My First Art Market Experience

My Market Experience: 

My recent experience at the Eugene Market Fest at 5th Street, a lovely local fair was undoubtedly a great learning opportunity for me. Connecting with people and sharing my art was truly a special experience for me, especially as it is one of my first public sharing of some of my new art work. I was able to install and design an attractive booth lay-out and set-up a good collection of my work, featuring several original paintings, Limited edition art prints, hand-made artisan goods, including my special collection, I call Picolla Arte, my art mounted on hand cut, stained and varnished boards, hand made clothing, jewelry, and art adorned candles. 

One of my first booth shots. 

Preparations, Materials & Supplies: Create a Pre-Market Make things list and Get everything together! Make a check-list! In my case, I made several because I have so many things to bring into my booth and each of them require their own prep lists and pricing and making title cards, tags and ordering needed supplies etc and gathering materials and supplies was a special treasure hunt.

Booth design and Practice Lay-out: I was able to set-up my booth in my backyard to do a bit of a mock-up set-up and to explore a few ways I could lay out the tables and racks, etc and just bring together all of the elements together. I highly recommend for a new market experience, to have an idea of your space and how things could fit into the booth. 

Promotions and Advertisements: I am still learning to navigate marketing and social media,  but I did create a post to advertise that I would be at this market and an invitation to anyone who would be interested in coming. Additionally, I did a small donation drive to try and gather needed funds for materials. 

I did the above post with this caption:

Juju Rootz Art:: Popping up at the Eugene Market Fest @5th Street Eugene, Oregon this weekend! Come by my booth #28 on 5th Street! Bring your Good Vibez, Real Love and shop exclusive art by Julia Paige/ Juju Rootz! Here is your opportunity to see a selection of my original Paintings, Limited Edition Fine Art Prints, Hand-Crafted items, Clothing and Artisan Goods created by me!

Connection and Networking: I had such a great time connecting with all of the interested market goers! I was so excited to meet new people and share my art with them. I received a lot of questions about my methods and techniques. I am a very exploratory artist and I love explaining all my different methods, tricks and treasures I have learned. A key connector is to have a Guest Book ! The important gathering of emails and connections ! I did get several new clients, but I will in the future do a giveaway so more people will sign up and then the winner will receive and 8x10 piece of art from me. 

Sales, Channels and Packaging: 

For this event, I depended on my phone, using cash app and Venmo which mostly worked fine, however a few customers had a challenge in accessing the account and so extra time goes into this process and could possibly take your attention away form other interested clients. 

I did learn to Get a square! And will get those little QR. codes and make title cards for all of my work to add them to, so people can just swipe.  I think its best to add all the icons for sales channels to booth sign and/or title cards and as it makes sales more accessible.

Packaging is so important and I am still developing additional branded bags or ways to carry purchased items, for larger pieces It would be to arrange for the prints if large to go into tubes and for framed prints and originals to arrange for proper packaging and delivery.  

Me being happy it all came together! 

Surprises and Mis-haps and jumping through Obstacles — Rain Rain and more Rain ! It came down in buckets and soaked all of my stuff and I was soaking wet tripping over my pants/ skirt as I ran around collecting anything that would be damaged. I learned the hard way when one such cardboard box which held my candles was soaked through and literally broke apart as I was heaving them into the car. I will never pack certain things in cardboard boxes again, without being in an air tight bucket. Fun times. So Friday night was a wrap — but Saturday was actually a great day! 

I got there extra early, trucked all my stuff in, organized and set-up my booth! It actually looked so fun and pretty and I feel like contained an intriguing and an inviting energy (at least this is what I was told by one of my customers.) It was a truly lovely day and I met a lot of lovely people and interested market goers. Tons of people asked about my art and different techniques I have used. 

On Sunday there was a car show that I didn’t know about and it filled the streets in front of all the booth (very cool cars though) and the hours of the market was only two hours, but I had some great interactions and made some sales and new connections. My booth take down and pack-up of all my stuff was actually amazing! I couldn’t believe I got everything into my car in one load, even my rack which needed a special screw driver, of course I did not have and I took it apart in two pieces and shoved that in as well! I was impressed with myself, honestly because I have a disability, due to past spinal surgeries and I still did it ! 

Check -out my hand made sign ! 

More Lessons Learned:

Believe in yourself do it even if its hard or not all the way “perfect” be flexible and adapt to changes. Do the prep work it really helps and stay focused on what you love to do - sharing my art and connecting to people. Analyze your experience and add new features for next time!

And most importantly, Keep going and as my father, James Paige always says, “Never Give Up”.  I didn’t and I won’t. 

Thank you everyone for reading this far ! Please let me know what you think and leave a comment! If your interested in more art Check out my shop !

New items being added and new markets are coming up ! I will keep you posted on new arrivals and more tales of my artistic journey.