"Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something." -Morihei Ueshiba, founder of the martial art of aikido
I held my first pop-up art show today. Most people would probably call it a failure. But I have a different concept of failure than most people. To me, the whole thing was an experiment. I'm a basically unknown artist in my area, in a small town of 30,000 people, in North Carolina. Contrary to what many people nationally may think, there actually is a vibrant art scene in the larger cities in this region. Winston-Salem has Trade Street, Greensboro has a scene. Highpoint? Who knows? But I wanted to see if a virtually unknown artist could draw a few other creative people to an obscure location for an impromptu art show here in Kernersville. I wanted to see if I could do it with minimal promotion in a short period of time.
I've never been to a pop-up anything, but I've heard of them. I picked a location where I used to walk every day. It was a little used street a block off the busy route 66, right behind two fast food places. It was wide open, non-threatening, and the weather was great. I made $3 worth of fliers and passed them out yesterday to various people and shops around town. Everyone I gave a flier to said it sounded like a pretty cool idea. So that was the experiment.
In the photo above, you can see the car parked on that street, with a sign that said "Art Show" on one window, and one of my drawings of Bruce Lee on the other window. My mom is chillin' in the background. Long story short, no one came specifically for my short notice art show/meet-up. Several people did check out my blog last night, after seeing the fliers. Several people did drive by slowly, but I don't know if any of them came for the art show. The two restaurants there, Wendy's and Dairy-O, had a lot of traffic.
As it turned out, the only people I talked to were a couple with their grandson who pulled up in a HUGE 5th wheel camper behind a new dually pick-up. They were all Carolina Panther fans, and liked the Cam Newton drawing I did back during the football season. Then they drove off pulling a trailer (39') that was bigger than some of the apartments I've lived in.
So was it a failure? Not to me. I spent $3 on promotion and sat out on a beautiful day soaking up the sun and some Vitamin D. It's hard to go very wrong there. And I learned that it would be tough to put together a decent pop-up event in this little town without a local following. I also had a great idea pop in my head about how to promote my work. Then I took my mom out for ice cream. All in all, a good day.
Back in my junior year of high school, my best friend Darrin got really into pottery, and used to go into the pottery class at lunch to throw pots. I started tagging along, and soon he taught me the basics. I took pottery the next year, and with Darrin's tutoring, I was about a semester ahead of the others in my class. Even the teacher used to forget I was a first year potter. Every day, Darrin and I would center a piece of clay on the wheel, usually with a beautiful bottleneck vase in mind. But things don't always turn out the way you want them to. So we categorized our pot throwing attempts. On a really good day, we'd wind up with a good looking vase, often with a small bottleneck (which was hard to do well). If that didn't pan out, we could turn it into a spittoon shape. Not awesome, but it was still something. If that didn't work, like when we played with the clay too long and it got soft, we could still pull off an ashtray. People smoked a lot back then, and we could always find someone to give a hand made ashtray to. If it all went south, it never seemed like a failure, because the very act of trying to throw a pot was just plain fun. So we classified those days as a learning experience.
Today's Pop-Up Art Show was a learning experience. It didn't go off the way I was hoping, but it was still a fun day. I think the big lessons are 1) build a local following, and 2) work with an established shop or group to do my next pop-up event. Now it's back to the series of drawings I've been working on this week.
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