AMERICAN CRAFT COUNCIL ST. PAUL SHOW 2014
April 11-13
St. Paul RiverCentre
Along with the American Craft Council, I’d like to invite you to attend the 2014 ACC St. Paul Show. It’s a three-day celebration of all things handmade! Please join us as more than 225 of the top contemporary jewelry, clothing, furniture, and home décor artists from across the country gather under one roof. It’s your chance to touch, feel, and explore high-quality American craft like you’ve never seen before! This is the American Craft Council’s only Midwest show – a must-attend for craft lovers!
For information about the show, please go to: http://shows.craftcouncil.org/stpaul
50% Discounted Tickets can be purchased using code MSP2014GUEST here
I will be in Booth 1023.
SHOW DATES AND HOURS
Friday, April 11: 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
Saturday, April 12: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Sunday, April 13: 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
PREVIEW PARTY
Thursday, April 10: 6 – 9 p.m.
Tickets: $75
Click here for more information about the event.
Click here to purchase tickets for the preview party event. Proceeds benefit the American Craft Council.
LOCATION
The St. Paul RiverCentre is at 175 W. Kellogg Blvd.
ON-SITE ADMISSION
$12 one-day pass
$28 three-day pass
FREE for American Craft Council members and children 12 and under.
Join the ACC and get in free!
SPECIAL FRIDAY EVENING ADMISSION
$5 after 5 p.m. Can’t beat that!
ADVANCE TICKETS
Save time by purchasing your tickets online. Just click, print your tickets, and then present them at the show door. It’s that easy!
$11 one-day pass
$26 three-day pass
SPECIAL FEATURES AT THIS YEAR’S SHOW
MAKE ROOM
See craft in context at our home décor exhibition “Make Room: Modern Design Meets Craft.” This year’s theme is “Let’s Entertain,” and will showcase room vignettes styled by designers and architects, all inspired by a piece of fine craft.
CHARM
We’ve tapped our talented pool of jewelry artists to create exclusive charms, charm bracelets, cluster pendants, and pins as part of our inaugural American Craft™ Charm Collection. Start your charm collection this year and continue to build it as new designs are introduced annually at the ACC shows.
CRAFT BEER TAPROOM
Don’t miss our on-site craft beer taproom, where the Twin Cities’ own Beer Dabbler, an organization focused on promoting the culture of craft beer, is hosting daily tastings of a selection of nine offerings from area microbreweries including: Indeed Brewing Company, Fulton Beer, Dangerous Man Brewing Co., Hayes Public House, Fitger’s Brewhouse, Bent Paddle Brewing Co. Blacklist Brewing, Sociable Cider Werks and Bang Brewing.
In an earlier post, I said I view my results from the ACC Baltimore show as a success even though my sales didn’t cover my costs of doing the show.
 My studio, cleaned up and ready for a gallery visit. My goals for exhibiting at ACC Baltimore (and St. Paul) include not only selling my work directly to collectors, but also meeting new business contacts which helps lead to more opportunities for my work to be shown, and sold beyond the venues I’ve been showing and selling my work to date. To grow my art business, I need to expand my audience – a major goal this year.
Entering the Wholesale Marketplace
I first made the decision without really knowing what I was getting into, then did a ton of work to learn the business model, make decisions about policies and pricing, and set up my catalog and line sheets for work I am offering to the trade – dye drawings, pillows, and scarves.
I wrote my first wholesale orders at the Baltimore show to some Museum Stores. The first of these will ship out later this month to the Chrysler Museum of Art. Marking art to order is a different concept for me, but one I’m willing to get used to. 🙂
Other Wholesale Opportunities
I learned about another great show organizer – WholesaleCrafts.com – from an Artist friend at the ACC Show and I have since decided to exhibit at their 2015 Philadelphia show next Feb. They also host a fine craft wholesale show in Las Vegas which I’m considering doing next year – it is one of very few fine craft wholesale shows in the western US and also has a special one-of-a-kind showcase which would be a great fit for my work.
Prior to this year’s ACC shows, I’ve sent out post cards of my work to prospective galleries and also put an image of my work in the St. Paul show section of the March/April American Craft Magazine – both good decisions:
– I was contacted by and have now met with the owner of a cool fine craft store in the Denver area. Once I return from the St. Paul show, I’ll be taking some of my work down to show at that new venue.
– Last week I had a Studio visit from a NM Gallery owner who first saw my work in the American Craft magazine. We are discussing some potential upcoming exhibit opportunities.
