Selling as Individual Artists: Superfine Art Fair

I took a trip to Seattle, Washington to attend the Superfine Art Fair. Superfine was founded in 2015 as an artist self-represented art fair. What that means is that artists do not need gallery representation in order to participate. Their goal is to help artists in improving their business practice and providing platform for artists and collectors to connect. The reasons why I wanted to go is because I have also been thinking about participating perhaps for next year. So I thought I would take this chance to talk to artists, staff members, and collectors that were in Superfine this year and try to get their perspective on the event. Hopefully this video is useful for you if you're also thinking about participating in Superfine. Hi everyone, I'm Mo. Today we have a special guest, Taiye. Can you introduce yourself a little bit? Hi everyone, my name is Taiye. I am a watercolor artist based in Vancouver, Canada. I am originally from Hong Kong and I've been living all over US and Canada and the planet for a while. So yeah, as I mentioned, I make watercolor painting. I make like pretty large scale watercolor painting. And most of my painting, I have a theme that is like traced back to my childhood, which is about this bird called the cockatoo in Hong Kong. I actually heard some chirping sound behind. So you have cockatoos with you right now. I have a parrot. He's not a cockatoo. He's a smaller type of parrot. Because it's like one of my childhood memory that like, you know, when I was in Hong Kong, I was going to school in this district that has this cockatoo as a wild animal. It became a very good memory and it kind of stick with me for my entire life. I find refuge in birds and like, you know, like interacting with birds. And you went to art school. I went to art school, art and design school back in 2012, which is a long time ago. I'm seeing all the new graduate from like 2020, 2021. I'm like, oh my God, I'm growing old. You went to a good school. So you can say the name. I went to a school called Rhode Island School of Design. At that time, I didn't go for art. I went for design. So my journey was that like I started as a designer and I worked for about 10 years. And after 10 years, I kind of had this introspective call and I was like, oh, what is my life about? Am I just going to keep working for someone else on someone else creations on someone else baby? It really make me question, what do you actually want to do with your life? And my answer is that I really, really love color and I want to play with color. I've learned watercolor when I was in high school with a Chinese teacher. So that's why I picked it up again and started doing it. And, you know, in the process of doing it, I'm like, oh, I really like this. Like, this is actually really fitting for my personality. Like I'm quite independent and I want to be my own boss. So that's why I started this journey. And one thing kind of lead to another, you know, like how when you started things like, oh, people notice you and then they came to you. Oh, can you do this talk? Can you do this, you know, workshop? And I'm like, okay, sure. One thing I noticed that when you do things for yourself, even though there's sometimes that you do things that you don't really love that much, you will still put 100% of your energy into it because you know that you are doing it for your own good. And that's how I kind of take this art business of mine or artist journey of mine. I shouldn't say art business of mine, artist journey of mine. I kind of think about it as I am doing this for my own good. I'm doing this to keep my sanity, to keep myself as it is, to remain who I am. Today, we're talking about Superfine. So from your perspective, why did this art fair interest you and why you had this impulse to visit? What you had in mind when you went there? Number one reason is because I have been actively painting for three years in a row right now. And I've been looking for different venues to exhibit, to show my work. Sometimes when you're painting in our studio, you feel like, oh, I'm just drilling a hole here. It's very valuable to put your artwork out there to actually have people to take a look at it. Not just on Instagram, on social media, on your website. Oh, those are great. I'm not saying that they're not valuable channel, right? But being able to get human to human interactions and being able to get real-life feedback is also a very important part of the artist's journey. At least that's how I felt about it. And maybe money you can sell as well. That also comes later, right? More importantly, it's about connecting with the collector out there, people that might or might not be interested in my work, or at least have a conversation with them, right? I was looking actively at opportunity where I can do that in here in North America. Number one reason is I was looking at opportunity where I can exhibit. And Superfine, it's an art fair that is run by artists. So you don't need to be sponsored by a gallery to participate. So that's number one reason. Number two reason is because of, very honestly, geographic locations. They have different fairs throughout the entire US. The closest one to me is Seattle. I was like, okay, for the first year, I'm just going to go visit and check them out and have a chat with artists that are