Strict Show Criteria

The new year means slogging through all of the show applications for Spring, Summer and beyond. I usually find the process tiresome, but studying what the Palm Springs (Calif.) VillageFest requires of potential vendors made me take the process more seriously and wish every quality show had similar strict requirements.

The Palm Springs festival board requires not just a completed application and photos of products and booth, but a letter of intent, photos of the artist at work on those products to be sold, even receipts for raw materials used to make the products. It's all in the name of making sure those vendors who buy products and then re-sell them are not getting into the Palm Springs events.

I would love to see more of this. I spend a great deal of time, money, energy and creativity in making my products to sell to customers who appreciate hand-crafted artwork. I resent finding myself at shows with vendors who obviously did not make the products they're selling.

I spent three days at one summer show next to a couple who sold hundreds of different cast-metal pendants and charms, all of them imported from Eastern Europe. They even stored the pendants in the original shipping boxes that broadcast what the contents were and where they were from. Complaints to the organizers of what was billed as a juried fine art show were met with "they submitted photos just like everyone else; we can't police everyone and have to trust vendors to be honest." I can guarantee that I will never participate in that show again.

So I say make everyone explain their art, submit details and photos about the process and, in effect, prove it is hand-crafted.

Another development I'm seeing more and more of, and one I don't feel as good about, is local communities requiring individual vendors at arts fairs, even one-day events, to get a local annual business license. In the town of Winter Park, Colorado, that's a $60 fee on top of booth and application fees - enough to make some artists not apply for the usually popular Alpine ArtAffair and Colorado Craft Fair. I've run into the local licensing issue elsewhere, but usually at a $10 or $12 cost.

In a still-struggling economy, we'll have to wait and see what effect this has on shows, promoters and artists.