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The Victorian Language of Flowers Inspire New Flower Cat Portraits

Tara Fly — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 02:52:30 +0000

“Do you know what I think Mayflowers are, Marilla? I think they must be the souls of the flowers that died last summer, and this is their heaven.”
~ Anne of Green Gables

In 1991, this delightful Anne of Green Gables Treasury was published, which brought the world of Anne Shirley magically to life; with authentic recipes, arts & crafts, old wives’ home remedies, historical facts about life on Prince Edwards’ Island at the turn of the last century, everything a fan could wish for…. including a section on gardening and the “meanings of flowers”.

My grandmother gave me this hardcover book when I was around twelve (for my birthday or Christmas, I can’t remember, as they fell within 2 weeks of each other), and a huge fan of the Sullivan production of “Anne of Green Gables”, and its spin-off mini-series “Avonlea”.

I remember pouring over the flower section, and learning the meanings of all my favorites: lilacs (“first emotions of love”) violets (“faithfulness”), pansies (“you occupy my thoughts”), dogwoods (“durability”), maidenhair ferns (“secrecy”), and English ivy (“fidelity”).

As a child, I was especially interested in secret means of communication, so the idea of composing a bouquet of flowers to act as a coded message was intriguing.

Of course, the majority of these flowers proclaimed affectionate feelings (or lack thereof) and confirmed the status of a relationship. So instead of posting “it’s complicated” on Facebook, you might send marigolds for “uneasiness”, or evening primroses for “inconstancy”.

In Jane Austen’s time, it was considered inappropriate for unrelated (and unmarried) men and women to correspond back and forth via letter-writing. Letters were reserved for relatives, close (same-sex) friendships, and betrothed couples.

Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 29
… That such letters, so full of affection and confidence, could have been so answered, Elinor, for Willoughby’s sake, would have been unwilling to believe. But her condemnation of him did not blind her to the impropriety of their having been written at all; and she was silently grieving over the imprudence which had hazarded such unsolicited proofs of tenderness, not warranted by anything preceding, and most severely condemned by the event, when Marianne, perceiving that she had finished the letters, observed to her that they contained nothing but what any one would have written in the same situation.

“I felt myself,” she added, “to be as solemnly engaged to him, as if the strictest legal covenant had bound us to each other.”

“I can believe it,” said Elinor; “but unfortunately, he did not feel the same.”

Marianne’s eagerness to dash off notes to the scoundrel Willoughby upon her arrival in London, going so far as to send one in the middle of the night, was sure to spark rumors of a secret engagement.

The other letter which readily springs to my mind is Mr. Darcy’s confession after Lizzy refuses his marriage proposal, in chapter 35 of “Pride and Prejudice”… he admits that defending himself against her accusations within a letter was a bit extreme, but he felt it must be written to absolve his character.

It’s fascinating that in an era before text messaging and telephones, long before relations between men and women became commonplace… in a proper society which demanded young couples keep a respectable distance and always be chaperoned, that they still found ways to circumvent their elders in order to get better acquainted. They managed to communicate their feelings through secret codes and carefully crafted flower bouquets.

Obviously, Mr. Darcy couldn’t have expressed everything in his 2-page letter with a handful of posies… it’s unlikely even a hothouse would have enough variety in bloom to tell the full story of Wickam’s unscrupulous actions.

But what flowers might have anonymously arrived at Longbourn, tied in satin ribbon? Pink roses and honeysuckle ~ “admiration”, and “generous, devoted affection”? Or possibly a contrite bouquet of blue lilacs and snowdrops ~ for “humility” and “hope”?

I have started a new series of tiny ACEO paintings, titled “Flower Cats” (because I couldn’t think of an appropriate name for the collection)… each cat, dressed in a Regency-style gown, is named after a particular flower and holds a symbolic bouquet.

So far I have finished seven portraits: “Pansy”, “Iris”, “Fern”, “Lilac”, “Carnation”, “Sterling Rose”, and “Asphodel”.

I like working with these miniature paintings, working on 2-3 simultaneously. They are addictive to paint, and I wish I could spend more time with them.