already participating and see what the experience is like. So you wanted to show your art, but you went there this year to just have a look, to see, to evaluate, to maybe learn some things from the artist. So you're spying on them. Not spying, but learning. Hopefully they didn't feel like I was spying. At least that was not my intention. Well, art fair is free for everyone to visit. So by all means. It's all a learning and teaching process, right? So to me, it's more about like, oh, learning what people do really well. It was your first time going to Superfine, right? What was your impression going to the venue for the first time? Was it bigger or better than you expected? Or what's the difference than your expectations? Before I visited, obviously I did some research, research, aka looking at Instagram, the official Instagram. I didn't look up all the artists that are going to be in the show. So I didn't have any expectation. I didn't have any thoughts on who I'm going to meet or whatsoever. The venue was a very nice venue. I think it was an event venue. Usually people host weddings in there. And this part of the town that has several galleries and several trendy shops, I'm not sure because it's Seattle. I'm not quite sure where all the neighborhood is. But it looks to me that it's a pretty up-and-coming neighborhood. There's this brick building. And then you walk into the building and everything seems to be very clean and very well-lit. There was two nice ladies greeting you. There were two floors to the venue. The reception desk was at the front, first floor. So you go down to P1, it's their first floor. And then above is the second floor. And overall, I think there were about, let's say, about 30 artists there. And they're mostly very traditional in terms of they all focus more on painting. There are some installation and sculptures. And there are some ceramic artists. But mostly it was painters. Is there a pricing guideline? For example, I've heard about the other art fair and affordable art fair. And it seems like different art fair try to position themselves in a certain space. And let's say, affordable art fair, you cannot price it over, let's say, 6,000 euros. So there are some kind of, you're supposed to do this and do that. Do they have this kind of guideline? There's one artist I talked to. His name is, the artist is Alexander. But it was actually his husband that was there. His husband's name is Robert Robinson. So Robert was telling me that, yeah, they did give them a strategy on pricing. And I talked to another artist. Her name is Emily. She does all these really intricate glass and ceramic sculpture. This is our first time in Superfine. And from what I heard from the artists, they do set a range. There are somewhere between 500 to 2,000 is their ideal range. I did see some artwork that was way over $2,000. Like what I was saying, I think I saw a painting that was like $5,000, $6,000, $7,000. There was a good price range there, but nothing over 10k. And how about prints? Are there artists selling prints? Or is that a thing there? Yes, I did see artists selling prints there. I think it's a good practice. And this is something I learned from visiting Superfine, is that you want a huge inventory to sell, even though you might not be able to sell everything. Obviously, you want some original, but then you also want some prints. Because you want to accommodate potential buyers that can afford different price point, right? Like some people may be able to afford $50 or $100, but some people might be able to afford $700 or $7,000. So you want to be able to penetrate through those different potential buyers group by offering different price point. From what you see with the little dotted red points on the wall, which kind of art that is sold the best at Superfine? That's an interesting question. I asked Joshua, who is one of the staff member at Superfine community, and I asked him this question. I was like, oh, so what sells the best at Superfine in general, not Seattle? And he was like, well, you can read the data and say, for example, New York cityscape sells really well, or here in Pacific Northwest, which is Seattle, Vancouver area, the mountain sells really well. When you go to the desert in, I don't know, close to California, maybe the desert sells really well, in George Street, something like that. But he was also emphasizing that people will buy a piece of artwork that connects to them personally. I remember there was an artist that I interviewed. His name is Brendan. And Brendan, I was so impressed by how much he was selling. He has all these pink dots on his wall. So I asked him particularly in terms of like, oh, why are you selling so well? Like, what is your secret source? You know, he was telling me that this is actually his second time participating in an art fair. The first time he participated in an art fair, it was in Dallas. And the first time he participated, he showed work that he thought, oh, maybe people will be interested in this. Like, I'm going to show what people like to see. And this time in Seattle, he decided to show work that he's actually really passionate about, and he loved it. And he found way better reaction when he shows work that he's actually personally really excited about. I think the reason is because when you're excited about something, you talk about something in a