How did Open Up go for everybody? I thoroughly enjoyed visiting a few artists on my days off and generally turn–out seems to have been good. For me, the second Sunday was much quieter than the first and those I visited on the Saturday commented that visitor numbers seemed to be down compared with the Bank Holiday weekend.I always find it interesting to study the statistics of the event once Sharon has collated the information from the visitor and artist questionnaires. I have to confess that I didn’t push the paper- work as much this year, particularly when my visitors clumped together at the busy times. I also found that selling cards distracted me somewhat and was quite time consuming. Most of my visitors had visited other artists, or planned to before the event was over, with many seasoned campaigners visiting five or more.
Generally, the people who purchased original work tended to be people I already knew, whom I’d personally invited along. The people showing interest in either commissioning a picture or receiving tuition were people who’d been attracted by my entry in the brochure. This year I decided to advertise that I would do a demonstration at 2pm each day but this did not appear to specifically attract people. As I always have an ongoing piece of work on show I think that next year I shall just demonstrate on request.
I first started this diary in early February and it’s hard to imagine that fifteen weeks have passed and that this is the final instalment of my ramblings. There was snow on the ground as I wrote my second instalment and now the trees are in full leaf and summer is just around the corner. It’s been a very hectic period of time for me, one way and another, but I’ve enjoyed trying to do a “blog” and hope that in some small way it has attracted people to Open Up and struck one or two chords here and there.
“Thank you” to my son, Peter, who has been a great help with the posting and particular thanks to those of you who have read it and provided feed-back. I hope that the rest of 2007 will be a fruitful year, whether you are an artist creating work or someone who appreciates it and wants to learn more about the processes involved.
With Best Wishes
Anne
