Melbourne Art

The ankle is much better as far as walking goes, still cant exert it too much but on the mend.

Art Melbourne was on the weekend in which I shared a stand with Andrew Helmentsky and the ever helpful Darren Mitchelson.

The art fairs have a very interesting reality. When we first did them they were complete sellouts setting us up for at least 6 months financially. There is an inherent problem though. The statistics show that 70% of people return from the previous year so lets say they get 10,000 people throught the door. In the first year your audience is 10,000, but by the second year as 70% have already seen it the year before and if they liked it already purchased so your new audience is down to 3,000 people and the year after that 1,000 and then 300 people,so you irradicate your market very quickly. So after 4 years their is virtually no one new to sell to, so needless to say it was a complete bummer.

It was hard for some of the younger artists who were doing it for the third year and couldn’t understand why they suddenly were’nt selling anything. Once this was explained it gave them a greater understanding of what had happened but never the less you cop a beating financially along with your ego and you can even start to doubt your work. Even for me and God know why I went back again, it still knocks the crap out of you even though you understand the mathematics of it all. 3 days later I am feeling positive and ready to roll again.

Off to do a mural commission tomorrow in Melbourne. Should be fun.

‘Til next time!