Category Archives: Jewelry Making

Making

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Going from working with words to working with my hands.

For years, my creativity has always centered around writing. I started writing in my early teens — fiction, back then — and managed to turn my writing skills into a career starting in the early 1990s. I wrote books and articles, mostly about how to use computers. Later, I wrote about flying and, most recently, about boating. And, of course, I’ve had this blog for nearly 20 years.

Building Solutions

But it was around 2014 that I started branching out into other creative endeavors — actually making things with my hands. It started when the building that would become my home was under construction and I had a need to make things for it. I think the first thing I might have made for the inside of my shop was my workbench, a sturdy affair made of 2×4 lengths and plywood. It’s ugly, but it’s sturdy as hell, mostly because it weighs a ton.

Shelves
This is the first set of garage shelves I built. It’s 8 feet tall, 8 feet wide, and two feet deep. I put Penny the Tiny Dog on a shelf for scale. I built this on the garage floor and needed help getting it upright.

Since then, I’ve built various other solutions for needs I’ve had, including a number of other work surfaces, storage shelves for my garage and garden shed, and three chicken coops. (It was the third coop, a 4 x 8 foot building with a metal roof that’s large enough to walk into and has four perches, six nests, and a brooding area, that finally did the trick.)

I did a bunch of the work necessary to build or finish my home, too. I wired the whole place, laid down Pergo laminate flooring and tile, built stub walls and a shower stall, constructed deck rails for my outside deck and inside loft, put down the Trex decking on my 600 square foot deck, and added trim around doors and walls. More recently, I worked on a bathroom project that required me to lay out plumbing drains and vents, install insulation, and put up paneling. Although none of these activities called for much creativity, they still involved making things with my hands.

Along the way, I’ve accumulated a pretty respectable collection of power tools — certainly more than my father, stepfather, or wasband ever had. I have a chop saw and a table saw. I have an impact driver, three drills, and a pair of battery operated screwdrivers. I have a circular saw, a reciprocating saw, and a jig saw. I have an angle grinder and a Dremmel. I have two nail guns and a big compressor with enough hose to reach anywhere in my home or garage from the garage. And hand tools! I have just about everything I need. As my wasband used to say, “Any job is easy when you have the right tool.” Hell, yes!

And I’ve come to realize, after nearly 10 years of doing this kind of work, that I like it.

Making Jewelry

Elsewhere in this blog, I’ve already discussed how I got started making jewelry so I don’t want to rehash that here. Instead, I want to talk about how making jewelry makes me feel and why it has become a part of my life.

I look at jewelry making as a combination of challenges:

  • The engineering challenge is to come up with a design that physically works. For example, a pendant that includes a stone must have the features necessary to hold the stone securely in place. It must have a bail to hang it from a chain or other necklace. It must be balanced so it doesn’t hang awkwardly from its bail.
  • The aesthetic challenge is to come up with a design that looks good. What design elements can I include? Which stone will I work with? How will the overall design complement the stone?

  • Ruby In Zoisite
    This piece on includes two ruby in zoisite stones. It was entirely handmade from sterling silver sheet, bezel strip, and wire. The skills I used to make it include cutting, piercing, filling, stamping, shaping, and soldering the metal. As for tools — well, it took a lot more tools than I could take with me in my travels.

    The skills challenge is to be able to create the piece of jewelry I’ve designed using the silversmithing skills I have or am building. Those skills include cutting, filing, texturing, and soldering metal. My skills improve with every piece of jewelry I make, but they’re limited, in part, by the tools I have available. (I have a full set of jewelry making tools in my home-based studio, but I’m very limited when I travel.)

It’s these three challenges that make jewelry making a rewarding activity for me. There’s always something new to try. There’s aways a skill to build or hone. I will never be an expert, although I will get better and better at what I do just by doing it.

Making Jewelry for Sale

When my seasonal flying work was earning enough income to support me, making and selling jewelry was a “side gig” and it didn’t matter much whether I made more money than I spent on materials and equipment. But with my retirement this year, that has changed. I’m now treating my jewelry business more seriously as source of income. That means making more (and selling more) jewelry.

I’m fortunate in that I have several avenues for selling and they’re all pretty good. Some are better than others. About a month ago, one of my wholesale clients pretty much cleaned out my inventory of pendants, leaving me with slim pickings for my online shop and a lot of work to do before my next art show. That show is coming up in about 10 days, so, as you might imagine, I’m hustling to make more inventory.

