Final Booth Layout,¹. Photo by Vi Dao, courtesy of Art Market Productions and a21

Who: astrophotographer J K Lovelace, Landscape photographer Ben Coffman, Slice of Light Gallery Manager Garrett Tornello, Operations Manager Breanna Tornello, and our Washington-based volunteers John Carlson and friend².

What: Seattle Art Fair 2025

When: July 14 - July 21

Where: Bellevue/Seattle Washington

Why: Increase Brand Awareness

Seattle Art Fair 2025 official graphic

July 14: Jeff and Garrett pack up the prints from storage and the gallery along with supplies into Jeff's van, Jeff drives up the prints in his van.

July 15: Breanna and Garrett fly in to SeaTac from two different airports. Jeff, Breanna, and Garrett check in to the Red Lion Hotel Bellevue. 

July 16: First day of move-in opens at 1pm. John, friend², Garrett, and Breanna arrive at Lumen Field Event Center and locate booth. Jeff parks van and we all start unloading prints.

Move-in went by much faster than we expected at our 12' x 20' booth, thanks to the extra helping hands and the nature of the medium (lightweight aluminum). In contrast, the LA Art Show had been a bit grueling, with just me, Garrett, and Jeff tackling a larger set of prints as well as the 66" tall, 45lb hand-ground steel DWB 111/Double Helix.

A quick video of us all in the thick of set-up.

July 17 Morning: Finishing touches include adding decals and shooting videos and photos for social media.

Garrett drafting up a spot for our decal.

On day 2 of move-in, we spent some time deciding how to place our "Slice of Light Gallery" decals; we purchased two from decals.com. Because of the wall jutting out from the middle of the booth, we couldn't just place one right in the center. 

Finalized lighting rig and wall layout. "15 SP" stands for 15 spotlights. Besides the standard U-shaped booth, we added three jutting 4-ft walls; one in the center back, and one to the left and right.

Our first thought was to space the decals evenly on the back wall, but before we committed, we scouted the fair looking for examples of how other galleries were placing their decals. The majority of booths only had one decal, and most of the time it was centered, or placed stylishly off-center...

But one gallery³ did something inspiring: during our walkthrough, we eventually arrived at the entrance to the fair, and looked straight into the showroom. Although this gallery wasn't in row one, there was a gap between a couple other booths that was just big enough to have their name decal visible all the way from the front of the show. So we made our way to their booth and confirmed that the decal wasn't centered at all; they had purposely positioned it off-center so that it could be seen from the entrance of the venue.  

So we returned to the back row, where our booth was located, and brainstormed how to get our name seen from good vantage points. We had reasonable suspicions that being in the back would not be ideal, but more on that later. 

The video above is us imagining what a visitor might see in approaching and passing our booth. We decided the first idea of placing our decals evenly spaced on the back wall was too plain with a limited range of visibility. 

July 17 Evening: Opening Night finally arrived. The venue was packed.

Here's what it looked like from behind the booth.

July 18: Ben Coffman and his wife arrived before noon. Ben helped manage the booth, sharing his sales insight with me and Garrett and fielding visitor questions. At least a couple people mentioned how much they liked the gallery name and how the name alone made them curious to check out the booth.

From left to right: Ben, Garrett, Jeff

Tranquil Violence and Rainbow Eucalyptus, Big Island were well received. We learned quickly from show-goers that SeaTac has direct flights to Hawaii, which turned out to be a common vacation destination for Seattleites. Upon retrospect it makes perfect sense; the average day in Seattle is gloomy and cold, so of course people would want to vacation somewhere that is the complete opposite. So if we were to do this show in the future, we would want to add Wawaloli and maybe Life in Lava. 

Tranquil Violence, 44", Euro Wrap frame, satin finish.

Deep Sky I: Ophiuchus and Rainbow Eucalyptus, Big Island also turned heads and sparked commentary because (we learned) Seattleites are fond of tie-dye and rainbow-themed art. So again, Wawaloli might be a good fit for next time, as well as (possibly) Birth, Balance, Death.

