A series of adventures led to my being in Cafe Pergolesi early in March, and learning that an artist who was supposed to hang art for the month of March had no-showed. I offered to hang some of my photos. Thus began a week of selecting, culling, editing, printing, matting, framing, and going down to Santa Cruz the following Sunday to hang my photos.
The room I was hanging my art in was the Orange Room, so I selected 10 sunrises. 3 were printed up 16×24 by my friend Sam Linville – an amazing photographer in his own right and a wizard with printing. One was mounted on foam core and then framed with a thin black frame – no mat. Another was mounted on a 3/4″ board with a black edge. The third was matted and framed – framed out to 28×42. I also mounted several 12×18 prints on foam core and displayed 2 with frames (no mats) and several others with no frame, just mounted directly to the wall. I also had 3 12×8 prints matted and framed behind glass.
It was… eclectic. I think I did a fairly good job of selecting and preparing the images, but wish I had a more consistent display – all matted and framed or at most 2 different “looks” rather than the many different framing styles I presented.
My primary goal from this event was to “do it” – to go thru the process of selecting and preparing the images for the show, printing/matting/framing, hanging, writing up my artist’s statement, setting my pricelist, etc. I had no expectations of selling anything, if I did it would be gravy.
Last weekend I took them down so that this month’s artist would have room to hang his/her work. As I was taking them down there was one customer in the Orange Room sitting with his coffee and laptop. He noticed that I was taking them down and asked if they were my photos and I said yes. He said he liked my work. I asked him which one was his favorite. He picked this one:
It was the 16×24 framed in a thin black frame.
I asked if he would like to buy it, and after a bit of thinking about it, he decided he did. A few minute later he had sent me the payment by PayPal, and the transaction was done.
Although I’ve sold a lot of photos, this was my first “art print” sale – a photo I love, that I took for me (not for someone else) and framed and hung for people to look at, to critique, to consider, to buy. It’s a wonderful feeling to have someone else validate that I produce photographic prints worth purchasing and hanging on the wall.