The challenge now is to keep my creativity level up and not just make different versions of the same item. I do that, too — it’s quick to be able to make certain designs in “batch mode” — but it also takes a bit of the fun out of making. (See the second bullet point above.)

Lately, I’ve been very busy with garage projects, but for the next 10 days, I’ll try to spend 4 to 8 hours a day in my studio. (Fortunately, it has an air conditioner, which I’ll definitely need with temperatures getting into the 100s for the next few days.) I’ll work primarily on pendants, which I’m so short on, but will also try to get some earrings made. In the evening, while I’m relaxing with my pups upstairs, I’ve been making the beaded necklaces that coordinate with the pendants; I’ve made four in the past three days.

I have two back-to-back shows in Leavenworth, WA, including a five-day show for Labor Day weekend. Then I might do a half-day show in Twisp before taking whatever inventory is left to my wholesale customer in Winthrop and a gallery in Twisp. By then, it’ll be pretty close to the end of my stay at home and the start of my travels.

On the Road

Will I make jewelry while I’m away?

It was easy when I traveled with the cargo trailer I turned into a mobile jewelry studio. I could camp out in the desert all winter and spend as much time as I liked inside it with just about every tool I needed within reach. But I’m not traveling with the cargo trailer anymore. These days, I’m on a boat and space is very limited.

Ruby In Zoisite
Another ruby in zoisite piece, but wire-framed. I can make this kind of pendant anywhere and it still sells well, but I’m bored with it.

The main challenge will be to put together a set of tools and materials that’ll keep me producing without taking up too much space. The wire work I used to focus on is extremely portable, but I’m kind of sick of doing that. Beading is also something I can do anywhere, but even the beads take up a surprising amount of space so I’ll need to limit what I bring along.

I’d like to be able to keep fulfilling online shop orders as I travel, but that means taking all of my inventory with me. That’s not a huge deal since jewelry is relatively small and I have a good storage case to keep it all in. I’d also like to be able to set up new wholesale accounts along the way — but that means having enough inventory to sell. And that means making while I travel.

So the answer is yes, I will make jewelry as I travel. I just don’t know how much. The next 12 months should be quite a challenge.

Why I’m Leaving Etsy — and Maybe You Should, Too?

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For years, I had an online shop on Etsy to sell my jewelry. Not anymore.

I’ve made some changes in my online shop and I thought I’d take a moment to explain why and what I changed. But let me start with an explanation of how I sell my handmade jewelry.

How I Sell My Work

Most of my sales are either directly to buyers at art shows, via consignment sales at two Washington State galleries, or wholesale to a variety of gift shop owners. Each method has its own pros and cons:

  • Art shows take a lot of time and effort. I’ve got to get to the show, set up my booth, and then sit in it for the duration of the show. At the end, I have to pack it all up and get it home. Those are the cons. On the plus side, however, is that I have complete control over my inventory and sell at retail price. So I have the potential to make more money per item sold.
  • Consignment is a different ball game. I drop off inventory that the consignment place may or may not put on display immediately. When I drop it off, I lose control of it and can’t sell it. But I also have to keep track of it. If and when it sells, I get a check for 60% to 65% of the retail price. Ouch. If it doesn’t sell, I get it back, usually in serious need of cleaning before it can go back into my inventory. Those are the cons. On the plus side, it doesn’t take much effort to sell and my work eventually appears in a shop with other gallery quality items. I generally get checks every single month, year-round. Still, I’d rather not do any more consignment selling, especially for high ticket items.
  • Wholesale is pretty much the same as retail with the main benefit being that I get paid up front, don’t have to keep track of what’s sitting out there, and I never see it again. It’s the same as selling to a retail buyer, but at a deep discount. Once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.

I’d like to do a lot more wholesale selling and a lot less art show selling. Part of that is that art show success is so dependent on the venue and the weather. I usually turn a decent profit at each art show I attend, but I did lose money at a Christmas Show in Spokane last year and that hurt.

When I sell wholesale, I know my cost of sales right up front: the amount of the discount I have to offer and the cost of getting the merchandise to the buyer. When I sell at art shows, I have a lot of costs to cover before I can start seeing profits: jury fees, entrance fees, transportation costs, lodging costs, etc. — and that doesn’t even include the cost of my booth tent, tables, table coverings, displays, etc. It’s possible to pay $400 for a booth at an outdoor show 50 miles away and have weather so miserable that no one comes out to the show. Or pay $500 for an indoor show 150 miles away and be stuck in a back room none of the shoppers walk back to. This has happened to me and it sucks.

