Well, once again Apollocon is behind me. I love this show despite the fact that I put in almost 20 hours of volunteer time from Thursday night to Sunday afternoon. I don't think I've ever found a place where I enjoy working so much. 

     The art show wasn't a great success for most of the artists this time around. Last year the bidding was brisk between noon and three on Saturday and a good many pieces were ready for auction already by that time. This year we practically had to drag people in to bid until the last late influx which we ended up staying open late to get. We had a scare of missing art when some uncouth person signed for a package they KNEW didn't belong to them. Luckily the art was retrieved Saturday morning and hung in time for the artist to at least get some sales, though she didn't do as well this year as last. I'm not sure if that was because last year everyone fought over her stuff and didn't want to get into high dollar bid wars again, just the generally slow bidding or if getting hung late had an ill effect. I find the last doubtful considering even Theresa Mather, whose works are normally either mostly sold or being fought over by noon Saturday, had sluggish sales compared to last year. The main theory our Art Show Director had as to why the sales were so sluggish was that fuel prices weren't $3 per gallon this time last year. We did seem to have far fewer folk driving in from other cities than I recall seeing last year, too.

     Another issue in what seemed to be lower numbers this year was likely the cranky weather. Here in Houston, if you live in certain areas, you simply do not leave the house when it's raining so hard you can't see ten feet in front of you. You either may not be able to get back home or may come home only to find that while you were out and not there to rescue your valuables to higher locales, your house took on several inches of water. Saturday was rather chaotic in the weather department, so that may also have made people who would otherwise have come out and bought a one-day pass stay home. While we don't sell a lot of art to them, we do sell some.

     I had the rather enjoyable task of being the runner/comic relief for the art auction Saturday night. I had entirely too much fun cutting up and playing gunslinger as I battled it out for my Peri Charlifu print. I'm still a bit miffed that I lost one of Brandy Stark's pieces I bid on. But, seeing as I know her, I can just beg her to make me one like it. LOL  Saturday night also brought a chance to hang out with some musicians from the AMTGard group from the Kingdom of the Wetlands. That was a lot of fun and it seemed to draw a crowd. Perhaps we should make a point of trying to make it an official feature of the con so we can have some event space set up where we won't have to worry about disrupting panels and whatnot.  I also got to sit on an interesting panel on Sunday about the schools and trends of speculative art. It wasn't heavily attended, but the few audience members we had were wonderful folk. Our artist guest of honor had to leave and bugged out of the panel on us along with the other of the four panelists. I'm just glad I didn't end up on that one alone because I really know diddly about the trends in spec art since I never follow them.

     The con wasn't profitable for me since I only sold 2 prints and traded a third for a small piece of original art. Though I didn't have the shipping costs, being in attendance also has costs even if I don't stay in the hotel. Add that to the cost of printing and matting and it was a major loss even without my fairly sizable designated art buying  and necessities budget. But I didn't really get into these to make cash anyway. I did it for the exposure. So it was still a very worthwhile venture.

     I really do love Apollocon. I love it so much that I've decided to start working now on a very special piece of cow/sci-fi/fantasy themed art just for them for next year. It's their fifth anniversary! What I want to do with the art when I'm done is print out enough for the folks on the planning committee with two extra. One goes to the con chair from this year (he passed the reins to his second for next year) and the other will go to the art show for bidding. I may also do a third which will be given out to one lucky volunteer. After that, I will call the edition closed. I also have a few other ideas for cow themed art for next year's program book. No one gets any sneak peeks at the special art except my fiance and best friend. *evil laugh* Everyone else has to wait until I'm done.

Well, yay me. I take off my glasses to clean them and SNAP!   So much for the unbreakable flex titanium frames. *smirk* Guess this is the gods' way of saying, "No, really... your doctor meant it when she said you need to get your lazy self to the eye doc for new glasses" Whee! I get to go geek chic with the tape on the bridge of my glasses until I can get these replaced. *groan*  Wow... this is messing with my eyes because it puts the lenses at just the wrong angle for my astigmatism....

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