Putting on an Art Fair (Cass Art Islington - Dec 17th)
This year I have been part of the Cass Art Student Ambassador Program (STAMBAS), in which each term they give us a task of some kind, which help us develop as artists (and advertise their franchise). The first task was to put on an event. I decided that I wanted to put on an art fair.
This involved putting together a proposal to the Cass Art administrative team, so that I could use their space, design posters, advertise the event, get a group of artists together, produce my own work, etc.
Reflection/Learning Process
The event was definitely a learning curve for me- it meant that I had to think about what artwork of my own I could make into a sellable item. I produced a series of Lino print notebooks, order small prints and prints of my work, a few small framed prints, etc. I also experimented with way that would make the work seem more appealing (packaging was a big part of this): I used sandwich bags and handwritten labels to make the work look more professional.
This was an interesting process for me, as when making artwork normally, I had had to consider presentation, but in a very different way. I’d only ever thought of work in relation to a gallery and an audience, not in a shop and with potential buyers. Interestingly, my works sold a lot better than the other artists on the day (who either hadn’t considered how to re-create the work in another form, making it more affordable, or appealing to buyers).
In some ways I found it kind of shameful to produce a commercialised version of my artwork (stickers and notebooks, etc), because in the art-world there is a lot of shaming of artists who modify their work to make money. I understand this attitude and I do agree with it to an extent, however, it’s also important to recognise that you don’t have to be a starving artist to make you a real artist. Just because you make your work more marketable, don’t mean that its no longer artwork.