Selling Online

Of course, selling online is probably the best of all worlds. I keep control of my inventory and sell it at retail price (or maybe a slight discount with a coupon or sale). The online shop calculates and collects the money and sends my share — more on that in a moment — right to my bank account. I package the merchandise — which is easy because I’m selling small items — and ship it out. I don’t have to set up, sit in, or tear down a show booth. I don’t have to sell at deep discounts or wait until an item out of my control is sold. When an item is sold online, it’s gone and I never have to think about it again.

Lots of folks think this is the only way to sell. They think it’s as easy as setting up an online shop and ringing in the sales. But what they don’t understand is that people not only have to want what you sell, but they have to be able to find it.

And that’s where Etsy comes in.

Etsy — Then and Now

Etsy started as a marketplace for handmade goods — items created by crafters and artists. It built a reputation as a place where you could buy unique things while supporting makers. And, for some people who don’t know any better, it probably still has that reputation.

Mastodon Toot
A response to my toot this morning about my switch from Etsy to Square for online selling. I giggle at the word “tat,” which is apparently UK English for “junk.”

But it’s a farce. Etsy is now full of manufactured junk, much of it made overseas and passed off as “handmade” by people trying to cash in on Etsy’s reputation. As a web designer on Mastodon commented to me today, “I was looking at selling on Etsy lately and was dismayed to see it now sells all the same tat as eBay/Amazon, and appears that the only way to actually sell anything is to pay them to boost listings.”

And that brings up another one of Etsy’s ploys. If you search Etsy for an item — say “silver jewelry” — it will bring up search results with Etsy sellers who paid to have their posts boosted before any other sellers. Sometimes, the search results don’t even match the search phrase. In so many cases, the results that come up are cheap crap that you know isn’t handmade.

Etsy Search Results
My search for “Silver Jewelry” brought up this collection of garbage. Are we expected to believe that someone will make you a personalized name necklace for only $16? And how much of this stuff looks like silver to you? The whole second row is paid advertising. Scrolling down (beyond this screenshot) displays more of the same. As a seller, do you think anyone will find what you make in this mess?

White Buffalo Pendant
While this might not be your taste in jewelry, it’s solid sterling silver, hand formed from sheet, strip, and wire with a genuine White Buffalo Turquoise cabochon in it that was hand polished by a lapidary friend just for me. Even the beaded necklace has sterling silver beads, although the white beads are howlite.

So I’m making quality sterling and fine silver jewelry with gemstones using a wide variety of silversmithing tools and techniques and I’m competing on Etsy with this crap?

But wait, there’s more!

Recently, Etsy decided, out of the blue, that it was going to hold back 70% of my payment as a “reserve.” No real explanation of why. It just had to wait an extra week or two to get my money.

Add that to Etsy’s fees:

  • 20¢ for each listing, including automatic re-listing of an item that didn’t sell in 60 days and automatic listing of multiple quantity items when one sells. So, in other words, you’re going to pay 20¢ per item just to be able to show it on Etsy.
  • 6.5% of the order total, including shipping and gift wrapping fees, if charged.
  • 3% + 25¢ for payment processing fees.
  • 15% of the order total for sales made through the use of Etsy’s offsite advertising. Yes, if Etsy puts an ad on Google and someone clicks that ad and it takes them to your shop and they buy something, you pay Etsy an extra 15%. This is an opt-in feature and I’m pretty sure the fee used to be 20%. I opted out when I realized what it was costing me; somehow all of my sales were being hit with this fee.

And this doesn’t even begin to cover the optional monthly fees you can pay for shop customization options or the optional marketing fees you can pay to boost listings and get them at the top of search results.

So, in all, we’re looking at roughly 10% to 25% of the listing price to sell it. And that’s if it sells the first time it lists. You’ll pay an extra 20¢ every time it’s relisted.

Yes, I know this is less than the cost of selling by consignment or wholesale and even less than the cost of selling directly to buyers at art shows given the cost of doing art shows. But I think it’s a bit outrageous when you consider that I’m not getting my money immediately and my work is pooled in with so much other crap.

Sellers Revolt

Etsy sellers are not taking this sitting down. Or at least some of them aren’t. The withholding of money has gotten Etsy sellers up in arms enough that they’re threatening to strike. And that has resulted in Etsy backpedaling to reduce the amount it withholds. I got an email telling me that they were only going to withhold 30% of my sales.

Too little, too late. For the reasons listed above, I’m outta there.

