Festival D´Aerographie :: A Personal View on Participating in Artshows

The Artshow is over and a lot has happened, this will not gonna be a review like the ones before, or what everyone else posts, the following is a personal experience and thoughts about this event, and why I´m glad to be a part of it.

The "Festival D´Aerographie" was held since 6-or 7 years if I remember that right and I have participated since about 6 times now, which makes it more than "just an event", so maybe this justifies a little retrospective view about it.

We have no "Dragon-Con" or "Comic-Conventions" which I´d really like to attend and always envy my illustrator-colleagues from America who have it nearer to these events. And in Germany is not much going on for such a scene if one could call it even so.

Another problem is the pricing, sure game-conventions have artists-alleys, but then this is not really what an artist calls a great space to display or promote their art and get feedback from the public, neither is it a "real" chance to grab any art-directors or possible clients interest.

With that in mind, the art-show in Spa / Belgium is like a totally different world, have a look through the slideshow below to get a glimpse of what the show was all about:


Airbrush Festival, Spa, Belgium, June 2010 from Brian McCaffery on Vimeo.

If someone has more photos or a video, then please share it in a comment below.
I will add anything I find related to this event with a link back too.

This official video was just released yesterday:
http://www.spardennestv.be/Festival-d-aerographie-au-casino-de-Spa_a73.html

I didn´t had the time to make photos myself because I had worked on these 2 days on one of my digital paintings,the other time I was talking and hanging out with the nice folks that also attended and exhibited there, colleagues and friends alike.

What make this event stand out so much? Besides the Casino with its classy look, I bet its the mainly familiar atmosphere, and I guess this is the reason some artists drove more than 700 Kilometer each way, to get their tent up there.

Its always nice to have a place to display art, this is surely important for every artist, its also nice to have publicity and participation from visitors in such events, to cover costs and such, but when I return home from this show, I felt its more important to have talked and connected with so many nice people, learned so much new and also inspire -and being inspired to new work and keeping it up.

When I started out with airbrush, I thought this would be it, but then while attending this artshow, "stars on wheels", and the airbrush-show in Rosmalen, over the years I found out that the "Airbrush-scene" is too much connected with a bad image, custom, copycats, cars and such, so I concentrated more on the sculpture works with using airbrush -here and there, but working towards digital illustration and the transition process was not an easy one in itself, and displaying this "digital art" on a place where someone would expect only traditionally done works, could be considered brave.

But the reaction and the acceptance of colleagues and the organiser, as well as the public makes this a proof, that either I do something right, or that the technique really does NOT matter, as long as the result is fitting.

Over the years there is a little routine that comes with installation of the booth, public show, working with eyes that lurk over my shoulders, interaction and the live-representation, and I´m really thankful to make this experience and hope that the show will live on, many years to come.

There is a reason I don´t highlight a specific artist here, because what I wanted to express was indeed about the event, no one stands out, there is no star that gathers all the attention, its the absolute friendly atmosphere that makes it possible that French, German, Belgian, Dutch and even Swiss artists participate on eye-level to have fun and show their talent.

Keep it up, you know who you are.