London Show

I was recently asked to produce artwork for the launch party of a company called MyChef, exhibiting alongside two other artists at the Wolf & Badger Gallery in Mayfair, London.  The theme of the show was Food & Cooking.  I was free to interperate the theme anyway I liked, and I really wanted to incorporate birds too (of course!), so I put different birds into the kitchen and came up with ideas of what they might get up to.

I got some publicity on the company's website prior to the show :

This event also gave me a much needed push to finally sort out some things which I had been meaning to do for a while.  Like business cards and my Etsy shop.  Here are a couple of photos from the evening, just before the guests arrived.  Being surrounded by my birds calmed my nerves a little! :

 

The show went really well;  I had such a fun night, and met lots of lovely people!  

As this was my first time exhibiting work, I had to learn a lot of things along the way.  I had to get all my work framed myself, and was tempted to use an online company to supply the frames to keep the cost down, but had some concerns because there were no refunds on custom-made items, and I obviously couldn't see the materials properly.  I looked around at a number of different local framers, and was surprised when found one that was similar in price to the online option.  And I could see all the wood, and mount colours and ask for advice, and the two men who ran the shop were really lovely and they mounted my pictures for me too.  So going local was the way for me.

Whilst making the three illustrated paper collages at the top of this post, I looked into ways to stop the coloured paper from fading in sunlight, and I discovered a matte archival varnish by a company called Golden, which does just that.  A great find!

I learned you should always turn up as early as possible because setting up takes longer than you think.  I also learned that it's a good idea to have a tall helper.  Will took the day off work to help me, and I am so grateful for that.  Hanging those pictures would have easily taken twice as long if I was on my own and balancing on boxes to reach for the hooks..!  That would not have been very graceful in a dress.

I also learned there is no such thing as too much bubble wrap when it comes to packing up pictures at the end of the evening.  However, next time I will be investing in Stiffy Bags.  I had serious packaging-envy as one of the other artists packed all her work away quickly and neatly into a set of those bags, whilst I was trying to find the end of the sticky-tape for the hundredth time!

My family came to visit me for a long weekend after the show.  My dad took a shine to the Red Cardinal, so he now proudly hangs on my parent's kitchen wall up in Scotland, happily watching them while they cook.

I have plans for more kitchen art in the very near future!