I set up my shop to be “on vacation” with a vacation notice that says my shop is permanently closed and they can find my new shop on Square. Of course I included a link. I also turned off all automatic listing renewals for everything still listed in my shop. One by one they’ll disappear. When they’re all gone, I’ll delete the shop. Unless Etsy deletes it first.

The Square Solution

I use Square for credit card processing. I have been using it since it first appeared as a credit card acceptance option, back when its target market was garage sale runners and babysitters.

Back then, I set it up for my flying business. I was tired of using a credit card acceptance system that charged me a minimum monthly fee, statement fees, and a relatively high credit card processing fee. It was costing me more than $50 a month, even when I didn’t accept any credit cards.

Square was different. It used a smartphone app, charged a reasonable processing fee, and that was it. No monthly fees, no minimum fees. The only catch (back then) was that they wouldn’t pay out more than $1,000 per week. They weren’t expecting folks like me who sold service that often started at $1,000. But I was able to get around that with them by providing documentation that proved I was legit and had other credit card processing service in the past. The upped my weekly limit to $5,000, which was fine. (There isn’t any limit anymore.)

So when I started doing art shows, it made sense to set up a Square account for my jewelry business. While people might whine and complain that the rate is too high — seriously? — or they have some other imagined gripe about it, I have no complaints about Square, at least not yet.

One of the things Square now offers is the ability to sell online. While they didn’t implement this in a user friendly way, I have enough tech knowledge that I was able to figure it out. I started building my online store more than a month ago and now have most of my inventory in it. You can find it at MLJewelryDesigns.square.site.

It’s simple, but that’s okay. I think it looks professional — certainly a lot better than Etsy ever looked. It works.

Best of all, it’s free. No listing fees, no selling fees. All I pay is the cost of credit card processing, which I would if I were selling at an art show. It even has a built in shipping calculator that lets me buy discounted postage to ship items out. Just like Etsy.

Yes, there are upgrades available for a monthly fee. One of them would let me use a custom domain name, which I’m considering. Others offer better marketing options or shop analytics — most of which I don’t need and certainly don’t want to pay for. I’m not fooling myself here: I don’t sell much online and don’t think I ever will. But I want the option. I want to be able to send folks to a place where they can buy what I make 24/7.

And that brings me to marketing.

Promoting My Online Shop

I remember the early days of the worldwide web — you do know that’s what the WWW stands for, right? Back in the day, everyone wanted an online shop. They thought that all you had to do was set up a website and people would just buy, buy, buy whatever you were selling. No one seemed to realize that people had to want what you sell and find your shop before you could maybe sell to them.

And that’s where marketing comes in.

Yes, I have an online shop. Yes, there are features built into Square’s online shops to be found by Google in searches. But I’m not dumb enough to think that I can just sit back and let those two things bring me sales.

If Facebook is your business’s website, you’re doing it wrong.

Serious business owners have real websites for their businesses, not Facebook pages.

You might think it’s enough to just put your business on Facebook and steer folks to your page, but it isn’t. First of all, it’s alienating people like me who wouldn’t open a Facebook page to follow a friend, let alone get more information about a business. Second, as discussed in this blog post by UK web designer Nick (who also authored the Mastodon toot above), you’re at the mercy of Facebook’s algorithms to determine whether what you post on Facebook will even appear for the folks who follow you.

You can do better than that without breaking the bank. Heck, even my WordPress-based sites have the ability to forward all of my posts to the folks who want to see them. No algorithm will block that.

No. I have to send people to my shop. And I do that several ways:

  • Maintain a website. I use the ML Jewelry Designs website as way to share news with visitors, including folks who actually subscribe to get that news. And yes, I get a bump in website hits and even a few online sales after every art show I attend. Also note that I used the word “maintain.” That means adding fresh content regularly. No one wants to visit an out-of-date website more than once.
  • Distribute business cards at art shows. My cards have a photo of one of my pieces of jewelry and a link to the ML Jewelry Designs website. The website is not my shop, but it does have links to my shop and links to specific pieces of jewelry. Those cards are not only available in multiple places in my booth, but I also slip them into the packaging for every single item I sell.
  • Post about new work on social media. The website does this for me. I use WordPress which posts to Mastodon for me. I’m not on Facebook or Twitter (or X, the dead bird site) anymore. I do have an Instagram account and I try (but mostly fail) to post there. Any social media post I make has a link to either my website or the actual listing in my online shop for the jewelry I’m showing off.
  • Link where appropriate. I link to the ML Jewelry Designs website wherever appropriate, including this blog and from the organizations that sponsor the shows I do.

