The Chichester Art Trail has finished!  For the first time, Alan and I opened our home for five days over the first two weekends in May.  We had a great time!  Whilst the volume of sales was not huge, we both did sell work and, what was just as important, received some fantastic comments from people who came round.  We had 194 visitors – some came to see Alan’s monochrome photographs including those of Chichester Harbour and church interiors; some came to see my found object and mixed media work and most enjoyed both.  Although our work is very different it does complement each other.  There is a similar colour palette i.e. simple, earthy tones – I describe his work as precise and perfect whilst mine is distressed, tattered and torn and yet the two seem to work together.

What did we learn from the experience:

• The entrance display of my found lighters was a great talking point and so the idea of having something with impact that is not actually for sale is a good way of breaking the ice
• Ensuring that the body of work to be shown is prepared in plenty of time so that publicity photographs are truly representational of the work is important
• Our decision to invest in quality bespoke frames was well worthwhile
• Some people come just to see what you do and “borrow” ideas
• We chose not to offer cards or lower priced pieces of work this time but this may be something to consider in the future
• Although tiring, we enjoyed meeting lots of new and interesting people
• From the point of view of new artists, the Art Trail is a low cost way of testing the market for your work

And now …

Alan plans to continue to work towards a panel of work for his Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society

Helen will maintain her love of found objects but look for new ways to work with them, maybe mixing the found with the made; maybe replicating the distressed surfaces on paper and in fabric; maybe considering more work with books as these proved very popular during the trail.

More posts will follow!