OddBird's Flight School takes off with artist mentorship
The first graduate of an OddBird Art & Craft Fair mentorship program said it has prepared him for sales in ways that art school did not.
"I told a couple of my professors that I wanted to do art markets, and they (said), 'Just so you know, there's not a lot of opportunities for that, there's not a lot of money in that, and it's a lot of work for not a lot of return," Levi Angelo, an illustrator and textile artist, told Taproot. "It was really nice to be able to pivot, and talk to people who have had success at markets and in their own careers, and who just see (market sales) as a viable option."
Angelo is the first graduate of OddBird's Flight School program, which the fair organizers established earlier this year to equip inexperienced vendors with practical knowledge. Angelo will have a table at the first of two consecutive OddBird weekends at the Old Strathcona Performing Arts Centre from Nov. 28 to 30. The table is the capstone to the mentorship that Nico Humby and others gave Angelo.
But what does market mentorship entail? Humby told Taproot it's about knowing what people want, what the right price is, and what's already offered by other vendors. Humby is a printmaker whose market experience goes back to the Royal Bison Art and Craft Fair days, and he said he had to figure things out on his own.
"How do you price your things? What's the actual cost of your time? How do you even put price stickers on your pieces at your booth? And how do you make your booth more attractive, but not too attractive, so that it doesn't overshadow your work?" Humby said he asked himself in his early market days. "All the backend stuff — the business side of things and time management — is huge," he added.
After the Flight School feedback, Angelo decided to scale down from offering hand-sewn and -painted tote bags to embroidered patches that buyers can attach to whatever they want. This cut down on time and costs, resulting in a lower price.
Humby said pricing in line with other vendors is important because many OddBird shoppers want to distribute their budget among many inexpensive items, rather than blow it all on one big splurge, especially leading up to the holidays. But that doesn't mean artists can't go big, he added.
"You need to build the small stuff first," Humby, who is also selling his work at OddBird, said. "You probably won't sell all the stuff the first time. So the second time, you'll still have that stuff for sale, and then you can (work on something more experimental) … Also, markets are a place to create things you love, that come from the heart."
At OddBird, Angelo said he will sell bookmarks, patches, cat toys, and other things. Angelo's own cat, Duke, is the subject of a print being sold in OddBird's Art-O-Matic vending machine. Duke lost his ears to frostbite and wears a puffy winter jacket in the image, an apt fit for "Deep Freeze," the current Art-O-Matic theme. The vending machine is at the Edmonton Arts Council Shop & Services at Churchill Square until Nov. 27.
"I hope that they keep going with the mentorship," Angelo said. "I think it's great to be able to bring in people from the community and mentor people that don't have as much experience — or maybe no experience. Maybe the next person will have never done anything at a craft fair before. I think that would just be so helpful for someone who has been looking at it from the outside and trying to find a way to get in."
