This Summer an effort is underway to promote art in Montague, PEI, going by the title of this post. A lot could be said, but I want to focus on recent developments that impact me.
I had volunteered to fill two half-day shifts at ‘The Artisans Gallery’ (there are two other venues for consignment and for a ‘Production Studio’). I assumed they needed warm bodies to welcome people and to take payments. But Thursday evening I discover I misunderstood and I am down to, as I see it, do something ‘artsy’. Since my focus is on publishing and photo-products, all I could think of was to sit there on a computer editing or manipulating photos. How dull and non-interactive with visitors!
But wait, I discovered that my small matted photo prints are not wanted at the consignment shop, so I had decided to call them fine art and have them on display in the gallery. Since tourists in gift shops avoided them like the plague for years, maybe they will sell in a more ‘fine’ atmosphere (surrounded by original paintings selling for hundreds of dollars). In that atmosphere my products look like a fire sale. But, since they didn’t sell well, I have been letting my stock decline. I especially need more 8″ x 10″ pictures. I have a pile of mat blanks already cut, but I am not about to try to resurrect my ink-jet printer which has misbehaved despite a new head.
So yesterday I priced 5″ x 7″ enlargements locally…$1.99. Off to the web…no one is giving away 8″ x 10″ prints but I discovered that Blacks will make 6″ x 8″ prints for $0.29 plus shipping! Wow! I got busy in Photoshop Elements and made up a batch of layouts set to that size with a simulated inner mat as part of the print. I just sent off an order for 114 prints and even with tax and shipping it comes in well below $50. When these arrive in a week or two, I have something to do in the Artisan Gallery…I can pick mats and cut them for these photo prints. 6″ x 8″ allows a 1″ mat all around (and the cutouts can easily be used for the smaller 5″ x 7″ mats that go with the 4″ x 6″ prints).
So now visitors can enter in to the process of choosing coordinating colours to go with the prints, and I can produce more 8″ x 10″ product for sale!