The changing of plans?

If you looked at the schedule on my web site you may have noticed that the Marble Falls show in April had been canceled. I got this news about a day after getting back home from Arizona. Only having two shows on my schedule in April was looking quite unacceptable to me. Last year I had the best month of sales ever. I now was only going to participate in one of the three shows that had made that possible last April. The good news is that I did add San Antonio's Fiesta Art Fair back on my schedule for April 18 and 19. After sending a couple of emails, it looks like I will also be able to show my work at the Deep Ellum Arts Festival in Dallas which will be held April 3-5. That will fill the weekend that Marble Falls left vacant. It will be interesting to see how the DEAF goes. Most shows would be full and working on a wait list this close to the show date.
One thing that most art show patrons don't seem to realize is that all the shows I participate in are juried art festivals. These shows usually ask for 3 or 4 images of your work and a picture of your booth and display. It used to be slides that you submitted but most shows take some sort of digital submission now. Who actually juries the work varies. It may be a group of paid professionals or it may be a group of people who work for the organization that puts on the show. Many times I don't really know who does the jurying. The jurying is quite subjective no matter who does it. Many better shows have 1000 to 2000 applications with only several hundred spots available. Because of this, all artists get plenty of rejection letters. That's the way it is for all of us. I routinely apply to several shows on the same
weekend just to cover my a__ so I have somewhere to sell my work. Fortunately (unfortunately) there are times when I get accepted to two top shows on the same weekend. Almost every decent show I have ever applied to requires the artist to be present. Some artist's seem to think this rule doesn't apply to them, but that is another story. As for me, I have to make a tough decision as to which show to attend. More than likely both shows would be profitable and that's why some artists will send some sort of representative in their place and hope that the show officials are not paying attention or checking IDs. Its just a matter of time until other artists notice this and complain. I feel that if rules are made they should be enforced and enforced equally among all the artists.

The top image was taken at the outlet malls in El Paso while I was driving back from Arizona. The next image was taken on my Route 66 trip back in January.