very passionate tone. Like, you're like, oh, this is the best thing ever. Like, this is like, you know, la, la, la, la, la, la. Because you're authentic. So you are very contagious. Your passions are very contagious. He is able to convey his passion, like, you know, to his audience very personally and make personal connection that way. And that is what he told me, the reasons why he thinks he's selling so well this time in Seattle. And then the second thing I think that I learned is you kind of have to put your work in a very trendy context. Now, trendy is not a good word. Like, you know, when we say trendy, we go, oh, maybe pink, millennial pink versus like, you know, like a silver. That's not what I meant. Like, this might not sit well with some artists or might not sit well with people. But you really have to talk about your artwork in a way that people care about. Let's put it this way. For example, with Brendan Duckley, his work is a lot about transgender. So he said that, like, you know, a lot of his collectors or audience that walked in connects with his work a lot because they are all parents to transgender kids. So that way he was able to connect with his audience. So I think there's intentions of your artwork, but when you are conveying your artwork to your audience, you really have to put it in a way that your audience can understand and care about. There are two different layers. There is the work itself. You know, if it connects, you know, it speaks on its own. It's self-representing, self-explanatory. And then there is the way to sell. And the way to sell is like the job of a salesman. And at an art fair, like Superfine, artists are representing themselves and they have to be their own salesperson. And it's like they have to do the job twice. Once when they're painting, once when they're selling. Do you think they are better salesperson than the gallerists? Because simultaneously on the same weekend, you visited another art fair, right? Seattle Art Fair. And it's the professional setting with gallerists and artists are just being represented. It's the traditional good old trade show style art fair. So do you think, you know, actually artists are doing a great job, you know, putting themselves out there? I think they are for different type of audiences. Like Seattle Art Fair and Superfine. For someone like me, who doesn't have a million dollars in the pocket. Like Superfine is great because it's so intimate. That's a word that I've been hearing consistently from several different artists I interviewed. Like, oh, they were like, this setting is so intimate. Like you're able to talk to your audience so closely and directly. And I think if you are able to, you know, leverage that well, that's a really huge plus point for artists. Because, you know, all of a sudden, as an audience walked in, I'm able to associate this piece of artwork with this face. I did interview one of the collectors because she purchased a piece of artwork. I was like, oh, like, so what attracts you about this artwork? She mentioned the technique. She mentioned the color, but she mentioned like most importantly, it was the story that the artist was telling her. It was the conversation she had. So all of a sudden, like, she felt very like, she felt like she was talking to a friend. And I asked her specifically, I was like, hey, do you think you would buy this piece if you didn't get to talk to the artist? And it would just like, you know, presented on a wall space, you know, in a gallery or even in like an art fair, you know, like with a salesperson, perhaps. And she said, no, I don't think I would have purchased this piece of, maybe not. Like, I probably wouldn't purchase this piece of artwork if it weren't for the opportunity to talk to artists and getting to know his story. It's true. That reminds me of, there is a hotel room art fair in Madrid. And every year I've visited for like the past five years, it's called the Hybrid Art Fair. So it's hosted in a boutique hotel. So it occupies two floors and each hotel room is a booth. Usually it's a gallery, but when the gallery is representing the artist is the artists themselves who are selling the works, not the galleries, not necessarily. Because there are six art fairs happening in five days and the gallerists are somewhere else representing the gallery in the professional fair. So this is like the parallel one, the alternative, the intimate, the extraordinary. And I find also people like this kind of intimate setting. But then after all, it's a kind of in between. It's not an underground alternative in a hotel room, on the hotel bed, and it's not in a large convention center with ultra professional, fancy setting. It's kind of in between. Let's say if you would have a chance to go to the Seattle Art Fair as an artist, would you rather like save more money or like, you know, do more to get bigger goals? It's hard to say, because I met an artist at Superfine there who were exhibiting at Seattle Art Fair before. And then this year he chose to show his work at Superfine. Like from a new artist like myself who doesn't know anything about the art world, I was pretty surprised about that transition. I would think that like, oh, maybe you go from Superfine to Seattle Art Fair, right? But that's just my ignorant assumptions before going to visit. No, it's totally normal because you always