I decided to list the originals on eBay, as my re-introduction back into selling artwork there. I have been auctioning them off beginning at just one penny ~ and all seven have sold to a couple of new collectors.

If you are interested in beginning or adding to your current collection, I always announce my latest paintings on Facebook, with a link to the auction when it goes live. (You can also add me to your Favorite Seller list on eBay).

I will also be selling reproduction prints and greeting cards of the entire Flower Cats Collection in my Etsy shop.

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Recap of Megacon 2013, and the Brain Behind RAK Graphics

Tara Fly — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 03:37:40 +0000

Robert Klaus (RAKGraphics) and TaraFly… across the Wall

My intended blog post about what I’ve learned from Megacon has turned into a Trilogy…. Part I: Meeting Fellow cat artist, Carrie Hawks. And Part II: Meeting Fantasy Artist Jasmine Becket-Griffith.

Both of these wonderful ladies encouraged me with kind words, but there is still one more person I’ve yet to mention whose impact was significant.

I had never heard of Robert Kraus, a.k.a. RAK-Graphics… as Megacon was my first foray into the Comic-book jungle, and I daresay when we first met during Thursday night’s set-up, it was not unlike Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth’s first encounter at the Meryton Assembly Room.

Let us just say that I was less than impressed by his manners.

Upon arriving at my booth, arms loaded with boxes, I greeted him with something along the lines of “Hi, I’m your neighbor.” …..before proceeding to duct-tape my booth together.
I’m sure he smelled my noob-ness from a parsec away. =P

I had studied photos of exhibitor booths online, and had decided to hang my artwork from the metal framework using shower-rod hooks. However, during the actual set-up, I discovered that my hooks weren’t large enough to clamp over the unstable metal frame of our adjoining booths. Seriously, these booths were so wobbly, they would sway like suspension bridges whenever we sneezed.

But Robert had his artwork neatly hanging from similar hooks.
Hooks which seemed tailor-made for the booth.
So I inquired where he purchased his hooks….

And his reply rivaled Mr. Darcy’s attitude at Meryton:
“I do a lot of shows.”

“Um. Okay. But… where did you get your hooks?”

“When you’ve done as many shows as I have, you pick them up.”

Huh?!?
He really didn’t want to tell me where those blasted hooks came from! =P

Or, maybe, he was being serious.
He literally picked them up at every show.

With persistence, I finally got him to admit his secret. He did, indeed, collect them from empty booths after each show.
They were the same hooks which the event coordinators had used to hang the booth signage… which I had promptly taken down because my banner was prettier than the default block letters on white.

Having only experienced the Farmer’s Market, where vendors are expected to sweep and tidy their areas before leaving, I was completely unprepared for whirlwind chaos left behind after Megacon exhibitors exit the building.

Overflowing trashcans, puddles of spilled coffee on the tables (I’m serious!), leftover food, cardboard, and debris everywhere, and many vendors’ signs lying on the floor with hooks still attached.

I scavenged around and collected a fistful of hooks for future use.
That was the first of many useful tips that RAK gave to me over the course of three days.

That is, once my uncle broke the ice and mended my wounded ego….

On my first day, I confided to Sarah that RAK seemed like a jerk, so we avoided talking to him at all.
I will regret that missed opportunity.

I did take notice how well his $1.00 ACEO trading cards were selling, and vowed to bring a bunch of mine next year…. as my cheapest product on the table was $3.00.

On Saturday, Carrie Hawks stopped by my booth before the show started, and greeting RAK warmly. Much to my surprise.

She proceeded to tell me that RAK was HER neighbor at her very first Megacon, and that he was full of helpful advice. She basically encouraged me to pick his brain while I had the chance…

And I was thinking to myself, “Yeah, Mr. I-Do-A-Lot-Of-Shows” doesn’t seem to be very forthcoming.

However, I did see fate at work in this situation: this being my first show, and RAK was my neighbor…
perhaps he was a good luck charm of sorts, and my placement beside him would increase my odds of future success.

