E-day

Posted by Lidya Endzo Kun iLLa
First of all a warm welcome to any new readers who are reading this after finding out about it at the Easter exhibition, and thank you for going along.
Putting up - Donna's partner, John, lends a hand
“How did you get on in your exhibition this year?” asked a family member at the annual Easter egg hunt at my parents’ in law. “I sold …. But my reply was drowned out by the collective racket from our four children. 

Karen and Margaret get their displays ready
On paper, Saturday looked like a promising day. The sun shone and, usually, sunshine seems to get people out (one year when Easter fell early, and it snowed, people stayed away until the snow stopped). As I took my place on the sales desk that morning, I reflected on how we’d had more publicity for our event than ever before, and that these two days were for me the culmination of all the weeks of preparation for me and the other members. The carefully completed artworks hung from the screens, which in itself, transformed the look of the cricket pavilion. I’d created a display to show how I designed my Middle Eastern Dance Blog (link below right). The exhibition leaflet, painstakingly re-designed (by me), now included copies of all our artwork and screenshots of any websites, together with details of any member awards and exhibitions, and a room plan on the back page. There were ample copies for all visitors.



I’d made a colourful “newbies info” display plus leaflets to encourage people to join, and although not in the position shown on the room plan, it looked good over the other side of the room. We couldn’t afford the £50 to hire the cricket club’s large TV screen at the far end of the room, but my laptop and 12” screen had a continuous slide show of members’ work for people to look at while they had their cup of tea, coffee or (new this year) hot chocolate, and enjoyed a choice of cakes including (from me) low fat muffins decorated with a swirl of low fat icing, and finished with a small sugar orange segment. Yes, there was even a new tablecloth for the tombola items. We looked set to do well this year.
Some of Margaret's swans and other artwork
Reaching the end of my hour, I did a quick count up of the tombola takings, and was a bit concerned to notice that we were well down on this time last year. I went off to vote for my “best in show” and then spent the rest of the day in the kitchen (I’d wanted to talk to people who were viewing my artwork, but as the number of visitors dwindled to practically nothing, there didn’t seem to be much point). The mini heat wave had encouraged people to do outdoor activities or head for the coast, and who can blame them? Takings for the kitchen were also meagre, despite a cricket match taking place outside, and none of my friends or family came this time.


I wasn’t there on the Sunday, but returned at the end to help with clearing up, and Gill told me that the second day had been better attended, thank goodness. I collected a couple of “squid” from sales of my greetings cards (no paintings sold this year, I'm afraid - thank goodness I took some cards, so I didn't go away completely empty handed), and it was all hands on deck with cleaning and tidying up before we locked up and left for the day.


By the Monday, Kevin e-mailed us all with the results of “best in show” – I had the dubious distinction of having polled 6 votes for two of my artworks, as good as John (one of the other non (paintings)-sellers and better than Elizabeth (another non-seller). I must be doing something right after all … Karen had won best painting and best artist in show with “Who Me?”, a portrait of an ape, so congratulations to her.  I'll include a picture of this next week, as long she agrees with me to showing it on my blog.
One of Maggie's decoupage cards - notice the hexagonal shaped cutouts
Three things struck me about this year’s exhibition. Firstly, that it was like revising for an exam, trying to cover as much ground as possible, as you never knew which parts of it you were going to be tested on. For me, it turned out to be the hour or so spent printing out cards that paid off, rather than the many hours spent doing other preparation, and also (from the group’s point of view) baking the cakes, which proved very popular.  I seemed to be complimented more on my cakes than my artwork.
A selection of members' greetings cards
Secondly, some people were charging more for greetings cards this year, particularly Maggie whose decoupage cards had taken many hours to produce. In fact, some of the “bargain box” paintings were the same price. Perhaps I could start increasing the price of my cards and reducing the paintings that haven’t sold until they meet in the middle …..

Of course the most important thing learnt this year was that the weather has to be right. No amount of publicity is going to help if it is too hot or cold outside. Rain can also put people off, but mostly if it’s an outdoor event (last year’s Patchings springs to mind).
Taking down - Gill gets to work
For next week, I’ll be continuing to complete some of my oil paintings. I might keep on getting the Clowne Montage one out for exhibition every year, adding more to it each time.  Another likely subject may be our forthcoming tabby kitten, which I'm hoping we'll be bringing home next week.


For those of you who couldn’t get to the exhibition, I managed to organise a short film of it, which I will be putting onto my “Artists of Derbyshire” Face Book page and my own profile next week, once I’ve edited it.  I'm not sure if I am allowed to put videos on my blog as it is published on Kindle, but I'll check the Kindle rules when I publish my other one on there in the next week or so. 

Onwards and upwards, then.

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