What I learned from my first market stall

The organisation:

Have very clear price tags. And somewhere to record sales.

Have business cards instead of having to write my URL on bits of paper.

Have a sign with my name and URL on it laminated.

Share a stall with a friend if possible, because public liability insurance is expensive and convenience breaks are convenient.

I must publicise myself ahead of time in future – not 48 hours ahead, but weeks or months. Almost no-one I spoke to knew it was happening unless they knew an artist personally, so artists’ word of mouth is clearly very important.

I think I’d do well to bring kit so that I could paint while I watched my stall. Several people did work on things while watching their stalls and at least that’s a good use of the time while not selling much. I have travel kit so I could use it.

Using the space:

Bring lots of small, cheap paintings and the means to display them prominently. I had A but not B. I might need to rig up some sort of drawing board to hang lots of 5″ canvases on, mounted on an easel.

Bring some big eyecatching ones too, not least because the bright colours cheer me up!

Come up with something convincing to say when people ask what my technique is, or where I get my inspiration, because “The colour! The colour does the thing! I love it!” doesn’t sound very good. Also, come up with a better response to “I could never do this,” than “Oh but you could! Try it! Use a big brush!”

Don’t be afraid to rearrange the space. I left the solid objects as they were when I arrived, and I could have created something much more inviting and less prone to fill with cigarette butts (seriously; we were near a bin and a bench, it was very smoky) if I’d just moved the table 90 degrees.

I hope I remember some of this for next time.