Yarrow's Blog

My recent experience with this year's art tour was positive, refreshing, stimulating and good for the ego. I had forgotten how nice it is to talk "art" with another artist and to talk "art" with non-artists. I thoroughly enjoyed my self. I didn't have all of the stress associated with moving artwork to a far location, borrowing other people's display equipment or worrying about making enough sales to justify my existence. Yes, it wasn't easy to move the art and set up the display but it was way easier this year. I enjoyed the weekend and hope you did too.

So I just finished doing the Historic Bluff Country Studio Artists' Tour and I am wiped out. There were so many people; well it was a fantastic turn out and I'm so glad that people came from so far away. Glad, but exhausted. I wish I could have talked longer to individuals. I dreaded all day the moment of taking everything down and packing it up. By the end of the last day I was so tired, I wasn't sure that I'd make it home. I did make it home safely and I got everything put away. I'm feeling a little let down, a little sad. What is this feeling that makes me want to stop trying to sell my art? Is it just exhaustion or is it something deeper? I'm sure that I'll be fine, but I do feel adrift.

Am I the only artist with this problem? When I want to enter shows I run into such different requirements. One show accepts digital images, another wants slides, and yet another requires photos. Can't we have the same standards? I used to have slides made of all of my work until the photographer at the camera store wasn't allowed to shoot my work on slide film. I say, let's get rid of the slide requirement entirely. I am not a photographer and no matter how much training I get I never will be. I'm a terrible photographer.