Ignoring the duct-tape and yarn, he did point out that, unlike many new artists, I had enough common sense NOT to hang framed art (with glass) from the rickety metal booth frame…. apparently booth walls do topple over occasionally! (I didn’t confess that my tent blew away at last summer’s Farmer’s Market! heehee)

Of course, having a chatty man assisting me on Saturday, might have helped to warm his gears.
Robert likes to talk shop ~ he reminded me of a used-car salesman, and I don’t think he would mind me saying so, as he described himself as “a hustler”. LOL

From his pulpit, he preached to us about “multiple streams of revenue”… a catch-phrase that I had heard bandied around in online business forums, but hadn’t put seriously into practice.

He encouraged me to reconsider my break from eBay.

I hadn’t made much money from selling artwork there years ago; I felt like I was giving art away for free to customers looking for a deep discount… but Robert encouraged me to see it as a form of advertising.

“Put something up there that doesn’t cost too much. Don’t sell it for less than it costs to make, but keep the price down. My $.99 ACEOs do really well on eBay.”

“You get 50 FREE listings per month,” he continued zealously. “That is 50 items that will be in Google’s search, and in the Product search where people shop.”

eBay gets a ton of traffic.
Google loves eBay.

{I am now selling original ACEO paintings on eBay ~ click Here to check out my penny auctions}

He suggested that I peddle my artwork to antique malls

The classical vibe of my Regency cat portraits will complement the vintage picture frames and antique furniture, he mused. My artwork might be a impulse buy for a customer looking to redecorate their living room in a 19th century flavour.

And the one piece of encouragement that Robert gave to me basically summarized the feeling I’d received from all the wonderful artists at Megacon: Don’t give up.

He believed that I had a good product

“It is unique and eye-catching, and people love cats”, he said.

Except him.
He doesn’t care for cats. But apparently he is good luck for cat artists!

He went on to quote some numbers…. it’s estimated that 50% of new businesses (including artists) fail. They get discouraged.
They do one or two shows, and lose money, and stop doing shows altogether.
They try something once, and it doesn’t work, and they quit. (Like me and eBay).

“If you don’t make your booth fee back, don’t write off this show. You exposed your artwork to thousands of people. Think of it like renting a billboard.” ~ RAK

Fortunately, I did make my money back and then some.

It was true that I had been discouraged; I was the newbie in the room, and the other artists had been working professionally for years, and were technically more proficient than me. It was daunting to think how far I have to go.

But according to Robert, I’m already ahead of the 50% who gave up years ago.

The message I was receiving loud and clear from Jasmine Becket-Griffith, and Carrie Hawks, and finally from my neighbor RAK-Graphics, is that I will eventually be successful like them.

I just have to keep working at my art, and take failures in stride, learn from my mistakes, learn from others, and put myself out there. Be everywhere.

If these established artists can see my potential, and have such faith in me, how can I continue doubting myself?

By the end of the show, The Wall had come down… heehee, almost literally!

Still, I found myself worrying whether or not I could convince my husband that this trip was worth all the effort and money that we spent preparing for it. He was hoping that I would return stinking rich and able to put a down-payment on the house of our dreams.
Would he still support me unequivicably if I came home merely breaking even?

As if he had eerily read my mind, I received a text-message from Joe which said,

“I’ve always believed in you, but I know what it means to hear it from your peers.”

And immediately I felt guilty, because in all this excitement and stress, I’d forgotten how much faith he had in me.
He allowed me to spend gobs of money on supplies, purchase a rental car, leave town ON HIS BIRTHDAY, and drive 15 hours to Florida… leaving him at home for an entire week with the children.
While I frolicked in the 70-degree sun, it threatened to snow in Maryland.

I had spent years of my life with men who were possessive, distrustful, and oppressive, seeking to cage my free spirit.
It was humbling to acknowledge I could take for granted a man willing to throw open the door, and say “Go follow your dreams and be happy.”

But I couldn’t find the right words to articulate my thoughts, so instead I wrote:

“Yes, it’s great to hear praise and encouragement from successful folks who have ‘been there’. But without your support, I wouldn’t be here in the first place. So YOU are my most important fan! Okay, did that sound like an acceptance speech?! LOL”

One day, honey, I will get there.
And if I’m lucky enough, you will be right there beside me.