No More Etsy for Me

While I know that several of my artist friends have had some success with Etsy and haven’t seemed too bothered with the reserve or fees, I can’t say the same. If you’re like them and Etsy is working for you, stick with it. But if, like me, you’re tired of your work being hidden away among so much manufactured crap, maybe it’s time to find another solution.

I’m done.

Doing the Math on Art Shows

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I compare art show venues to see which ones really do give me the best bang for the buck.

I’ve got a sort of running debate with a friend of mine about art show fees and which methodologies are best for artists.

Fee Considerations

Clearly, in a beautiful, perfect, artist-friendly world, show fees would be low and shows would be full of art lovers with deep pockets and plenty of empty wall space or jewelry/pottery/other craft needs.

But that’s not the way it is. Show runners want to make money far beyond the cost of running their venue and the artists are the draw. They set their fees based on what they think artists can afford to pay, with the goal of filling every available spot.


Here’s my jewelry sales booth as it appeared at Leavenworth Village Art in the Park on May 19. I’m trying to display my work as serious and elegant; most folks seem to think I’ve done it.

Artists, on the other side of the transaction, have to consider fees when they decide which shows to apply for. The higher the fees, the more work needs to be sold. Is it possible to sell enough work at the artist’s price points to cover show fees? And what about other expenses, such as the cost of getting to and from a show, lodging, parking, and who knows what else?

In general, better shows — ones with good track records for attracting lots of shoppers and scoring high on artist satisfaction — command higher fees. That can also be said for shows that can attract shoppers with deeper pockets or ones where the quality level of the artist work meets a higher than average standard. In both cases, the potential to sell work at higher prices might make it easier to cover fees.

But in nearly all cases, it’s a gamble. And in the short time I’ve been doing art shows, I’ve seen that firsthand.

Two Fee Methodologies

There are several fees involved with doing art shows and it’s worthwhile to take a look at each one.

  • Application Fee. This is usually a small amount of money — under $50 but usually closer to $10 or $20 — that must accompany an artist’s application to participate in a show. It is non-refundable and is apparently used to cover administrative costs.
  • Jury Fee. This is also usually a small amount of money — again, under $50 — that’s paid to judge an artist’s work before acceptance. Artists are normally required to submit photos of their work and their booth and may also sometimes be required to submit one or more photos showing them actually making the work to prove that they make it themselves. This is also non-refundable. Some shows will charge just a jury fee, if the show is juried, and not an additional application fee.
  • Booth Fee. The booth fee is usually the expensive part of doing a show. Fees can range from $20 for a Farmer’s Market table to well over $1000 for a spot in an indoor venue showcasing fine art in a major city. Just about every show is going to charge a fee for your space, based in part on the size of the booth and its position. A 10×20 foot space that’s open on two or more sides — like in a corner — would usually cost significantly more than a 10×10 space in line with other artists.
  • Commission Percentage. In addition to the booth fee, some venues charge a commission based on artist sales. They could process the sales of all artists centrally or provide special sales slips for artists to fill out to record each sale or use the honor system for artists to report sales. Commission percentages vary and are usually higher at venues with lower booth fees.
  • Other Fees. In addition to all this, some venues charge extra for power, draperies, tables, lighting, local business licenses, and insurance.

I’ll give you two examples.

Wenatchee Apple Blossom Festival Arts and Crafts Show, a three-day show where I’ve sold my work twice in the past four years, has the following fees:

  • Application/Jury Fee: $30
  • Local Temporary Business License: $25
  • Insurance Fee*: $85
  • Booth Fee: $299

Leavenworth Village Art in the Park, a three- to four-day show where I sell my work on about five weekends per year in the spring and late summer, has the following fees:

  • One-time application/jury fee for season: $15
  • Per weekend Security Fee: $30
  • Booth Fee: $0
  • Commission Percentage: 21%

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* You can usually skip the insurance fee charged at an event by carrying your own insurance, which I do. It costs $375/year and covers all of my events.

The Debate

So the main part of the debate is this: which fee structure is best for artists? Flat fees or commission based fees?

First I need to mention one other thing: I’ve seen shows that have a relatively high booth fee — maybe $500 — plus a commission percentage of 20% or more. (I’m looking at you, Sacramento.) I avoid shows like that because I honestly don’t see how I can make any money. I also think those show runners are being unreasonably greedy and I don’t want to support them in any way.


