I had a lovely evening with friends and family visiting my opening on Friday. We had cocktails and nibbles, and although the weather didn’t behave, we sat by candlelight under the gazebo, which made it all the more atmospheric. On Saturday I had two good friends visit me, as well as numerous visits from locals who were walking past, and a couple of visitors who had spotted me in the Open Studios brochure.
My daughter sold £16 worth of goods, which will be donated to the War Child Charity via my brother Daniel, who spends most of his weekends running marathons and races to raise awareness and money for them.
Over the remainder of the weekend I had a few more visitors, who were again mainly locals. Having had a busy day at work, with lots more preparation to do before tomorrow’s classes, I hadn’t intended to open the studio, but when I heard the dog barking, I saw that I had more visitors, another artist in the brochure and her husband and also more local residents.
Chico, the studio guard dog!
It was nice to receive positive feedback about my work from visitors to the studio, and even better when they made a purchase!
This has been a really worthwhile experience for me, in terms of raising my profile as an artist within the local area and arts scene, and also in curating my own exhibition, which has been a mixture of both contemporary art and also lino prints, which I love to make. I have discovered the possibilities of printing onto bags, espadrilles and lampshades too, which has opened up a lot of new ideas for me in terms of possible business ventures.
I have really enjoyed the social side of hosting an exhibition, meeting people who I had never met before, having interesting conversations about my work and discovering a few potential opportunities with regards to exhibiting.
I think that I will open my studio more in future, especially around celebrations such as Halloween and Christmas, and possibly host some art related events. It’s something that I really enjoy doing, and although there has not been a great amount of profit involved so far, I think there is potential as an extra business opportunity at weekends and over the holiday periods.
Antidotal Recall 