Art Consultants
I had a number of Art Consultants at the Baltimore show express strong interest in my work and believe there’s a good likelihood that some of these could develop into sales of my wall art pieces.
 “Lavender Fields”, 32″x40″, Dye Drawing (dyes on cotton cloth) gallery wrapped around stretcher frame. ©2014 Ayn Hanna Building the Path, Developing Relationships
These are each good starting point connections and some will grow and develop. It’s been great to meet all these new people and talk about how we might work together and what both of our interests are. Developing the relationships will happen over time if there is synergy in where we’re both headed. I’m confident good things will come.
Preparing for and participating in the ACC Baltimore Show has influenced my perspective on the business of Art. I’m engaging prospective business partners with a much more informed and professional business-minded approach.
I’ll be expanding on all of this learning at the next ACC Show in St. Paul this week, April 11-13 at the RiverCentre. If you’re in the Twin Cities area, I invite you to come out to the show – I’ll be in booth 1023 and would love to see you! Full details on the show are available here.
Black and White stripes seem to be nature’s best defense against blood-sucking insects. At least that’s what this national geographic article says – zebras’ stripes confuse and scramble the vision of horseflies, protecting them from those nasty suckers.
 Hand printed silk scarves for the Chrysler Art Museum Store Is it too much of a reach then to believe that the same could be true for black and white stripes’ ability to scramble the vision of other blood-sucking insects, like mosquitoes perhaps?
I’ve found a new selling point for my striped scarves. Especially for the audience at next week’s ACC St. Paul Show – isn’t the mosquito the De facto MN state bird? Buy a scarf and skip the smelly insect spray repellent!
First Wholesale Order from the ACC Baltimore Show Finished!
These scarves along with the pillows below will be on their way to The Chrysler Museum of Art’s museum store soon and will be available in the store for the Museum’s grand re-opening (after renovation) in May. This museum store in Norfolk, VA is the first store on the east coast to carry my artwork – black and white patterned scarves and pillows.
 Hand-printed pillows for the Chrysler Museum order. Booth #1023 American Craft Council St. Paul Show, April 11-13, RiverCentre
Gearing up for round two….Next week is the ACC Show in St. Paul and I’ll have some similar scarves and pillows available in my booth at that show. After making it through the steep learning curve of the Baltimore show, and having some time to recover, I feel much more relaxed and ready for St. Paul.
My pallet with booth and art will be delivered again by Art in Motion, and it’s really comforting to know we’ll have help and support from our family and good friends that live in the area. It’s familiar territory and a sort of homecoming for Barbara since she lived there for 21 years before moving to CO. We’re looking forward to seeing our many friends and family in MN next week! My booth #1023 is at the waaaaay far back left hand corner of the show floor, so please come visit us there if you can make it to the show.
Another Show this month at Directions Gallery, CSU Visual Arts bldg. in Fort Collins
Gilhooly, Hanna, and Martell – a group show of 3 CSU MFA Graduates opened this week in the Directions Gallery at the Visual Arts building on the CSU campus. I finished 2 new dye drawing pieces that are included in this show, along with several new book sculptures by Christy Martell and work from the Bloomers series by Barbara Gilhooly. The show is open through the end of April.
 “Grand Central”, Dye Drawing (Dyes on Pimatex Cotton, gallery wrapped around canvas covered stretcher frame), 26″x34″, ©2014 Ayn Hanna But wait, there’s more….
There are some other exciting new developments – new doors opening, possibilities presenting themselves, discussions in progress – all as a result of work I’ve done to put myself “out there” and exhibit at the ACC shows this year. These are the evidence of why I feel doing the Baltimore show was a success, even though I didn’t make a direct profit on the show. I’ll dish on these new developments in my next post.
Four lessons learned and Why I’ll Do It Again
 That’s me at the start of the 2007 Steamboat Triathlon A few years ago I was strategizing with my triathlon coach about managing my energy and body throughout an upcoming race to make sure I finished strong with my best performance. The run is the final of the 3 legs of the race (after the swim and the bike) and not my strongest sport, so I had asked, what muscle groups should I be focused on most when I get to the run? At that point in the race she said, use everything you’ve got.
Preparing for and exhibiting at my first ACC Show was a similar experience – I put everything I had into it.
