Lisa's Wire Sculptures at Kempenfest 2009 - Barrie, Ontario

My first year at Kempenfest in Barrie, Ontario was enjoyable. Have you heard of this festival before? It's HUGE! Music, food, arts and crafts – you name it, they've got it. The arts and crafts booth numbered about 375 this year.

My general impressions – as usual, more crafts than art, so my sculptures were competing with things like goat soap and dog neckerchiefs (is that even a word? You know what I mean, yes?). I don't think it's an ideal venue for my work, but as a promotional show it's great – there's a constant stream of people coming through and I exhaused my business card reserves. I handed out over 400 business cards, by my estimate.

Reactions to my art – I placed my Dragon at one end of my display and my new turtle sculpture at the other end of the display. I was at a place where two paths converged into one, so I had great exposure, and lots of room for folks to admire the art.And admire they did! From my left, where the Dragon was, came my “WOW!” collection. It was all I heard as people caught sight of the Dragon. On the turtle side they used a few more words – usually “HAVE YOU SEEN THIS TURTLE?”- as they yelled down the aisle to their friends. My little Buzz Bugs got a laugh every time I told their story, my latest hedgehog caused many a change of direction as people on their way somewhere made a beeline to my table for a closer look. Many people mentioned my stuff was the most original and creative things they had seen.

Ah, if only all that translated into sales! Alas, my sister was my biggest customer (and only because she absolutely insisted on giving me her money, despite my protests). Apparently I wasn't alone in that respect – the custom cast iron gate maker in front of me had poor sales as well, and the cement garden sculpture maker commented it seemed to be a different crowd – his first day sales were nowhere near what they had been in previous years.

I will do Kempenfest again – it's a great bang of promotion for the buck, and you can only effectively guage shows when you do them more than once. People will be looking for me next year, I'm sure!