A Lovely Town and Great Art Show - Melrose Arts Festival

I applied for Melrose Arts Festival this past December because it was highly recommended to me by a woman I met at SoWa Open Market last summer who purchased some of my greeting cards and a large original birch painting for her daughter. A good friend of mine, J.J. Long, also recommended it to me because he grew up in the town and has shown there for years.

I was a little skeptical because when I looked at the exhibitor work from previous years, I noticed it was pretty conservative and the dominant painting style was photo-realistic with a few token oddities here and there. I figured, "What the hell, you never know," and dropped the application in the mail.

In February, the cordial photo-copied rejection letter arrived. No surprise, but a little disappointed.

A few weeks later in March, I received an e-mail saying that I was on the waiting list and was I still interested? Lightening fast I responded, "Of course I am still interested!"

Fast-forward to this past Friday...set-up at 3pm, opening preview 7-10pm, festival Saturday 11-6pm and Sunday 11-5pm.

What a fabulous festival! 

A warm and wonderful group of artists, a very organized and professional committee and great art-loving traffic all weekend. I was very impressed and hope to do this festival again next year. 

The perks:

• They provide you postcards for advertising
• They feature a short interview about you and your work on their blog - my interview can be seen here http://melrosearts.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/tracy-levesque/
• They provide 3 -  3' x 6' display panels and hooks for you to hang your artwork, two lights for the display and chair for you to sit in
• The people are great who organize the show and like I said before, all the artists I met were warm, encouraging and refreshing to talk with during the show
• The traffic was steady and the people who attended the show had a genuine interest in the arts and seemed interested and engaged in what I had to say about my work

It was a terrific show for me and I made a number of great connections - thank goodness I got bumped off the waiting list :)

Here's some pictures of my booth from the show...