Lesson #1: Make use of all your available resources
I have 2 artist friends that have done these shows in the past. The first thing I did after committing to doing this show was to set up time to meet with them to learn any tips and pitfalls they could share. The second thing I did was to watch/listen to the free professional development webinars that ACC made available to artists to help us learn about wholesale show prep and marketing. All of this was invaluable in helping me prepare for doing my first wholesale show.
Lesson #2: Do the (Business) Work
There were many hours of research and thankfully, I had help with this. Barbara took on figuring out and ordering the booth, floor, lights as well as the shipping logistics (a HUGE part of doing these shows if you’re not driving your own vehicle). I did web research to find galleries & shops to send pre-marketing materials to and we worked with a design team to do some branding – created a new logo, professional post cards and banners for the booth.
One of the most painful, yet important learning for me came through the number crunching I was forced to do to figure out what my wholesale prices needed to be, to cover costs and make sure I can have a profitable art business. There were some dark days as I came to realize that the prices I had been selling my works for previously were not even enough to cover my costs!
I took some solace in learning that this is very common and lots of artists go through this when they get serious about wholesaling their work – they often find that what they’ve been selling their work for at retail is in fact really their wholesale price point.
 My booth at the ACC Baltimore Show (photo by Bob Barrett photography) Lesson #3: Get Real, It’s a Business, it needs to be Profitable
This is a wrestling match. After number crunching, I’m very confident of my prices for my work and also navigating figuring out the markets for my work because I’ve had to raise my prices to be profitable. My sales and orders from the show were enough to cover my booth fee (floor space) and most of my shipping costs.
My entire costs of doing the show were 3-4 times more than what I made in sales. Even though my costs were way more than my sales at this first show, I view it as a success. About half of my costs were re-usable booth, floor, lights that I won’t have to pay for in future shows.
Lesson #4: Do Your Best, Observe and Learn From the Experience, Adjust and Keep Going
We went “all in” to make this booth the best it could be. As visual artists, we learn by observation and there was plenty to observe and learn from the other exhibiting artists around us. All of our neighboring artists either drove and delivered their own booths, avoiding having to pay the ridiculous drayage fee to the union (especially those that had big booths like us), or they had very minimal amount of booth set-up and artwork shipped on a pallet. Going forward, we’ll be making some adjustments to the amount of work and booth set-up we ship to shows and are discussing other possibilities for a more lightweight booth design and even considering driving.
I’ve got more to share about my neighbor artists and learning from them, worthy of a post in itself.
Why I’ll do it Again
Making a living as an Artist, developing a profitable art business is going to take time – it’s a marathon not a sprint. While I didn’t make a profit at this show, I hadn’t expected to given the one-time outlay of costs. I actually did make more sales/orders than I had expected going into it.
I envision this show and other shows I’m doing this year and next as business investments, big buckets of flares that I’m lighting and sending off into orbit. I’m putting myself and my art out there like never before, and already I’m receiving responses and interest from museum stores, galleries and art consultants that otherwise would not have known about my work. Doors I didn’t even know about before are opening.
Doing the work required to have a successful ACC wholesale/retail show has forced me to get clear and make some big decisions about truly treating my art as a business, and viewing it through the eyes of a profitable business owner – having come through that knothole, I’ve grown up some and am thankful.
And I’ll have a chance to put the learning from this first show into practice right away. My next ACC Show in St. Paul, MN is only a couple weeks away, on April 11-13. I’ll be in booth #1023 in that show at the St. Paul RiverCentre.
If you’re in the vicinity, I hope you’ll come to the show – I would love to see you! Discounted tickets can be purchased using code: MSP2014GUEST at this link
Recuperative studio time. Quiet reflection, drawing marks on the cloth with wet paste, watching the image disappear as the paste dries in the sun, then magically re-appear with the steam. The wind took a break for a day. The sun was warm, the cloth cooperative, giving up it’s color without too much fight.
After the show, so many questions swirling, decisions to be made, pros/cons to consider, the best path forward. A year of major investment, discovery, and learning about art business. Learning and deciding in real time to change a path, make a pivot on a plan, and keep moving ahead. Its all pretty dizzying really.
In getting back to the studio, it is good to have an order from a museum store to focus the work, and provide a purpose for the making. Marrying the need to create with a market for what’s made, planting that seed, tending carefully to it’s growth.
And then letting go of all that serious-ity, forging a temporary truce between art and business. Spirit replenishment is always in the Making.
Friday/Sat/Sunday – 3 Days of Public/Retail Show
At the end of the 2nd day of the wholesale show, we did some booth re-arrangement and added my textile painting pieces, ready for the 3 days of the public retail show.
