To Promote...

   I feel as an artist it is particularly daunting to promote yourself. It most certainly has been for me! A few questions I have continuously asked myself are:

• Do my photographs contain enough detail to generate interest and/or a sale?
• Is my work commercial enough to sell?
• Should I spend an obscene amount of money on fantastic business cards or wait to do this until I am a little more established?
• Do I print up postcards for my exhibition at the Victoria Mill as a form of a print for audiences that are interested in my work and make a small amount of money in the process?

   I have started the process of promoting myself my getting into the photography studio with my fantastically amazing friend and artist Adam Gruning (I now hope he reads this) and taking many photographs which emphasise the layers and shear depth of the stitch and embroidery within my work. The slant I took during this shoot was to make the audience want to see more of my work as it is quite a substantial size and appear to be contemporary, whilst still using quite traditional techniques. I want the audience to see the involvement and almost obsession I have with my work because I stitch and stitch and stitch non-stop until I feel that my work is to the standard and depth required. I want my audience to see me not only as a "Contemporary Textile Artist", but also a "Fine Artist". I consider these two disciplines to fit hand in hand, whereas others do not.  

   Also, referring to the question of whether I should get some postcards printed up for the exhibition, I have sent off for 40 postcards to be printed with 5 different images on them just for a little bit of variety. I have used the website http://www.moo.com/ to get my promotional material printed up because the quality is fantastic and the prices are not overly expensive as opposed to other printing techniques. I really liked the look of the sample pack when it was sent to me a couple of weeks ago.

   Having started to make some smaller items which tie into the themes of my main pieces of work for a more commercial purpose, I decided to photograph my first selection of commercial work being printed and embroidered buttons. Adam decided that we should go for "GAP lighting" - I wasn't sure what this was originally but from seeing the unedited images it is a little bit darker than a usual still life shoot, it is quite editorial. I am hoping to put some of these bits and pieces up for sale during the exhibition at the Victoria Mill in Congleton, but it is whether I have the time at this point to make many more so that they could be sold to more that say 10 people. Also, I wouldn't mind printing on to some linen bags or making some jewellery out of printed linen surrounding the theme of Dreadnoughts and Battleships in the First World War.

   Relating back to the images that Adam and I took in the photo studio for my business cards and postcards - here are just a few!! Obviously I don't want to broadcast too much of my work on my blog before the exhibition so these are mainly samples and part done work: