It's Next Week!

Only one week left to go until my exhibition! I am very excited.  I do hope some of you reading this will come along.  If you do feel free to come and say hi.  If not next week's blog will be a post match analysis and then I shall return to talking about the show's I've been to see.

This week I thought I'd talk a bit about the preparation for the show, the steps and the cost.  Firstly the venue, Chalmers Bequest Gallery, part of the Stoke Newington Library.  This costs £60 a day or £35 for half a day.  I originally hired it only for a day but decided I needed more set up time.  Fortunately it is open late on Friday so I hired it for a couple of hours then to set things up.  It will be interesting to see if I have enough time.  So hiring costs £95. 

Next, publicity. In this wonderful age of internet one can do much for free and I have used Instagram, twitter,  facebook, whatsapp, email and of course my website and this blog to drum up publicity.  I have been considering revamping this website for quite some time and finally did so as part of the preparation for this show.  It reminded me of why I put a website together in the first place.  I entered an art competition and it had a field saying website.  I should have one of those, I thought, so off I went and made one.  Incidentally this platform, Weebly, is super easy to use and I recommend it. 

Then there is physical advertising.  I have run up a few posters and fliers 30 fliers and 12 posters which came to £46 in all.  I do wonder if this will draw in anyone I don't already know.  I had to overcome a certain amount of nervous shyness to put these up in various establishments on Stoke Newington Church street but they all let me without any return obligation, which was nice of them.  

What I suspect will be the most important advert is the A3 posters directing people to the gallery on the day. We shall see. 

There shall be booze and nibbles at the event all of which will probably come to around £100. 

Finally there is the works themselves. There was an ongoing debate about whether to have paintings framed or unframed.  They look better framed but of course there is a cost to that,  a cost which can be quite considerable.  My dad, with puppy like enthusiasm scampered away to get many pieces framed.  The total cost so far is around £300 but the final bill has yet to arrive.

he library staff were kind enough to let me into the gallery to measure up. This allowed me to plan where all the works were going to go and draw up a plan of where the various pieces are going to go.

There are a couple of more pieces of preparation to do.  I have to print out some sticky labels to go with the paintings when they are hung.  I am not sure if I will produce a catalogue or exhibition guide,  it will depend on how much time I have left.  

Otherwise all that is left is to hand the show.  

​Exciting!