until the end. Then I just grit my teeth and soldier through. Usually I try to find people who aren’t too drinky or who are really studying the art to talk to. The worst is when the talk is loud and there is blasting music too. What is the matter with organizers who make a supposed conversational situation into a situation where it is impossible to converse??
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