like aim higher and it's like you go one step up, up, up, and many people fear going downsize because that's like kind of, you know, are you not doing as well? Like people think it's a damage to the brand or... And obviously at Seattle Art Fair, you know, because you're represented by a gallery, so you will get a cut from being represented by galleries, right? Like, so let's say your piece is selling for, I don't know, like $2,000. Perhaps you're getting a $1,000 home. Maybe, yeah, $1,000, something like that home. I don't remember the charging this, you know, like how much they charge you when you sell a piece at Superfine, but... Wait, they have a percentage? No way. I don't know any art fair actually takes a percentage. Okay, I might be spreading wrong information here, so we should double-check. No, I just checked on the Superfine Art Fair's official website. 100% of the profit from art sales belongs to you. That's right. We don't take a cut of your sales in any amount over the course of the fair. But that's normal, because I personally don't know any actual legit art fair would charge a percentage. That's like more online art fair and online galleries way. So sorry, Superfine, I don't mean to spread wrong information about you. And that's my parrot calling, by the way. Sorry. And I do have a small technical question. When a person is buying a piece of art, let's say I'm a collector, you sell art, and I go and buy the art. Can I pay in cash, PayPal, Square, or what other means? Because this has been the biggest hurdle at another art fair called Bada Art Fair. I made a video. I visited them last year, and I don't think they were there this year. It was the Buenos Aires direct of the artist. So directly from the artist, that's in short called Bada. And they hosted one edition in Madrid. And they were mainly Latin American, Buenos Aires, as you can imagine, Argentinian artists selling in Madrid. But because of the financial restrictions, they are not really allowed to apply for a POS, point of sales machine, as a tourist in Europe, because they need to be self-employed. Therefore, they need to have the work visa. And just for that short amount of time, obviously, they don't have this possibility. And even back home, maybe they were selling as a hobby artist. They don't have the infrastructure. They had to basically receive cash and cash only. That was already the pandemic, right? So many collectors had no habit of carrying cash, and they had even not been warned. So you have a lot of people just going around the booth, trying to ask around like, hey, do you have cash to their friends? Can you give me some cash and I send you the transfer? And it was a mess. How was the situation in Superfine? And that actually is one of my concerns too, because I'm coming from Vancouver, Canada, so I'm crossing the border. If I were to exhibit with them next year, that would be one of my largest concerns. I need to look at what is the visa restrictions because as we all know, US is pretty strict with visa crossing the border. They are really strict about that. I would advise anyone who is not from the US, who doesn't have US citizenship, to really get local help. Either you hire a lawyer, or in Canada, we have an organization that help artists provide legal advice in a professional manner. I would advise anyone to get in touch and really understand what's the restrictions. But I think once it's more about the visa, it's not so much about the paying. I think this is my personal assumption. Yeah, it's a pity you have a booth, you decorated your booth with your best artworks and people love your work. And then they can't get it because there's not a convenient way to do the transaction. That's like the biggest pity because everything's ready and it's like, you can't, money, I don't have cash. Yeah, and especially if it's like 1000, 2000, nobody's carrying that amount of cash in their pockets. Maybe there's something you can look, you can search, is there are some payment method connected with, let's say, online platform, let's say, big cartel. There are some online shops like Shopify. So let's say they like this work, you send them the link, they pay online, and then they just pick that work from you in front of you. So that can be a way because you don't even need to carry the POS machine. So it's even one less thing to carry with you. But then there's always a small fee when you receive money from, I don't know how many 0.3, 0.5, 1, 2, 3%. If you're not selling hundreds of thousands, it's probably worth it. If you're going to Superfine next year, Seattle or a different city, what kind of artworks are you bringing? What price point? Just imagine it. I think I'll bring some smaller pieces because I looked at the artwork that's being sold there. I've seen some bigger pieces that are being sold, but the one artist that I talked to that we're selling really well, his artwork was averagely around 150 to 200, maybe $300. When you bring smaller pieces, it's very easy for people to just not think about it and purchase. 