This year feels like my first proper year of being self employed. Last year I was still straddling my job at Dylan's Restaurants working for them as Artist in Residence as well as trying to make a go of my printmaking.
This year I'm on my own. January has already gone with it's many highs and lows and it's already February. I lost my way a little in January but by the end of the month I was feeling much more positive. A fair few sales, approaches from four new shops wanting to stock my textiles and cards and take some prints, a piece in the Royal Cambrian Academy open exhibition. Artistically I've gained a few new tricks too. My multiple printing is coming along nicely and I've managed to successfully mount a couple of prints on board rather than having to frame under glass.
I'm also in the process of reviewing my framing. I've got the Bath Art Fair towards the back end of the month and I've mainly framed in white up until now. But for Bath I'll be taking some work framed in wooden frames and also some stuff that has been put into recycled frames too. Here's one of the newer wooden frames. I decided not to add a mount. I like it but my husband thinks it needs a mount? I'd love to know what others think.
The prints I've put onto board look good although I used a white gesso on the board and I'm thinking the result is a little harsh. I'm going to try and mix an off white acrylic to paint the boards with for my next attempts. See if that looks better. I really want to push on with this because in terms of my website, sending artwork out on board just gives me another option.
I'm slightly concerned how I'll make my stand look nice for the Bath Art Fair, I've only ever done one show and used totally uniform framing for that. I'll probably go to my trusty method of using the Procreate App to recreate the walls of my stand so I can have a think about what goes where.
I guess doing the Art Fairs are kind of fun in that sense, it's like curating an exhibition of your own work which isn't something you often get to do at my level. Usually my work goes into group shows.
Having said that, now I've made the decision to open my studio to the public by appointment, I'm going to have to have a bit of a sort out and free up some wall space so I can hang work in there. That's going to give me plenty of opportunity to play around with hanging work.
So that's a bit of a catch up on what's been happening. In the first couple of weeks of February it's going to be about show prep for Bath but also some more behind the scenes business admin on learning more about increasing my online presence and thinking about how I can promote my studio visits too.