This was where I spent most of last weekend at my table in the pre-Christmas art fair called Just In Time or JIT. I sold more than a lot of the others but not near enough to make it worth the work, time and expense. This will be my last time for this show and I’m out of the Galería January 14, meaning that after that if you want any of my pix for wall art, in books, on merchandise, etc., you will have to go through my website and order online. I’m no longer selling stuff in person! :-)
Interesting side note: In one of the photos below you will see the word “Pizza” on the next building. It was not open last weekend but will be sometime this week and it will be the very first American chain fast food in Atenas: Papa John’s Pizza! :-) It will be interesting to see if they make it with locally owned pizza places literally all over town! Plus other themed restaurants here also serve pizza, so I question the business decision, but pizza is very popular here (especially with the young) and they may have the marketing skills, the money (and lower prices) to put all the locals out of business like Walmart does when they move into other communities. Fortunately Walmart is not in Atenas as such, though they are the owners of two local supermarkets, Maxi-Pali and the smaller Pali Supermercado which do have lower prices and Walmart-brand stuff, but neither the quality overall nor service of the local cooperative supermercado that I prefer. I try to avoid such American places and don’t plan to eat pizza at Papa John’s! :-) As a smaller town we have been fortunate to avoid the invasion of American fast-food joints that are all over San Jose and Alajuela. Here’s 4 photos of my stuff at the weekend art fair . . .
Probably my last time to do something like this! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
We also will never go to Papa John’s and also mostly avoid Maxi Pali for the same reasons as you mentioned.
One of the charms of this town is the many shops and small businesses. We don’t need to be “Americanized”.
You are absolutely right and one of the many reasons I chose Atenas for my place of retirement in Costa Rica! If I need American businesses (seldom), I can go to Alajuela or San Jose! 🙂
But this is a nice little shopping plaza with 6 businesses next door to Linea Vital and I hope you will go see the Galería Artenas there before I remove my photos on January 14. I’m especially pleased with the Floral Accent Pillows and my nature greeting cards there. 🙂
Charlie, don’t feel bad about the results of your craft show endeavors! Many of my friends (and I ) have done the craft show route and it can be very disappointing with regards to the time and money that you spend in relation to your results!
You have to decide if you want to stay in the Craft shop but you can’t spend a lot of time with it. The blog may be your best source of business but you have to monitor and work at increasing
its membership. I follow you every day! There should be many more followers and I will try to help encouraging my friends.
Thanks Ellen!
I did Arts & Crafts Fairs for several years in TN and they were generally more successful, but I’m getting out of this business for other reasons and to slow down! Though all my work will continue to be available online for those who want it! 🙂