coyleart

sing a song of surtex

I've been getting out the word and so I want to post it here on my blog as well - that I will not be showing at Surtex this year. This was a tough decision, because last year was my first time exhibiting - I met wonderful people and made some great contacts. I was looking forward to using my new-found knowledge of putting together a booth and seeing some of the same great folks again, fellow artists and art buyers alike.

But back at the beginning of this year I realized May was going to be a big month for me in other corners. This month I am putting the finishing touches on my very first CD as a jazz singer, in a week the mastering process will be finished and it will be off to the printers for reproduction. The learning curve for doing a project like this has been a little steep, but luckily I have some amazing (and far more experienced) musicians working with me. Every time I went into the studio to work on my vocals I learned something new about the art of singing into that microphone, without the live performance setting I'm becoming accustomed to, where all gestures can become more subtle and intimate. Along with the new CD, I'm finding ever more opportunities to perform and in effect I'm becoming a steadily working musician and sometimes band leader, hiring many of the musicians that just 2 years ago I would have never dreamed I would be able to collaborate with.

So musically speaking, it's an exciting time for me. For the longest time, singing has been a bit of a well kept secret with me. Over the years I longed to find a way to get out and just do it, but the fear of singing in front of anybody, even a sympathetic music teacher was just too much. I finally started taking steps toward finding my nerve 4 years ago and then began my first professional steady gig with a jazz band a year and a half ago.

With all this going on, I couldn't quite imagine myself in the throes of late nights working on my portfolio and booth displays, while keeping my assignment work going. Fortunately I made lots of contacts last year that I'm working with now, and with that and my usual business of editorial and advertising assignments, I'm keeping plenty busy with my art. And the beautiful thing is that with every new discovery I make about being a musician, there's some little pearl of truth in there that applies just as well to making art, and I expect that will somehow make my illustration better.

So I will set aside Surtex for this year and hope to be back in my own booth in 2009, picking up where I left off, recharged with even a little more artistic inspiration.

on the home front

In the month before Surtex, I readied myself by hanging up prints over every available wall surface at home where I could stand back and take a look. This made it a little hard to fall asleep with my artwork and the impending deadline literally looming over me, but it helped me stay on top of my progress and get some insight from Clayton. I mapped each wall out in Illustrator and used the printout to remember where everything went as we were setting up.

I kept my trusty epson 2200 printing non-stop and it impressed me with it’s sturdiness and the lovely prints it churns out. I’m going to have it bronzed. One of my favorite things was printing a 13” wide banner on 60 bucks worth of epson luster roll paper (never done that before) and it was a nice addition to my booth with waves and sailboats, fishing boats and a tugboat chugging along the top edge.

This post is the conclusion of my mini Surtex series. I've got a separate category for Surtex posts, so anything I might add to this subject in the future should be easy to find. I'd love to hear from anyone who has experience with this show, or has questions or comments.

ship shape

I was stressed out over the nagging possibility that my golden boxes of artistic treasures and the key to my very future would be lost forever on the route from Atlanta to Surtex. We all ship things without much angst, but this was to be the most crucial time ever in my whole entire life. So I decided to lug prints in a big black old-fashioned portfolio case on the plane and carried my thick portfolio books in a tote bag slung over my shoulder. It was a good 25 lbs of art.

The rest of my booth things, boxes of supplies and samples, I packed and shipped directly to the Javits Center. Now that all is said and done, my worst fears did not come true and so next year I think I can stand to ship some of the art too. The main service company for Surtex is GES and they made it pretty easy. I called to set things up in advance, a courier promptly picked the boxes up at my house the Friday a week before the show, and the following Friday afternoon they arrived in my booth.

If you are ready to ship earlier, you can ship things into their warehouse in NJ and they will deliver to the booth from there. It’s a flat rate for anything under 100 lbs. (includes warehousing) It beats the cost of Fedex ground if you are using 50 lbs or more. Especially if you factor in the extra warehousing charge for advance shipments with FedEx or UPS. I had to do some calling and checking in a few times to get the shipment dropped at my booth on Friday afternoon, but I found the people there were very helpful. After the show, the boxes arrived back home in good shape (I shipped them right out of my booth after GES delivered the empty boxes from storage Tuesday). They arrived in 4 business days via FedEx ground, who must have been contracted out by GES after all.

I welcome comments about any of these topics. It's always good to gather information from others on how it's done.

left behind

For my surtex leave-behind piece, I brought one postcard design. It seemed to suffice, but next year I’ll also try to have another postcard or two so that people can choose what they like or take them all so there is a little better representation of my range in an easy-to-grab format. I ordered 500 and didn’t come close to using them all, so next year 250 per design will be plenty.