Deep Sky I: Ophiuchus. 36", Standard Euro Frame, matte finish.

Rainbow Park Eucalyptus, Big Island, by Ben Coffman. 36", black Euro Wrap frame, matte finish.

Beyond Here Be Dragons, 44", Shadowbox Frame, matte finish. Sold on opening night.

July 19: Tranquil Violence and Luna Dunes received a lot of attention, receiving comments like "striking," "gorgeous," and "it'll sell." The medium itself was also getting a lot of attention, with comments like "is this backlit?" and "[the medium is] very effective." One man who was quite fond of Luna Dunes was surprised at its price point, exclaiming "[it's] very reasonably priced!" 

The crowds loved hearing Jeff share about how he shot Tranquil Violence. And they often asked where Beyond Here Be Dragons and Luna Dunes were shot. Jeff doesn't always reveal where his photographs were shot if the image lends itself to some mystery (i.e. Beyond Here Be Dragons, Ancient Tower, The Source, and The Red of Night) but he was willing to reveal that Luna Dunes was shot in Death Valley. Taking in the positive results of Tranquil Violence and Strange Occurrences in the Desert, we realized the "movement" of these still images was part of what was drawing in the crowds, so next time we might add When Beginnings End to our booth layout.

Jeff explaining his photography process to a booth visitor.

Along with the positive comments, there were an increasing number of misinformed comments that we overheard specifically about the astrophotography, but more on that later. 

July 20: Out of all the free postcards we had on our table, the Elephant's Trunk stack and Deep Sky I: Ophiuchus stack were the only ones to run out. We think that is because we nudged guests to only take one card. We requested this because at the LA Art Show, we ran out of most of our stacks before the last day of the show even started. Either way, it was clear after our tallies that Ice Nebulae II and Plasma Dance came in last place in terms of interest. 

Contrary to the LA Art Show's strict policies, we learned during this show that the Seattle staff encouraged galleries to sell whatever they wanted at their booth. So, the next time we do this show, we may add more grab-n-go type merchandise for sale, such as wall calendars, postcards, rolled giclée prints, and ready-to-hang gatorboard prints.

Some Things We Learned

1. Booth Placement

A map of the fair floorplan from seattleartfair.com, with our booth circled in green.

The Good: Funnily enough, there was nothing directly across from us (booth D12) save a tall black curtain, so everyone making their way down the aisle would naturally turn to face us. In that regard, we didn't have any opposing booth to compete with for attention.

Neutrally, there were many people who turned down the left corner of the aisle trying to find the restrooms. They would see the curtain with its lone bodyguard-looking staff member wearing all black and approach us to ask where the bathrooms were. I'm not sure if that helped us or not.

The Bad: We heard more than once in passing that 1) generally, by the time people got to the back row, they were exhausted and about ready to wrap up their adventure and go home, so they were more inclined to booth-skim, and 2) most everyone who went to the fair ready to purchase something had already done so by the time they reached the back row.

For this event, we did not get to choose our booth placement, most likely because we decided to do this show pretty late and applied at the last minute.

Everyday was crowded with minimal lulls, unlike our experience at the LA Art Show 2025.

2. What Was Liked and What Wasn't

Most well-received pieces: Tranquil Violence, Beyond Here Be Dragons, Strange Occurrences in the Desert, Deep Sky I: Ophiuchus, Rainbow Eucalyptus, Big Island, and Forest Park Ferngully. 

In contrast to Tranquil Violence and Rainbow Eucalyptus, Big Island, Forest Park Ferngully seemed to be well received because it echoed the beauty of Seattle itself. After all, a lot of people choose to live there because they appreciate its urban and natural forests.

Forest Park Ferngully by Ben Coffman, 48", black Euro Wrap frame, satin finish.

There was a slightly smaller subset of show-goers who gravitated mostly to the desert-themed prints (i.e. Strange Occurrences in the Desert, Luna Dunes, and The Stones of Joshua) with Strange Occurrences in the Desert taking center stage. We did not expect so many people to love that stop sign!

