SURTEX is a great way to do business. The art of doing business at this trade show is interesting on many levels. The intensity of the show is invigorating for artists who are used to spending long solitary days, doing their marketing by remote. One can feel the kinetic energy of commerce in the aisles. Preparing for the show has its own intensity (and a little stress to get you motivated!). The booth is a 10x10x8 blank white space to be designed and filled with your work. The intensity continues on set up day where the trick is to design your booth for ease of assembly and to get out of the Javits Center so you can enjoy a NY day and night before the show. The show itself is three days of feedback about your work: the art buying attendees are not going to stop and chat at your booth if they do not see something that interests them, and conversely if they do stop, they are qualified leads; the comments I get are invaluable and help me to learn how I can create better images and better images that sell; and there are the other artists in the show who are a great bunch of folks and after five years in the show, I have developed many new friendships.
This year I am recycling two of the three walls from last year. The new panel this year is my ‘holiday wall’ which based on comments from last year, most needed to be redesigned. The other panels will have many new images pasted right over the old drawings.
