You will surely agree with me that it has been a tough year. I have spoken of this before, and I am very grateful to have had very few close friends or family members suffer from Covid-19. And to those who have suffered from the disease, and their families, may I extend my deepest condolences. Everyone had been affected to a certain extent, and I don’t know of anyone who isn’t glad to see the lights at the end of that tunnel shining brighter every day. One of those lights, for me, is the return of in-person fairs and markets. Within the next few weeks, I will be setting up a regular display at our local farmers’ market, I will finally be doing a weekend art fair that got canceled last year, and I will also be doing some plein air painting and displaying work in a public area by the lake in a neighboring town. Except for the lake display, I will need to bring all of my equipment to set up a booth, which means that for the past few weeks (actually I started this winter for the weekend show), I have been planning and purchasing things for my set-up. I also collected a good number of tips and tricks for market/fair booths from videos I found on YouTube. I already have a 10x10 pop-up canopy, which I had purchased 2 years ago for a local 1-day show. I have a small folding table, but that is not enough, so I started looking for folding tables, the type that folds in two so they can fit in my car. If you have been following me at all, you know I am notoriously thrifty, so of course, I looked for used first! I thought I had found one, but when I went to pick it up, the “few small cracks” the seller had mentioned turned out to be jagged missing chunks along 2 edges, as well as menacing cracks that forewarned of the upcoming “calving” of another big chunk of the table’s edge. No wonder he did not include pictures of that side in his ad! I reneged on my promise to purchase, even though he had brought down the price to $25 from his asking $40. It is still available (still without pictures of the cracked parts) on Facebook Marketplace if you are interested….. I did buy a smaller, unadvertised square folding table from him for the same price, and I have since found, though have not yet picked up, a “used, like new” table from a hopefully more forthcoming seller. I have also bought two “event style” tablecloths, those with straight floor-length edges that hide the table legs. I got them in black, figuring that would look classy. I hope I am right. I also got a smaller square black and white checkered tablecloth to jazz things up a bit. I already own a revolving card rack as well as two folding table easels, and I had purchased earlier this year a table-top print rack for holding unframed but matted paintings (they are in individual clear bags) and two folding floor easels for the two framed pieces I plan to bring each week to the market. Last year, I got a Square reader to be able to take credit card payments at the weekend show, but never got the chance to use it! So I got it out and tested it again, adding my new work to the app’s inventory so it would be available for sale. I bought a paper sales book and had some stickers made to personalize the invoices. As I don’t want to carry too many framed pieces because of the glass, and as WiFi will not be available on-site, I made a slide show of some of my paintings so potential customers could see some of the other items I have available. I also created an offline Sign-Up page for people to sign up for my newsletter. I made some postcard-sized prints to give out to anyone who signs up, and I designed and ordered a banner to identify my booth. I received it yesterday and it looks fabulous! I painted a few more ACEOs (trading card-sized paintings) and ordered some perfectly sized pre-cut mats to present them in. I have matted a few and they look fabulous! I still have to decide if I will mat them all or not …. I still have a shrinking list of things to do: make a few signs for the tables, price my matted works, find a way to secure my electronics, see if it all fits in my car.... and I am planning a practice set-up this weekend, as soon as I have my new-to-me table! Although you can tell I am enjoying all these preparations, which I am keeping track of with my trusted assistant “Airtable”, I hope that people will visit my exhibits and find something they want to take home! By all means, if you are in the vicinity of Ste-Catherine-de-Hatley, do drop by and say hi! I will be posting specific dates and times for this and other events on my Facebook page, as well as in my weekly newsletter, which you can sign up for here. So, as you can see, it takes a lot of time and effort, not to mention expense, to set up those booths that you see at Art Fairs. The next time you walk by one, why not stop and have a chat with the artist. Even if you don’t buy anything, they will appreciate the visit!
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AuthorMy name is Claire Bureau. Archives
March 2023
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