Strange Occurrences in the Desert, 36", inset frame, glossy finish. Photo by Vi Dao, courtesy of Art Market Productions and a21

M33 and Elephant's Trunk were decently received, and we ran out of Elephant's Trunk postcards first before any other piece...but...it seemed like Elephant's Trunk may have been working against us (more on that in the next section).

Least attention: Ice Nebulae II, Plasma Dance, Clouds of Light and Darkness, and The Farthest Flower.

Though we learned that Iceland was another common vacation destination for Seattleites, Ice Nebulae II itself did not receive much attention (at least, that we could hear). Maybe they would have appreciated grand-scenic pieces of Iceland instead of this intimate landscape piece.

Ice Nebulae II by Ben Coffman, 44", inset frame & glossy finish.

Plasma Dance and Aqua Vela were two of our biggest hits at the LA Art Show so we were surprised when they received such little attention at the Seattle Art Fair.

Plasma Dance, 36", silver Euro Wrap frame, matte finish. 

Aqua Vela, 44", inset frame with matte finish

Clouds of Light and Darkness and The Farthest Flower also didn't get much attention...maybe abstract nebulae just aren't what the Seattle crowd is looking for. 

Clouds of Light and Darkness, 36", inset frame & satin finish

The Farthest Flower, 36", inset frame, satin finish, rotated 180°

3. Misinformation

As was the case at the LA Art Fair, many show-goers at the Seattle Art Fair assumed that the works on display were public domain photos from NASA, Webb, Hubble, etc, because they recognized the famous form of the Elephant's Trunk astronomical object (though some incorrectly labeled it as the Pillars of Creation). Based on what was said amongst themselves that we could overhear, I'd reckon about half of all visitors to the booth naturally assumed that these were public domain photographs for sale, and it was such a turn-off that they didn't bother interacting with the booth further. 

The other half of show-goers were curious enough to ask 1) if these were real photographs and 2) if they were from NASA/Webb/Hubble etc. And almost every time we clarified that these were from J K Lovelace, an amateur astronomer (amateur in the sense that he is self-funded and does not work on behalf of any other person or corporation), they were pleasantly surprised. There was one guy who straight up didn't believe Garrett and me, and insisted that our story was "bullshit" and thought Jeff was a fraud who was fooling us. That unexpected and somewhat unpleasant interaction lasted for a few minutes before Jeff came back from his break to save the day. The man—who knew quite a bit about how corporations with access to big telescopes take and process such photos—asked a few technical questions hoping to trip up Jeff, but Jeff quickly shut him down with his answers. The man quickly realized Jeff was legit, admitted that he learned something new, and apologized to me and Garrett before leaving the booth. 

So maybe next time, we either stick with more obscure astronomical objects, or we just place Elephant's Trunk around the corner so that visitors are more enticed to enter the booth and explore before coming to immediate conclusions. Also, we agreed that our art tags weren't descriptive enough. Sure, the medium itself attracted a lot of attention and questions, but it would be a nice icebreaker for guests to ask "what is integration time?" 

But maybe neither refining placement nor astronomical object choice will make any difference at the next fair, or the next one, or the next... Maybe we're in this "It must be NASA" battle for the long run, until Jeff and other notable amateur astronomers gain enough traction and finally shift the general public's perception that "space is only accessible to the major corporations" to "space is accessible to the common man". 

Finally, here's a 5-min YouTube video summing up our Seattle Art Fair 2025 experience.

¹We had already sold Beyond Here Be Dragons, so for this photo op we temporarily replaced the bare wall with Rainbow Eucalyptus, Big Island. 

²friend wishes to remain anonymous

³I don't remember the name of the gallery, and tried to find any booth/fair photos that would reveal the booth layout and its name, but alas, I came up short. If only the Seattle Art Fair website had a virtual tour available like the LA Art Show's website.