Buxton Arts and Crafts Fair

A gorgeous, crisp, cold, sunny day was the exciting welcome to this Art Fair.

New venue for me, lovely drive, comfortable setting, warm and cosy behind the warm glass.

I had been preparing, planning, list making, box ticking, planning, planning, planning....

Original paintings, yes of course, but also prints and cards. Oh, and for this occasion right before Christmas, consideration was given to shoppers on a tight budget, so I prepared lovely little cards and framed my prints in several sizes to please every pocket.

Every item displayed, every item priced and labelled. I knew, I just knew, that my gorgeous prints at least would definitely sell. Who could say no to a mere £20.00 for a pretty little picture, a lovely present.

But minutes passed, then hours passed and I sold nothing.

Other fellow artists would come and go in commiseration to whisper to me how unlucky I had been to have been placed right next to the cheapest seller on the planet. They gesticulated, turned their back and mouthed words and explained how my stand neighbour mass-produced his paintings, sold them by the yard and had relatives who would frame his work for nearly nothing. They showed their displease as they told me how he was lowering the tone of the fair and how it was not fair on any of the others.

In truth, people were obsessed by his paintings and his prices, they were queuing, they were buying bulk......and I am sure there isn't a Buxton inhabitant without one or two or three of his pictures on their wall.

Some said art is not sold like that. How cheap can you get? How commonplace will the pictures become? How unoriginal, always the same theme, again and again? How proud can the owner of such pieces be when receiving at home and guests saying, oh, I have four like that in my bathroom....?

I tried to rise to the challenge and halved the price of all my work, even my most cherished original oils I had painted during my darkest hours. It hurt, but I did in the name of business...

but still then, I sold nothing.

I am not blaming my failure to sell on other people's success. The reasons for not selling will forever remain a mystery. My work was repeatedly praised, my prices were more than reasonable, I had a range of prices, I presented my work in neat frames and clear display.

I just did not sell.

Perhaps a Craft Fair is not the best location to exhibit and try to sell the fruit of my creativity, perhaps my work is not sellable, perhaps my creations are too mundane, or too ordinary, or too normal...

Perhaps I am not very original and fail to capture the public's desires.

Perhaps my work just lacks the wow factor.

In any case, it is what it is, I paint what I paint and I do it for the love of it and the peace I get while doing it. If this is not good enough for business, so be it.

I will never become a mass-producer of repetitive seascapes on the cheap.

It would completely destroy what painting represents and achieves, what Art really is.