Oh, this Seattle show! Although I paid the same as the artists in the main room with 10×10 booths, I was given a 10×7 space in a side room with six other unfortunate artists. The window behind my booth was old and drafty; on those November days, it was about 50°F in my chair. I didn’t lose money on this show, but sales were disappointing. I think I would have kicked butt in the other room, but who knows?

That said, the answer to the question of which is better really depends on the show. If it’s a great show and you have lots of sales, it’s better to avoid paying a commission on sales. After all, the more you sell, the more you pay.

But, at the same time, if the show is crappy and sales are low, commission based fees are better because you’ll pay less.

Let’s look at some hypothetical numbers, comparing the Apple Blossom show to the Leavenworth show. For the sake of argument, we’ll say the artist does Leavenworth just once so that one-time application fee doesn’t need to be split among multiple shows.

Item Apple Blossom Leavenworth
Gross Sales $3,000 $3,000
Fees:    
  Application Fee $30 $15
  Business License Fee 25 0
  Insurance Fee 85 0
  Security Fee 0 30
  Booth Fee 299 0
  Commission 0 630
Total Fees $439 $675
Net Sales* $2,561 $2,325
Sales Cost Percent (Net÷Gross) 14.6% 22.5%

So in this case, the fixed fee event would be a better deal for the artist, allowing her to take home more money.

But what if the outdoor event was on a really crappy weather weekend? Cold and rainy and folks just didn’t want to come out? Say the artist sales that weekend were a disappointing $1,000. The story changes quite dramatically:

Item Apple Blossom Leavenworth
Gross Sales $1,000 $1,000
Fees:    
  Application Fee $30 $15
  Business License Fee 25 0
  Insurance Fee 85 0
  Security Fee 0 30
  Booth Fee 299 0
  Commission 0 210
Total Fees $439 $255
Net Sales* $561 $745
Sales Cost Percent (Net÷Gross) 43.9% 25.5%

Totally different picture, no? Basically, the worse the show is for you, the less you pay in fees if your main fee is based on a commission.

This really comes into play when you have a totally crappy show, like the one I did in Spokane last November. Billed as a Holiday Arts and Crafts show where the show runners actually charged shoppers a fee to get in, most shoppers seemed more interested in buying $13 caramel apples than any sort of quality artist work. Between the show fees of $340 and the cost of making the 3-hour trip (each way) to Spokane, I wound up losing money on the show. (It would have been worse if I’d had to stay in a hotel, but I stayed in my truck camper on the fairgrounds and no one ever collected a fee.) Needless to say, I won’t be doing that show again.

But then again, if you have a great show that charges a commission percentage, it really costs you.

And that’s where the debate stands.

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*Net Sales does not include other expenses of attending a show, such as transportation, lodging, parking, credit card fees, etc. All those do need to be calculated by the artist to come up with a total cost for the show when evaluating it.

What’s the answer?


Sunday mornings are always slow in Leavenworth, no matter how beautiful the weather is.

We don’t know how a show is going to be before we attend so it’s impossible to determine which will work out better in advance. Of course, prior attendance at a show can give you an idea of how it might work out. But even that isn’t guaranteed. I did well in Spokane in 2021 so I assumed I’d do just as well in 2022. I didn’t. Not even close. And the weather is always a factor, especially at outdoor shows.

I’ve done three shows in Leavenworth this spring and the first two were disappointing while the last one was really good. I paid relatively low fees for the first two but was hammered at the third. Still, my cost percentage remained between 22% and 26%. The percentage I take home is pretty solid. There’s some reassurance in that. It’s pretty much impossible to lose money at a percentage-based show. Low sales, low fees.

So there is no answer. It all depends.

And that’s part of what artists deal with when they try to sell their work at shows.

The other part? Setting up and tearing down a booth. Buying and maintaining display equipment. Getting to and from shows. Parking. Sitting in a booth all day, possibly leaving work unattended during trips to the restroom. Dealing with often thoughtless shoppers who make audible comments to friends about how easy it is to make this or how overpriced that is. Seeing your work handled by people who then drop it back down to bang against the metal display. Watching kids with ice cream on their hands touching everything. Keeping an eye out for dogs lifting their legs on table draperies and tent sides.

But let’s not forget the good stuff, too. Being told your work is beautiful. Being complemented on your unique designs. Having a customer buy an expensive piece that took you hours to make and telling you how much they love it.

All that should figure into the costs and benefits of being an artist at an art show, too, no?