 Ready for the Public show to start! There were lots more visitors during the public show, big crowds especially on Saturday which was my biggest day of sales. It was fun to see some artist friends who came down from Philly and also meet some FB artist friends who live in the area and made it to the show – great to meet in person!
“Winter Wind”, a small hand-stitched piece I finished just a week before the show went home with one of my new FB artist friends. I like that it worked out that way, a part of me now in a wonderful new home in VA (thanks Louise!).
 “Winter Wind”, 8″x8″, eco dyed silk and cotton fabrics, stitching, gallery wrapped © 2014 Ayn Hanna Sunday tear down near meltdown
At 5pm on Sunday, the public show closed and the frenzy of dismantling booths began. We knew we had a midnight deadline to have our booth and all the artwork re-packed, stacked on the pallet, and be off the show floor – a 7 hr window to make it happen.
We got right to work and were still packing up the art a couple hours later as we saw many of our neighbor artists already done. Some were headed off to get their trucks and get in line to drive back onto the show floor to pick up their piles, some were just done…having piled their stuff on pallets that would be picked up and shipped away later in the night.
As the night wore on, there were fewer and fewer artists left, the forklifts were driving around picking up pallets and we were just barely getting started taking down the booth lights and walls. And we were getting tired.
And then there was One
650 Artists in the show and 649 of them left before us that night. Midnight came and went and we were still struggling to get our boxes loaded back on the pallet. We had worked straight through the night, no dilly-dallying and we still weren’t done. But we had to keep going, couldn’t leave until we had all the boxes re-stacked on that pallet.
 We had to pack our ladder on the pallet and were having a hard time getting all the heavy boxes onto the top/second “tier” of the stack. The union guys were whizzing around us on their carts and forklifts, stopping long enough to confirm that they weren’t going to have to ship this pallet out (no, they weren’t going to have to lift a finger with this since we were paying Art in Motion to ship this, BUT we still ended up having to pay the union $719 in drayage fees, even though they literally did no work to move this pallet from the dock to the booth space…that’s another part of the “learning” of this show).
At 12:30am, Barbara spotted a rickety bent step ladder that someone had left behind as trash. She hauled it over and using that and all the strength we had left, got the rest of the boxes stacked on the top of the pile and some shrink wrap bound around it all.
At 1am we drug ourselves, our wheelie bags, and a couple of tubes of art that we couldn’t fit back on the pallet out into the rainy darkness and back to our hotel.
Was it worth it? At that moment, Hell no. Now? With the benefit of some recovery time and distance, Yes. Will I do more of these shows? Yes, in fact, the next one is coming up next month, in St. Paul, MN.
Want to know what I’ve learned by doing this show, how it’s helped me move my art career forward, and why I’ll do more of these shows? Details coming up in another post.
Finishing Booth Set up and Two days of Wholesale show
Feb 18: Day 2 of Set up
We continued hanging and setting up artwork, and more exhibitors continued to arrive – there were still lots of cars and trucks on the show floor on day 2 of set up, delivering goods to booth spaces.
 
By 4pm, we had everything hung and were ready for the wholesale show to begin!
 
Feb 19/20: Best Memories from the 2 Days of the Wholesale Show
A man with a beaming smile came walking up to my booth and when I greeted him, he said, “Your work has taken me to a place I didn’t expect to go today. I like it, I can do something with this.”
And in that moment I knew it was the right decision to have done this show. We had a notebook in the booth to capture what visitors were saying about my work, and being able to go back and read through it now is heartening.
“I Love your lines.” “She knows yellow.” “Your work is sophisticated yet playful.” “I’m in love with this.” “We’ll be in touch.” “Your work stopped us in our tracks.”
One of the great gifts of this show is the opportunity for feedback from viewers and a chance to talk with and learn from other artists.
 Barbara, ready to help me greet visitors during the show I met many wonderful new contacts – buyers, museum store directors, art consultants/gallery owners, and several of the other exhibiting artists around us.
It was great company to be in and we were quite popular with our fellow artists, mostly because we had brought 2 anti-fatigue mats and shared them willingly with our fellow exhibitors as the hours wore on. This was one of the best tips I had received from a friend (thank you Anne B!) who had done these shows before….she said it saved her and it definitely saved us!
I wrote my first wholesale order to a Museum store on the first day of the show, and our Gallerist from MN made a day trip to Baltimore to see us and the show!
