I have put in my first day ‘demonstrating’ at the Artisans Gallery in Montague (on Main Street, of course…next to the Post Office). The effort is to have an artistic presence in Montague and the planning has been going on for many months. There are three venues all within a block: the gallery which has mostly paintings and photography; the Boutique, which I believe will have mostly jewelry (but I’m not sure since it hasn’t opened yet); and the Studio, which is to demonstrate the ‘messier’ forms of art such as sculpture, jewelry making, and woodwork.
Be that as it may, I signed up a good number of weeks ago to be in the Gallery on Monday and Thursday mornings to help out providing manpower to sell stuff and keep an eye on things during open hours…at least that was what I thought I would be doing. Closer to time I find out that the ‘artisans’ are not burdened with something that mundane but are to spend their time being creative in an artistic sense. What on earth could I do that would allow observation by visitors? Wood Islands Prints entails lots of computer work: book design and layout for the publishing side and photo manipulation for the matted print and postcard side. A small computer screen is not particularly accessible to casual passers by.
Then it struck me…I could cut mats and assemble more matted prints. Since the matted prints–especially the large ones–long ago proved they don’t sell well in gift shops, I have let the stock dwindle. If they can actually sell well when surrounded by paintings that are asking up to 200 times the cost of one of my prints, I certainly want to be there with enough stock!
So I sat for almost 6 hours (I agreed to put my time in one full block to fill in where more needed) cutting mats and pairing them up with the prints I mentioned in an earlier blog. Between wandering around and chatting with the several visitors–Tom Rath stopped by to check on his new KittenCat book and Gary Gray, the keeper of the Library Writers Guild books, stopped by–I didn’t apply myself to the task full time. Still I did complete about 16 8x10s and engaged some of the folks in deciding which mat colour went best with specific pictures.
Next time I will come better prepared with snacks and drink. If the production catches up I can always set a table with my back to the room and with my computer oriented so fokks can see it more readily and do photo manipulation. As my wife can attest, talking is something I do quite readily, so I can expound on photo or publishing techniques. The one need I have identified is for a ‘tent sign’ identifying what I am doing and inviting questions. While I sincerely enjoy answering questions, I must seem intimidating (or else no one is interested)…the sarcastic side of me compares the sign as the labels they put in front of the cages at the zoo identifying the type of animal behind the bars…‘here you see the gray-bearded mat cutter…you can identify it by the tools it uses and the presence of the thick coloured cardboard material lying around.’