dinsdag 26 november 2013

Who likes my art?

This has been a question for some years now. I thought it would just be people of similar age and interests, but I was wrong. I have done a few fairs in the last 12 months and I tried to figure out what type my audience is. At least I know that my audience likes different things and doesn't mind my sculptures having a bit of a weird edge. I also know that people that smile or laugh while exploring my work, understand what I am trying to do and like my work.

So far so good, but this is where it stops with my knowledge of my audience. I can't tell by reading someone's age, I seem to have a massive range and can't rule out any age group. I also can't tell by what people wear. There are lots of people that like different and weird stuff, but don't dress like that. When I think about it, this applies to me as well!
What I often hear people saying is that they know someone that would really like my sculptures. Yes, I have noticed that my work ticks a lot of boxes for some people and they just spend quite some time staring at my stall. So my work isn't mainstream or appealing to everybody.

Last weekend I had a stall at a comic book festival in Leeds; Thought Bubble. I thought this crowd would love my Urban Scoundrels for their strong cartoon/comic elements. I even presented them with a speech bubble to explain their characters. Surprisingly, people were less enthusiastic than at other 'normal' fairs. Got it all wrong again.
I also did an experiment, like proper doctors are supposed to do, by analysing the response to my table from people with skull prints on their clothes or accessories. So I counted the amount of people that had a skull somewhere on their clothes and counted the proportion of people that would stop walking and take a look at my table. Even if it was for 5 seconds. Yes, I had about 5 real skulls on the table in plain sight. I counted about 12 and only 2 stopped at my table and they were a couple. The rest just ignored what I had and passed. They did briefly look, but kept walking. So, this trend of skulls in fashion has nothing to do with loving skulls….it is just fashion and no indicator that this person likes skulls.
So again peoples clothes don't tell much about them. Conclusion: don't judge a book by its cover!

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