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More Megacon 2013… Meeting Fantasy Artist Jasmine Becket-Griffith

Tara Fly — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 03:58:27 +0000

Tara Fly, with Jasmine Becket-Griffith and Carrie Hawks.

{Click Here to Read Part I: Meeting Carrie}After meeting Carrie Hawks, and only slightly humiliating myself in the process, I was beginning to think I had this fan-crush thing under control ~ hey, I’m a player in this game now, right?

But on Saturday afternoon, Carrie casually mentioned catching up with Jasmine Becket-Griffith… and I knew it was hopeless.
My inner geek just went weak at the knees, and I found myself rushing over to Jasmine’s booth early on Sunday morning before the show opened.

I was crossing my paws that she would be willing to have her picture taken with me.
(I always envied the artists who uploaded Facebook albums of Megacon, and EVERYONE posed for photos with Jasmine)

Because, ya know, Patrick-Freaking-Stewart was also there, and I didn’t bother to leave my booth to get an autograph or my photo taken with Jean-Luc Picard. =P

But if Carrie Hawks is the Queen of Fantasy Cat Art, Jasmine is the Goddess of practically everything else Fantasy/Goth/Fairy/Mermaid related in the known universe.

Like Carrie, I had “friended” Jasmine years ago on Facebook… at my request.
She accepted friend-requests from all of her fans, until Facebook told her that she had too many friends. (5,000 is the limit of personal friends, I guess, LOL!)

So she started a Fan Page for her other 302,695 friends (at the time of this posting). She gains nearly a thousand new fans each day.

Jasmine is a household name for us ~ we don’t even use her full name.

Like Madonna, Beyonce, and Cher… it’s just Jasmine.

It always catches me by surprise when I run across people who don’t know who she is. LOL

We’ve been watching her sales on Ebay for a few years (her ID is Strangeling), awestruck that her paintings create bidding wars within an hour after being posted. After only 24 hours, her artwork is already worth hundreds of dollars…. and the auction finally closes with the winner paying $4,000-$5,000.

She paints in marathon sessions every single day, finishing a new piece every 2-3 days. She’ll post the link when she’s finished, and within 10 minutes, you can sit back and watch the bidding battle.
Grab a bowl of popcorn, and hit Refresh often…

For me, the fascination is akin to watching a train wreck, except this sparkley purple engine smashes into a giant puffed marshmellow, and all the unscathed passengers climb out of their windows, up onto the sugary mound, and start bouncing about like crazed kids on a trampoline.

It’s one of those “Holy crap, is this for real? Am I really seeing this?” moments.

Of course, she didn’t exit the starting gate at 90 mph. She began selling her art as a teenager in the late 1990′s, when eBay was in its infancy, and her work was different enough to stand out in the online flea market.

She was selling her paintings for $40-$50 at auction back then, not $4,500. Though she was already dedicated, painting two or three of them per day!

Jasmine claims her success was due almost entirely to her obsessive drive and work ethic. When a friend posted a blog comment on Jasmine’s success, here was her reply:

JasmineToad wrote on November 7th, 2002

“lol, i wouldn’t say that i’m doing amazingly well by any means. i’m doing better than i expected, but again i do work often 18 hours a day promoting my site, submitting stuff to search engines, begging folks to link my site, making prints, answering email, mailing stuff, and of course (last, but not least) painting.
i’m probably barely pushing minimum wage if i looked at it hourly.
i really think that if ANYBODY, certainly someone with… ambition and talent… were to honestly put that much time into it they would do at least as well as i do.
i [am] lucky in that i was in a position to “quit my day job” and have the opportunity to spend that much time on my art career. if i wasn’t with someone (matt) who has a relatively steady income to cover the rent in case i totally flopped, i probably wouldn’t have been able to do [anything] with my artwork.
i really live kind of a lonely life right now, really unless i’m at the post office mailing stuff i am no more than 15 feet away from my computer/art area, and i am constantly at work.
i really don’t think that it is an admirable lifestyle, it’s way too introverting and self-absorbing and it’s turned me into a completely asocial agoraphobic.

i suppose it all matters where your priorities lie.”

