The Process of Exhibiting Art
This summer saw my first solo exhibition of work – Paper Mountains, exhibited for a month at Artlink, in Hull. Since then I've also had a piece selected and exhibited at Kardomah 94 in Hull, as part of the Hull International Photography festival, and applied (and been rejected!) to the Hull Ferens Open Exhibition for 2017. Doesn't sound like much when you type it out like that, probably doesn't sound much to you when you read this, but it's been a summer of hard work, and of many, many lessons learned.
Having never exhibited anything before, I didn't know what to expect. What I learned was that it takes time, and money, and unexpectedly, emotion. I started the preparation for the Paper Mountains exhibition far, far too late, and ridiculously, found myself storing and framing prints in the middle of some major house renovations. (I know, first-world-problems, right?) However, early August 2016 will be forever in my memory as the time when I was uselessly attempting to cleanly frame up very large photographic prints in the only room in my house that wasn't covered with a thick black layer of dust, whilst bemused builders walked past on their 6th cup of tea of the morning, asking “What's it supposed to be, then?”
Oh, artistic vision. My view of the works was that they should be large. They should fully occupy space, they should command attention, and they should engage the viewer in a physical space, by fixing and moving the viewpoint and perspective. So, I went large. Large prints are both expensive, and difficult to frame. Panicky, with less than a week to go, I ordered custom cut sheets of perspex in which to sandwich the prints, and bemused the (now dusty) cats in my one functional room by carefully drilling holes in the perspex to fix them together. Thankfully, it all worked, and I loved the effect of floating prints in the industrial looking perspex.
All framed up and delivered to the gallery, I was lucky enough to be able to work with the curator to hang the prints, and I was very happy with how the exhibition looked, and proud of my work. The opening night of the Paper Mountains exhibition was a success, with a great turnout, many positive comments and some sales. The opening night event was another new experience for me. I've written and spoken before openly about my social anxiety and nervousness, and I'm sure many artists find this part of the process uncomfortable, but I wasn't sure quite what I was...supposed to do...talk to people..engage with them...take feedback about the art...? In my day job, I talk to strangers every day without difficulty, but somehow this was so much more personal, and I found myself wanting to go and hide in a corner with a beer. The process of perfectly ordinary people looking at your artistic output is very strange, and rather disquieting. I found myself over-sensitive to friends' flippant comments, and tongue-tied when people asked me questions. I suppose, really, that I wasn't a very good artist-on-an-opening night. One should probably don an imaginary cloak of super-confidence and belief in the work. My cloak was too thin. It will get better.
I also found myself having huge self doubt about the work, the series, which kicked in after the pieces went up. I had loved them, and I do again now. But I went through a real questioning phase of...'is it all just rubbish?' I'm normally a very level and balanced person, so these ups and downs of the creative process are all very new to me, but I think that being aware of the fact that this is all part of the process will help to manage them.
Shortly afterwards, I submitted and had accepted a piece for the Hull International Photography exhibition, 'Portrait of My Mother'. This is one of my favorite portraits, and a piece I am more surely confident about, but this learning curve was about framing. More specifically, how shop-bought frames lie to you. They sit there, on their shelves, and they lie. They lie like I do when asked about my weight. Yep,they lie about their sizes.
Having done the struggle with ratios (so if the digital image is x by y, then that translates into....) I discovered that shop-bought frames' ratios are not compatible with digital images. Having framed the picture perfectly when taking it (zing!) I didn't want to crop it. Right. Think. OK, buy a larger frame and have a mount custom cut. Done! Get print, frame, and custom mount home to find that....the frame wasn't the size it said it was. It was longer by over half an inch, and narrower by about the same, which meant that I had to revert to the kitchen table and, swearing, re-cut the mount with a craft knife and a lot of patience. In all seriousness, I have come to the conclusion that the best way to frame exhibition prints would be to get them custom mounted and framed by a professional. The only problem is that this can be tremendously expensive, excludes a lot of people from exhibiting, and is neither good for the struggling artist or the business.
Framing was again an issue with my submission to the Ferens Open exhibition. This is a fantastic opportunity for local artists to submit and exhibit their work. But they have incredibly stringent framing specifications, and for submission, you must show the work framed. I submitted a piece that ended up not being framed how I wanted it to be. By this point, I have to confess to being tired, and out of money. I didn't have the budget to re-print a piece I wanted to submit, and had to re-use a frame to fit the Ferens specifications. The final piece did not look good, and I wasn't surprised that it wasn't accepted. The process of selecting, sizing, test-printing, printing and framing for a solo exhibition, and two open-call submissions in just over two months was much more difficult than I had anticipated, and I have definitely learned to plan better, more in advance, and to ride the emotional hillocks of the physical and practical side of exhibiting. I have plans to submit and exhibit new pictures and series further afield, and I am very pleased and honoured to have had this summer of lessons to teach me to be better.
