Buying art in philadelphia

Casualty of Snowpocalypse 2010, Philadelphia, PA.

So this post comes as a return back to the comforts of home as we just returned from the Buyers Market in Philadelphia where we were scouting out new work for the gallery in Skaneateles. For those of you that don't know, my wife and I opened a retail craft gallery space in Skaneateles NY, called "Imagine That..." back in July as an extension of her Father's shop, Imagine, also in Skaneateles. The store has developed over the past months and we have begun to understand the direction and vision of the gallery as well as the scope and type of work necessary to make the space sucessful. We will be joining forces with Imagine come March as building renovations will require them to move out of their space, and the shop should really be nicely filled with work that will span the range of medium and price.

Philadelphia was in the midst of cleaning up TONS of snow and it was interesting to see a city who is not used to snow have to cope with it. People do not know how to drive in the snow, although there was an incredible amount of snow piled up in mountains at the sides of the street. The weather didn't keep many of the artists away although many were late in setting up, but it didn't seem to hurt their success. The show is huge, which is actually an understatement, and the booths of artists filled the cavernous convention center. I was pleased to see a lot of nice new work and was doubly pleased to see the amount of young ceramic artists with work that was really attractive. We did pick up a couple of new potters, and look forward to the addition to the shop.

The other nice thing was that the Reading Terminal is right across the street from the convention center and lunchtime tended to find us there with wonderful food choices. I always have said that Philly would be a great city to live in, and one of the reasons is the collective presence of the Reading Terminal Market.