I also had business cards on hand, but wished I'd thought to have the back side printed, as I saw others do. Including even more imagery on the business card would probably help to jar the memory a bit when my card finds it's new home in a stack among many others. Several people asked me for a stapler to keep the postcard and business card together (in future, stapler will get all expense paid trip to NY).

it’s the little things

Actually I don’t know how much they count in this case, but it was fun to have an excuse to buy the gorgeous peonys and irises and everything else sold at the little east village market I was staying above, and they smelled great sitting in a vase on my counter. This picture is of Jenny who not only gave me a place to stay, but helped me set up my booth and "man" it the first day. I bought maybe a little too much candy, enough to refill the bowl several hundred times. Jenny had incredible willpower with the aroma of chocolate wafting around my booth. My neighbors and I on the other hand, had a good time eating it in the slow moments. Lard help us.

Having aisle-mates like this, this, this, and this, is one of the most fun things about being new to the show. You get to enjoy their work, get to know them a little and learn the secrets of art licensing world domination.

highchair

At the my next Surtex booth I might try the taller counter. Sometimes as I sat at my 30” default counter, I felt like a puppy in the window looking up at all the people walking by, (pick me! pick me!) not exactly commanding. I tried to stand a lot. People did clever things to liven up the counter and chairs with fabric coverings or appliques or by bringing their own, more interesting chairs, etc. Some artists ordered shelves for their booths that made for easy display of samples. Also, next year I’ll make a sign to cover the stock sign at the top of the booth - I think the majority use the stock sign and those that have their own design stand out. Makes it easy to spot you down those long aisles.

good with numbers

Next time I’ll number my portfolio pages. Potential clients are interested in having you send them certain images by email, (sometimes hard copies) and making this list while they are flipping through the books is a lot easier by numbers than by “summer vacation family car orange.”

I had something like 110 pieces, divided between 2 books: one for holidays/birthday and one for everyday/baby/kid/wedding. That divided portfolio system seemed to work well and it was enough art for starting out, next year, more art. More! More!

pressed for time:

The surtex show info recommends bringing 20-25 presskits, I brought 20. I don’t know yet if these have helped much, but I saw only 5 left in the press center on Wednesday. They might have been more effective, had I gotten them in a better location. I brought mine to the press office Sunday morning as the show was starting. Later I found out the office had opened Friday morning, and the early birds got theirs on the tables right near the entrance. oop! Creating press kits was part of my last minute frenzy, but next year I think the point is to do them early and send them out to the various trade magazines in advance. Thereby achieving desired press. I placed an ad in Total Art Licensing and one client has mentioned it so far. The jury is still out, but it was very inexpensive for an ad, so I’m glad I gave it a try.

here’s where it gets sticky

a few things I found useful in my surtex booth:

gaffers tape - A must-have. It’s good and sticky, but leaves no residue on the walls when you take it down. (thanks Jeff Severn)

mounting tape - (the kind used in framing where the backing peels up and leaves a strip of adhesive on the art) Great for mounting paper directly on the wall if you need something thinner than a gaffers tape loop. If the artwork/paper isn’t too thin and shredable it will peel up (slowly) at the end of the show leaving almost no residue. This is how I hung my boat border around the top of the walls and it never buckled or threatened to come down.

velcro dots - good and sticky, I used them to hang my logo signs that I had digitally printed on “syntra” and they held great, but left a little residue. Bring goo-gone for that.

I heard horror stories of returning in the morning to find the art falling off the walls once the AC is turned on and the humidity level changes, so I went a little nuts with the adhesive products. At breakdown it was more difficult to clean up. It becomes puzzling to figure out the right amount to hold and not goo-up the walls. Next year I’m going to work on hanging most of the art attached to hooks over the top of the booth - and minimize my use of the sticky stuff.

It took me almost 3 hours to take down everything and ship it after the show closed on Tuesday. A little after 4pm the spotlights are turned off, those union laborers roll in there, they start taking up the chairs and dismantling everything right away. As I was cleaning up, the walls of the surrounding booths were literally coming down around me. One by one, my neighbors were packed up and on their way. I wasn’t the last one standing, but I was a contender. I learned it’s best to have a system of display that hangs up and comes down with relative ease – more time for cocktails.

the booth, the booth, the booth is on fire

My Surtex booth set-up was a little rocky – it lasted something like 9 hours (or I stopped counting) and if I didn’t have my dear friend Jenny there continuously making sticky tape loops, we might not have finished it that fast. Each time I watched one of my surrounding neighbors roll up with nicely mounted boards or printed banners and backgrounds that unfurled to instantly transform the walls, I sunk a little further. Almost like that dream where you show up to class and realize you forgot to wear clothes.

In the end, after the backache subsided, I was happy with my booth; it showed the art well and the 13x19” prints from my trusty epson 2200 were lovely and saturated almost as if they were screen printed. Because I was afraid to ship those dear prints, I wound up carrying them on the plane in a portfolio and the bulk of my set-up time was spent trimming them with an xacto and tiling some of them before they could be hung directly on the walls. Now that I am no longer in fear of shipping my art, I would mount them on foam boards at home first and ship them a week ahead. Time saved: I’m guessing at least 5 hours.