Just a quick post before I go set up for the weekend's show in Bedford!!!!
My goal is art markets. Good ones. I imagine myself spending weekends in downtowns enjoying crowds of people. Last year I started trying to apply to a couple and found myself at an impasse. The application had a much larger requirement for the tent than I was prepared to meet. Your tent requires coverings for the walls and to hang things from. You need a carpet under customer's feet!
These didn't seem like good reasons to not be eligeable for an art fair. So I began thinking about how to create these things for my tent. But I've put it off. Fabric is lovely, but expensive. structures for hanging art are complicated and hard to carry in my little car! A rug isn't a big deal. Costco sells them and so do many of the other box stores. But those walls!
I've been hunting for inexpensive fabric, ways to attach a support structure and lower cost materials for that. Because I need money left over from the jewelry I've sold to buy metal and gemstones!!!!!
This summer's Heritage Markets have been awesome, not only because of the wonderful people I've met and supporting a great cause, but because I earned enough to get this dream off the ground!
This week, the first of National Craft Making Month, I've focussed entirely on getting my tent ready. The carpet will have to wait a little tiny bit longer, but I've found a few very likely candidates, all I need is a little more money. But I was in Big Lots and found very inexpensive curtains. Far less than any of the raw materials I've looked at. Curtain rods that are light and collapsable, and some little lit branches to make my trees sparkle. (Focus, Woman!) And at the local resued materials shop I found the webbing for making slat-style blinds at an incredible price. A trip to Home Depot for dowels and and picture hooks I have everything I need!
Goodness it's good that I have family members who sew! I've relied on them for a lot of help. They made it look easy.
(pictures tomorrow, I'll take some tonight once we're done setting up the tent for the weekend)
They're not perfect. One of my display solutions isn't working yet. But the major problems are solved.
Now I can focus on art without the nagging thought that I can't find a market for it because of the dumb walls. Sometimes I'm my own worst enemy.
-Simbelmynë