Overall, I am pleased with the feedback I received and the response to my work. Because all of my work is one-of-a-kind, it can be a little challenging to market it to a wholesale buyer. I did write some orders. And I have a number of follow-ups to do with others that are interested in my work.
There are buyers that want and appreciate one-of-a-kind, and I am getting clearer about who my buyer audience is. Although I did make more sales during the retail part of the show, I believe the wholesale part of the show was more valuable and I will do it again. This show was about continuing to get my work out there in front of more audiences and then developing relationships with those that are interested – it’s going to take time to develop.
I’ll continue with a recap of the Retail/Public show, the show end/booth tear down (near meltdown), and the overall results/things I learned from this ACC show experience in my next post(s).
Ever run a marathon or compete in a long triathlon?
Then you’ll relate to the energy it takes to exhibit in a week-long American Craft Council show.
 Barbara and I in front of my booth, third day of the show, first day of the public retail show. I’ve got lots to share about this big learning experience. For those of you that don’t follow me on my Facebook Fan page, I’ll catch you up with some of what I was able to post there during the show.
And, with the benefit of a week to absorb it all “post-show”, the first most oft asked question I can answer is, “Yes, it was worth it!”.
Re-cap of American Craft Council Baltimore Show Feb 19-23, 2014
Feb 17: Day 1 of Set up
Not knowing how long it would take us to unpack and set up, we got checked in about 10:15 and were thrilled to be re-united with our ice sculpture obelisk, er I mean 8ft. tall pallet of boxes which was ready and waiting for us in front of my booth space.
We began cutting through the copious layers of shrink wrap and dismantling the pallet of boxes and by about 1:30, had the first half of the booth walls set up:
By 5:15, we had the entire booth walls, floor, lights and banners all set up!
 By that time, several of our neighbors had just begun setting up, and many had not even arrived yet.
At 6pm, Barbara’s phone app beeped…we had already walked 5 miles today, just walking to the convention center from our hotel and working for 7 hours on setting up the booth!
Stick a fork in us, we’re done for today! At 8 pm, we were toast and decided we would finish hanging the rest of the artwork tomorrow. Feeling pretty good about how much we had gotten done, we headed off for dinner.
 Barbara, end of set up day 1. More to come on finishing the set up, meeting other artists, and preparing for the first day of the wholesale show in my next post on the ACC Baltimore show.
 one-of-a-kind hand printed 100% silk scarves ©2014 Ayn Hanna This weekend is the big 3 day American Craft Council Show in Baltimore, Feb 21-23, at the Baltimore Convention Center.
Art for your Body
I’ll have over 60 of my one-of-a-kind hand-printed silk scarves available for sale in my booth #719 at the show. These will include color, black patterned, and eco-dyed scarves.
 one-of-a-kind hand printed 100% silk scarves ©2014 Ayn Hanna
 one-of-a-kind hand printed 100% silk scarves ©2014 Ayn Hanna
 one-of-a-kind hand printed 100% silk scarves ©2014 Ayn Hanna I hand print these one at a time, using multiple step processes including dye painting, screen printing and color removal processes.
 Artist at work: screen-printing color remover on black silk scarves
 one-of-a-kind hand printed 100% silk scarves ©2014 Ayn Hanna Each one is unique, with it’s own personality, just waiting to be matched up with the right someone who will enjoy wearing this fun Art.
If you’re in the Baltimore area, I hope you will come to the show and stop by my booth #719 and say “hi”. We’ll be on an end cap of one of the middle rows of booths and pretty easy to spot with all this color splashed across the booth.
I was recently interviewed by the American Craft Council on what it means to me to be representing the Surface Design Association as an invited artist to the Feb 21-23 American Craft Council Baltimore show.
 “Orchid Grid #1 through #9″, Nine 8″x8” textile paintings, each mounted to birch panels. ©2014 Ayn Hanna The interview is now posted here on the ACC Blog.
The American Craft Council describes their Baltimore Show as:
“a three-day celebration of all things handmade. It includes more than 650 of the top contemporary jewelry, clothing, furniture, and home décor artists from across the country all gathered under one roof. It’s your chance to touch, feel, and explore high-quality American craft like you’ve never seen before! This is the American Craft Council’s flagship show – a must-attend for craft lovers.”
I am very honored to be included in this wonderful show and will be exhibiting my handmade textile paintings, dye drawings, pillows and scarves.
If you’re in the Baltimore area, please come to the show and drop by my booth #719 and say “hi”. I would love to see you!
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