150, 200, it's a pretty doable price. Versus something like $7,000, you really got to think about it and not just think about whether you can afford it, but you have to think about, oh, do I have enough space in my house to host this beautiful piece of artwork? So I think what I would do is I'll bring some really smaller pieces. I'll show some bigger ones just as like, hey guys, this is what I do. And maybe I'll make some prints of the bigger ones to sell at the art fair. But in general, yeah, I think if I were going there, I would bring some smaller pieces like on the cheaper end. I have a silly question. So one thing in particular about watercolor is both a disadvantage and an advantage in this case is that it dries really fast. And you cannot really work like a huge piece with many different layers because it dries so fast and it's just not workable. And that has been the biggest complaints that I heard from watercolor artists. But because it dries so fast and it's so simultaneous, do you consider to make some interventions on-site and have people like interact with you and make something and then give them the piece to say, you know, do you want it? And because you had this interaction, it's almost like building this artwork together with the potential buyer. And I'm sure they would buy it because they feel engaged. Yeah, that's a really good idea. And I didn't think about that, but I might steal that idea. Yeah, steal it, steal it. Actually, one of the collectors that were there and she got a piece, a free artwork that was like really, really tiny. That was like this tiny. I think the artist was giving it out for free and it was just like really simple. It was like, you know, strokes or whatever. So I think that was the idea. Like you give out smaller or you sell really small pieces that, you know, people can connect it really easily. And like, you know, or perhaps like what you're saying, like, you know, do it right there, like at the moment. And then just, you know, like have them participate in the process. So that might be a good idea. I might steal that idea, actually. I didn't steal the idea, but I was inspired by a Chinese artist in the Paris photo, I think in 2000, probably 16, when I visited, she was giving away free napkins with her intervention on it. She's drawing clouds and she's just using like a blue watercolor to make clouds and then giving it away. And many people were queuing up to get a piece of her. And it was super, you know, at the moment, personal, intimate, and it's free. But of course, you don't necessarily need to, you know, give it for free or do it on a napkin. You can, because if it's not like a huge fair with a million people waiting at the line, you can have more time to actually make something different. I think, take a step back, like all these like strategies are good. That's one thing that I was thinking about is how, like, it's very important when you are an artist being a salesperson on the floor to how to engage your audience. And I definitely interacted with different artists and how they approach me really make a big difference on how I view the artwork. For example, there are some artists, and I make those mistakes before, like, you know, when someone walk into my space, I'll be like, you try to tell the technique side of things. Oh, this is a watercolor on a cold press paper on like 300 pounds. And what I realized from visiting Superfine as an audience, as a potential buyer, this time is that, why are you telling me this? Like, I don't really care. I don't really care. You got to find some way to tell the story itself, because the story is what is, what makes your artwork juicy. In some way, I know it's really hard because as an artist, also we put our heart into our artwork, right? And like our artwork is part of ourself, right? And it's so hard to like, open up to strangers and like put your vulnerable self out there and be like, oh, this is about my trauma and like as a child, whatever, whatever, whatever. But you got to put it in a way that like, perhaps like, you know, build up the conversation so you can get to that point. I don't know how, like, you know, but just don't open the conversation by saying this is a watercolor paper. Watercolor on a 300 pounds and because as an audience, like, it's like, oh, why does it matter to me? Got to make it relevant for your audience and engage them. Or maybe you can, you know, wear something or, you know, have a certain kind of appearance, something that for people to, you know, break the ice with, for people to generate like a pickup line or something. I like this T-shirt because a lot of people would actually stop me in the street and say, hi, I like your T-shirt. And then I can say, you know, I got it in Valencia. I'm doing my Ph.D. at the university there. So this is something I think we all experience. So, you know, things like a funny T-shirt or like a funny hairstyle. Totally, totally. Yeah, no, that's a good thing. But I think you got to be careful about that because you don't want to wear this T-shirt when your art is about like, oh, life is so good. Like, you know, like life is... Of course, it has to be consistent with your art. Yeah. So all the artists that you see in this video, the one we mentioned, you can find their social media links, like Instagram links in the description below. And also the link to Taiye's website and social media. Check out her beautiful cockatoos watercolor paintings. And yeah, thank you very much for sharing your experience. And maybe next year we will do this again and you can show me how you did at Superfine. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you and see you. Thank you. Thank you.