MCAD 2003 Art Sale

MCAD Art Sales

Minneapolis College of Art and Design
MCAD Main Building
2501 Stevens Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN

2002 - 2006

___________________________________________

The MCAD art sale is an annual event that features original art by students and recent alumni. Usually its the first weekend in December. The sale has an opening event or pre-sale on friday night where people need tickets or have to pay to get in, then the sale also runs all day Saturday. After my freshman year at MCAD (1997/1998) I decided to take a year off and move back home to work and save money. That was the first year the college put on the sale. When I returned for my sophmore year (1999/2000) I thought about participating but I decided not to because at that time I was working on a conceptual body of work titled "Alchemy in a Burning Brain", so I really didn't have any other originals that I wanted to put in. Although I did work at the sale because at the time I was a crew member for Academic Services.

My Junior year (2000/2001) was the first year I participated. I put in various works including drawings, collages, mixed media works, and basically the "weird" stuff I was doing at the time. (This was before I started doing landscape work) I wasn't able to show up to the sale because that weekend my sister was getting married. But when I returned I was surprised to see that I sold over 25 works of art for about $1180.00 total. After the college took their percentage I got a check for about $950.00. Of course when your in college and your usually broke $950.00 is a nice chunk of change to have for christmas break! For the following year which was my senior year I put in more landscape work which was done for class as well as for myself. I did even better which really gave me confidence that I could do work that people wanted to pay money for. Although I was too shy to stand by my work so I never really got to meet the people that bought any of my paintings.

After I graduated I participated in the sale 5 more times as an alumni which is the limit. Every year I sold most of my paintings. (2002 I sold every single painting in the first hour) The pre-sales on friday where always exciting and I was able to meet some of the people that acquired my originals, although as the years went on it seemed to get more impersonal. The preview sales were so hectic and crowded and usually most of my works sold on the first night. So it didn't give me much of a chance to talk with my patrons. Overall I'm very thankful for the MCAD art sales, they gave me an opportunity to make some money from my art and to expose my work to lots of people.

2003 which was my first full year being a self-employed artist was my most successful year at the Art Sale. That year I sold 43 originals for about $6,825.00. For the 7 sales I had work in I sold a total of about 260 paintings for roughly $26, 245.00. After the college took their percentages I ended up making about $21,318.00. Right now I'm about $60,000.00 in debt from going to MCAD. So after all my tuition for 4 years, loan interest, supplies, room & board, etc. I've earned about 1 year of my money back from the MCAD art sales!

(March 4th, 2007)