Flash-forward 10 years, her husband Matt now works full-time for his wife, as do many of her relatives.

Jasmine’s level of success has always served as my “glass ceiling”…. a constant reminder of what extreme dedication can achieve. I accept that I will never become as famous as she is, because as she wisely said, my priorities lie with my family, and spending time away from my art.

Of course, I knew that she wouldn’t recognize me personally. Not one person in five thousand friends, even if I wore a mask of Mr. Darcy Cat over my face. I wasn’t an active poster on her Facebook wall or blog.

So I crept up to her table, where she was already seated ~ patiently waiting for the doors to open and the crowds to crush themselves, pressing into her double booth.

I introduced myself with, “I just wanted to say ‘Hi’. My name is Tara, and I have a booth over there selling cat art.”

And, of course, the butterflies were threatening to burst from my stomach like alien parasites.

Jasmine looked up at me, smiling, and replied,
“Oh, Tara Fly? [Matt and I] saw your booth yesterday when we were walking around. Your artwork is very nice.”

And I was nearly struck dumb that she remembered my full name, but did mumble something about the duct-tape…

And she laughed, and said, “You should have seen my first booth.”

Then she started telling me about her various shows ~ everything from threats by the fire-marshall over crowd control, to the difficulties of getting a hotel in Atlanta, GA in the months leading up to DragonCon. “Book your hotel a year in advance, or you’ll never find a room!” And how FaerieCon in Baltimore, MD is so strict, they complain about her mermaids because they aren’t fairies.

And interspersed with these tales of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, she gave me tidbits of advice for applying to shows. She spoke to me for nearly 20 minutes, one artist to another, as if she acknowledged me as an equal… or a future equal. Just give me a few years to collect 300,000 fans, m’kay?

When Carrie came over to collect an autographed copy of Jasmine’s new art book, I stood in line to purchase one.
But Jasmine said, “Oh, I’ll give you one, too!”
And she addressed a book to me, and placed it into my hands.

Her husband chided, “Alright, that’s the last free one. We need to sell some of them.” LOL!

I returned to my booth with 5 minutes to spare (before the doors opened), and texted my husband, nearly squealing through my fingers as I typed:
“I met Jasmine!”
He replied: “You sound star-struck”.

Yes….

Yes, I was.

[Megacon Adventures to be continued.... Part III: RAKGraphics and Recap]

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More of Megacon 2013… Meeting Fellow Cat Artist, Carrie Hawks

Tara Fly — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 16:58:17 +0000

There are a few projects that I am supposed to be working on this weekend, but I feel like procrastinating…
So I’m writing the blog post that I should have written about my experience at Megacon, to make up for the whiny I’m-so-lame-that-I-duct-taped-my-booth post from last week.

I call this, “procrastinating with purpose”. I’m working, yet not working. =P

After doing the show in Orlando, I learned a great deal about myself, my art, my customers, and the art world in general.

1. People Like My Art.

Well, if you’re reading this post… you probably like me, and my art, and see this as stating the obvious.
But artists are always second-guessing themselves. I do get random sales from strangers on Etsy, and have regular customers at the Westminster Farmer’s Market.

At the local market, I am a small fish in a small pond…
I watch as people pass my booth ~ some ignore me, some stop and browse my table with curious disinterest, and others excitedly pour over my items and gather a handful to purchase.
But all on a relatively small scale.

The Carroll County Farmer’s Market (one of the oldest farmer’s markets in Maryland, active for over 40 years) draws maybe a few hundred people each weekend.

Megacon, on the other hand, draws thousands of die-hard sci-fi/fantasy/comic book fans from all over the eastern US.
I would estimate there were nearly 20,000 people in attendance March 15-17.

If you’ve ever experienced the frenzied zombie crowds on Black Friday at 5AM, the Convention Center reminded me of that chaos…

Um…. Literally. Zombie Crowds.

