What it’s like getting ready for Open Studios

There’s a great organization in San Francisco called ArtSpan, and every year it helps artists all over the city prepare for opening their studios to the public. ArtSpan provides publicity, events, and marketing to help artists get seen during San Francisco Open Studios (SFOS).

Since 2010, I’ve participated in about seven SFOS events. My best experience was in the first year that I participated. I had a studio at Art Explosion, a building full of artists’ studios. All of the artists had invited people to come to the show, and large throngs of people came through.

Since then, I’ve participated in a couple of other SFOS group shows, but they were nowhere near as great as that first one. The other shows were in places that were off the beaten path, or they were not at actual galleries, and they were not very well-attended.

Last year, I decided to participate in SFOS from my house, which is where my studio is now. Doing it from home was really easy to set up. Plus I get to show my entire collection of artwork. The downside, though, was that it was only me promoting the show as opposed to a group of artists promoting it and bringing people in.

Someone recommended distributing postcards to my neighbors to promote the show. They had a friend who did the same thing, and about 300 people came through her home studio!

So I made some postcards and hired my friend’s 10-year-old to help me distribute about 500 of them. It took us several hours, and it was a very warm and sweaty endeavor. After all of that effort, I did not have very many people come to my studio for the show. There were probably only around 30-60 attendees, half of whom were people I already knew.

SFOS at my house last year ^

This time around, I am utilizing the post office, which is much more affordable than I thought it would be. I was surprised to discover that I don’t need to put addresses on the postcards; I can select routes, and the postal carriers will distribute them to every house on the route!

There will be 1,360 postcards mailed to my neighbors, so I’m hoping to get many more people visiting. And, I’ve been building up my mailing list, so hopefully some of my new fans will want to stop by if they’re in the area.

Wish me luck for lots of people coming through and seeing my artwork! It’s always so much more enjoyable to see artwork in person.

Here is what the postcards look like. What do you think?