Spring is in the air! The season opener of Portobello West Art & Fashion Market kicks off this weekend – March 22 & 23. I’m looking forward to seeing old (& new) friends!
Portobello West
March 22 & 23, 2014 ~ 11-5pm
Creekside Community Centre
1 Athlete’s Way, Vancouver
Google map
My lifestyle is a bit different these days, now that my hubby, John, has come on full time & we sell my artwork at Granville Island several days every month. It’s not quite the same as having a long break after the busy Christmas market season. Usually the spring Portobello West is my first foray back into the markets after a few months off to rest, come up with new ideas & spend some time in the painting studio. This year we took a little break at Christmas to visit my folks, then were back at Granville Island for most of January.
Still, it’s nice to shake up the routine with a change of venue. At Granville Island, most of my customers are tourists. It would be easy to get complacent as an artist & relax into selling a few favorite pieces over & over again. Tourists often haven’t seen my work before, so it’s easy to rely on selling some long-standing favorites, like my prints of Sarah & the Orca:
With markets like Portobello West, where it’s mostly locals, that ain’t gonna fly. And that’s a good thing! It pushes me to keep coming up with new paintings & prints, new products that my fans will be excited to see. It’s good for me too from not just a creativity standpoint, but also because talking about the same few paintings over & over again gets rather dull. If I’m also excited about the new work? That’s gotta be more fun for everybody. 🙂