Some ignored me (….customers, not zombies), some browsed for a few minutes with minimal interest…

And others squealed from across the aisle: “Oh my GOD, it’s a Dr. Who Cat!!! How freaking awesome is that?!”
(Thanks, Mary, for commissioning that piece, by the way. LOL)

The same reactions to my work, on a much larger scale. I was a small fish in a big pool.
But I was noticed, and people liked my art. So I’m doing something right.

2. I Am the Newbie Who Gets Star-struck

The entire cast of Star Trek: TNG was there ~ Patrick Stewart, Jonathon Frakes, Gates McFadden, Will Wheaten, et al ~ signing autographs and getting photos taken with fans.

Although I grew up watching the show religiously, and hung out with Trekkies all my life, even the presence of these television celebrities was eclipsed by the awesome artists that I finally had the opportunity to meet in person.

When Carrie Hawks told a customer that “we’ve been friends for years on Facebook”, I almost fainted.

Okay, let me explain. hehe

When I first toyed with the idea of selling my fire-breathing dragon cat art prints online, I did a Google search for “fantasy cat art”.

And, naturally, the first website to appear was http://fantasycatart.com Duh!

The second website to appear was http://tigerpixie.com (Carrie Hawk’s site)

And if you scroll down the 1st page, you’ll see other links to Carrie’s Etsy shop and Zazzle shop.
She and Google have a special relationship ~ she is ubiquitous. If you look anywhere online for cat art, you will find Carrie Hawks.

We have different styles, but we both paint cats (some of hers even wear costumes)… so after having found someone in my niche who was successful, she became my first guidepost.
I watched her everywhere, not to copy her work, but to understand where she came from and how she ran her business…

She has her hands full, especially as a mother of two human children and many fur-children, including her two recent adoptions ~ Anakin “the two-legged cat” and his foster brother Mika, who is missing his hind feet. She has dozens of adorable YouTube videos posted of these two handsome kitties, as well as a Facebook page for Anakin’s many admirers.

She was completely unaware that she had a newbie stalker… or so I thought. =P

One ordinary day in 2009, I logged into Facebook and found a new friend request: from Carrie.

She… found ME?! Why is she friending me? Does she see me as competition, and want to keep tabs on me?
Or more likely, we had a couple of mutual artist-friends in common, and she noticed my cat avatar…

I didn’t ask, but I accepted the request. And so we became “Facebook friends”.

…And we make small-talk like everyone else.
…And I embarrassed her by rabidly defending her work when Regretsy featured her cardinal cat painting on their Facebook page.
…And I asked her about archival printers (before discovering Jessica Doyle’s blog and Epson review, which led me to another awesome artist and friend)…
Carrie praised her printer, the now-discontinued R2200, which is the predecessor of mine and Jess’.

But never in a million years did I assume that she would remember my name (without my avatar attached), or consider us actual friends.

Until Saturday, when one of my Megacon customers (who coincidentally grew up in my hometown ~ Bowie, MD, and whose brother attended the same grade school that I did. Weird, huh?) mentioned that there was “another cat artist” to Carrie, and she replied,
“Yes, Tara Fly… we’ve been friends on Facebook for years.”

I tried to play it cool, but my inner fan-crush bubbled to the surface to embarrass me. =P

Um… Will Wheaten who?

She was very sweet, and after I confessed that my first show wasn’t fully living up to my expectations, offered sympathy by saying her first show wasn’t a huge success sales-wise either. However, she gained so much valuable experience ~ what to do, and what not to do ~ that she felt better prepared and more successful at future shows.

She was patient as my uncle played paparazzi, continuously taking pictures of her and her family at their table in Artist Alley. LOL

Then she suggested that we trade art prints = she wanted Mrs. Bennet, and I scored her Steampunk Cat Gal.

Looking at this from her point of view, it makes me wonder how I would respond if crazy aspiring artists started fawning over me.
I haven’t dealt with any fan-crushes yet! Someday, maybe.

(My Megacon Adventures to be Continued… Part II: Meeting Jasmine Becket-Griffith)

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My Megacon Adventure in Orlando, Florida

Tara Fly — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 01:26:54 +0000

“You live, you learn
You love, you learn
You cry, you learn
You lose, you learn”

“I recommend biting off more then you can chew to anyone. I certainly do…” ~ Alanis Morissette

- Two weeks ago, I drove 15 hours to Florida in a rented Nissan (with Mississippi plates ~ totally incognito!), packed with matted prints, greeting cards, plaques, and display-stuff, to attend my first ever Megacon in Orlando. I stayed with my aunt and uncle, who live 20 minutes from the Orange County Convention Center in a neighboring city, and whom I hadn’t seen in over a decade.

I had so many expectations riding on this one show… I had invested a fair amount of money into supplies, and though my accommodations were free, my travel was not. Nevertheless…

- Four weeks ago, I had just started my preparations: ordering ink, paper, and extra business cards, filing my business tax info with the State of Florida, informing my relatives that I planned to be in the area (whereby they graciously lent me their guestroom)…

- Two days before I left, our house was in chaos as I sat at the computer printing 8″x10″s, 5″x7″s, greeting cards, and bookmarks by the sheet…. from breakfast til after midnight. Joe managed the children, and I managed not to have a breakdown.

- Two days before the show, my greeting cards were still un-cut, my bookmarks were un-assembled, and my prints were un-signed and un-bagged in their cellophane sleeves. My reunion with Aunt Mary and Uncle John took place as I sat on their couch cutting prints, and handing them over to my aunt for packaging, while talking and watching the Florida weather station, and teasing their cat, Dale, with scraps of expensive paper to chase.

We arrived at the Convention Center around 5PM on Thursday, parked in the South Concourse, and spent an hour wandering about looking for “Hall D”, where Megacon was to be held the following day. Discovering we should have parked in the West Concourse, we walked 30 minutes back to our vehicle, and pulled into the loading dock to receive our exhibitor badges at 7PM.

- I didn’t have the foggiest idea how to display my larger prints after realizing the shower hooks I’d brought were too small for the backdrop rod. So I hung them MacGyver-style with yarn and Duct-tape… except one of my prints kept slipping out of the tape, so Duct-tape isn’t infallible, at least in my hands.

- My booth partner on Friday, the first day, was a girl I’d never met before in my life…. so I waited in the lobby, watching hundreds of costumed people walking by, trying to recognize someone I’d only seen in photos (who would be carrying “a boxful of dragons”).

[Full disclosure: Sarah and I have known each other online for over five years, and chat on Facebook every day! LOL]

- I didn’t get around to finishing the bookmarks until Sunday, the last day of Megacon’s three-day event. And I spilled acid-free glue on my aunt’s upholstered recliner. :/

- I had no Superhero character portraits to sell (comic/sci-fi fans were the target market), and I didn’t have much in their preferred price range either; nothing to compete with my neighbor’s superhero caricature trading cards (ACEOs), which were selling like crazy for $1.00 apiece. hehe

Wow, this list could go on for hours….

Needless to say, I was woefully unprepared for this particular show!

This is how I tend to be in most areas of my life…. flying by the seat of my pants… Remember my first outdoor craft show, when I didn’t bring a tent!? LOL

And, surprisingly, I did well enough at Megacon to reimburse my $300 booth fee and travel expenses ~ although I didn’t return home stinking, filthy rich, as my husband hoped I would. The Dr. Who Cat and one of my older pieces, a photomanipulation of Dominic as a fire-breathing dragon cat, were really popular.

I was reminded of my first few craft shows, where I struggled for every sale. Just when I’d established myself in one local venue, with regular customers and a solid assortment of merchandise on display, I was thrown into a much larger arena.

Megacon is a far-cry from the Westminster Farmer’s Market.

But now I have a plan… one that involves collectible prints and cats dressed like superheroes. I will return to Florida next year, ready to do battle with the big boys.

Although I will most likely be still folding my greeting cards when you walk into my awesome booth…. which is held together by invisible pieces of Duct-tape.

Some things will never change.

(View more Megacon photos – HERE – in my Facebook album!)

I will be writing another post about Megacon, a happy post, featuring all the talented artists whom I met, and the awesome advice I was given… but this honest and self-depreciating look at my trip sprang into my mind first, so I went with it. Otherwise, you might still be waiting for a new blog post.

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