DollhouseBrazil

The Mini-Mega Gathering

Miniaturists from all over Brazil - artists, collectors and enthusiasts - arranged a Mega Gathering to take place just before 'Mega Artesanal' a huge crafts fair in Sao Paulo, on Saturday July 5th, fora “brunch”.

And it was a delightful gathering! Chekd tye pictures here. Many of us have never met before, we had justs exchanged emails. There we had a chance to finally meet, exchange ideas and a very typical warm Brazilian hug!

We also had the chance to have in our hands and admire in complete awe the miniatures made by our friends and even buy as many as our budgets would allow us to: wickery pieces - furniture and bags by Flávia de Oliveira; wood turnig furniture by Roberto Ferrés; food and other items made with cold porcelain by Ivani Grande and Betinha Murta; office supplies, game boxes, wine shelves and pieces of furniture by Regina Nachtigal, and some perfect-in-every-detail displays by Ivo Kohek.

Of course, I wouldn't Regina Passy go before she authographed my copy of her book! :)

Those who couldn't come were remembered by in a big banner with all their names. They were truly missed.

I'll be looking forward for our next Mega-Mini Gathering!!!

A Mega Artesanal 2008

A feira é enorme e teve empresas/expositores de peso. Mas o que mais valeu foi a presença, pela primeira vez, de miniaturistas vendendo suas obras e uma exposição fantástica com ambientes criados por feras de todo o Brasil. Veja algumas fotos da exposição aqui. Para informações sobre esta exposição, veja em Art em Miniatura.

Vários miniaturistas levaram miniaturas para vender, como a Cia das Artes, a Anynha Miniaturas, a Casa do Miniaturista e MiniMarcia. Veja fotos aqui. Foi uma delícia ver tudo de pertinho. Como são lojas exclusivamente virtuais, é uma chance única. Além da vantagem de levar na hora as mini-maravilhas, sem ter que esperar entrega pelo correio (que sempre pode entrar em greve, rsrs...) e economizar no frete!!! Excelente negócio!!! O único risco era levar mais que o planejado, pois estava dificílimo resistir a tanta coisa bonita e bem-feita!

Como um bônus inesperado, haviam vários cenários feitos pela Regina Passy-Yip, que generosamente explicava cada detalhe deles. Além de dar uma aula de como fazer um mini-bonsai. Quem fazia a aula, podia levar a obra. Muito fofo!!!

Quanto à feira em si, há pontos ótimos e questões a melhorar para 2009:

Positive aspects

Huge variety of products - all crafts well represented.

Several stores and show-rooms.

Many benches here and there so that when you get tired of so much walking, you could sit and rest for a while to recover energy to resume the visiting.

The possiblity to watch accomplished artist in the process of creating: sculptors, painters painting on canvases, fabric, several materials, and a lot more.


Aspects to be improved

There was free transportation from the 'nearest' subway station - about 1 mile away - to the site. But the stop was far from the station, and the streets would get really dark after hours - when the fair would close. Very usafe to walk, specially for people who were not familiar with Sao Paulo .

Toilets were always too crowded, and on some days even paper was missingl... What a shame!...

One has to walk - way too much - to get to the entrance gates from the transport stop - or from the parking lot, whatever.

I could not find any healthy option at the food court. We already know that food is usually way more expensive inside those fairs than outside, but that's no reason not to offer a fast healthy option, like fruits and salads...

The ticket (R$ 8,00) and parking (R$ 18,00) are way too expensive for Brazilian standards... It gets even worse if someone decides to come back again another day - the fair lasts 5 days. Is it so hard to provide a kind of 'passport' for the full 5 days with a special discount?

The concept of taking short crush courses is awesome!!! But... I went there 2 days in a row, spent 16 reais with tickets and wasn't able to take a single one. Only those who arrived way before the opening hour and were willing to wait for over 1 hour at each line could take one - or some. Those who chose to walk around to check all there was to see, like me, could forget about those classes. The organizers could ORGANIZE this better, creating a booking system, limiting the amount of courses taken by ticket, separating the courses from the show-rooms - like in auditoriums or something - so that those who want to see the demos and the new stuff won't be bothered by the crowd who just wants to stay in line for the classes... I'm even in favor of paying a small extra fee per class taken, so that they could have more people per class.

The stores charged exactly the same price inside the fair as outside... That would make it worth shopping there only for those who were not from the city (Sao Paulo) and would have a lot of trouble to get to all those stores in such a 'short' time - you have no idea how 'gigantic' Sao Paulo is and how time-consuming going around really is! Only at Dremel stores next to Dremel stand I saw some real discount offers. But as I just couldn't make any of the Dremel's training courses, I chose not to spend my money on a tool I won't be able to use... for now...

Even with the prices not being that attractive, it was a struggle to get into each store: huge and slow-moving lines... And inside them the space to move was even smaller... Again, a discount voucher valid throughout the month to be spent at their regular stores wouldn't be a bad idea to make shopping easier!

Even though there were serveral demos everywhere, it was really hard to actually SEE them. Bunches of people would gather in front of the artist and those behind wouldn't be able to see a thing. Why not placing the artist on a slightly higher ground? Some few manufacturers had the brilliant idea of placing a plasma tv above the artist and keeping a camera shooting the demo, so that those behind could perfectly see what was being done. An exemple to be followed...

I've been to many gigantic business fairs like Fenasoft (for hardware & software products) and UD (for appliances and the like). Obviously they are always crowded, but there were no more people per area in this fair than in those, and here I could actually SEE almost nothing...

Wasn't for the miniatures, which were worth all the trouble, I would be very frustrated... Which is a shame, for as a miniaturist, I like all kinds of crafts and techniques and was looking forward to check all the new products and stuff!

All they have to do is to plan those details better then it will be really worth going to that fair. For all I want is that 'Mega Artesanal' becomes better and better so that many other ones will come - with loads of miniatures!!!

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