Tips from my own experience!
An exceptional local exhibition
Two years ago I attended an exhibition by Johannes van Kan who took photos of the Art’s Centre of Christchurch being restored after the Christchurch Earthquakes. He took amazing black and white photos which were sold in a smaller print size, with some special extra large pieces which would fill a whole wall.
Booking a gallery space – a foolish decision?
I went to the open night and was impressed by the exhibition. Johannes said that the room Pumanawa was available for hire from the Art’s Centre by photographers and artists so you could have your own exhibition.
Stupidly, or bravely, I’m not sure which really, I decided then and there to sign up. I tried to convince a friend to have an exhibition the week before or after me so we could figure it all out together, but he never booked, so it was just me, myself and I. I had to make this work!
A year to prepare
I booked just over a year in the future. My whole exhibition was based on one photo which was a compilation of many mushrooms put into the one photo. I had just received a silver distinction at the NZIPP Iris awards for this, and figured it was a good starting point. My decision to create many artworks based on this one artwork was a good one as it gave me focus.
I went out and started taking photos of plants at family picnics and camping adventures and built up a portfolio of ideas and photos pretty quickly. But then all of a sudden it was May and I had until October. I started to panic.
The following list of tips are things I learnt running my own photography exhibition.
Just do it!
If you are feeling the fear, do it anyway. Was it a joyful experience the whole way through. I would say not! There are points where you feel it’s just not going to happen. But I pushed through those moments and came out the other side. The benefits of having an exhibition far outweighed the negative parts.
Find a cheap venue!
The venue I hired was cheap. It was aimed at community groups and individual artists with a low price to try and invigorate the Art’s Centre of Christchurch which had been severely impacted by the Christchurch Earthquakes.
There are spaces all over the world which are cheap. Cafes for example may allow you to exhibit photos for a low fee. Plus there are always galleries out there which are on the lower end or may have a room which can accommodate more community based exhibitions.
I was lucky that my space had the absolute wow factor and was very large and like a full on gallery. Yippee!!
Share the space
I didn’t share my space but I can see a huge advantage to sharing. One because the costs are halved of course. Two because the space can be filled quickly and you don’t have to produce as many artworks. You only have to fill half the space. My space was HUGE! I had people comment how large it was.
I decided to put the artworks around the outside walls and leave the space in the middle clear. Maybe, I could have got a pottery expert to share with me and have tables in the middle of the room, but I didn’t think of this at the time.
Another option was to share with another photographer or artist and crammed the photos in tighter. Another advantage is that if the gallery requires monitoring, then you can share the time sitting there waiting for people to come and view the work.
The only disadvantage I can think of is that it is not wholly your exhibition anymore. You can’t say you did it all by yourself and that it was just your event. At the end of the day we need to have a community of artists supporting each other and the load is easier when shared.
Find cheap framing or don’t frame at all!
I was incredibly lucky and still very grateful to a fellow photographer for basically giving me most of my frames. She was moving away and said she was going to throw the frames on a bonfire. Most of them were in good condition, having been in a shed but a few had marks and paint chips. I bogged, sanded and spray painted these so that they were again like new.
It felt good to recycle materials that were going to be burnt.
The biggest thing I had to do was get the glass cut as most of the frames had no glass. I made a spreadsheet of the frame sizes and sent this through to the glass cutter – easy. The foam board for the back and the tacks and the cord for hanging, I bought from a very helpful local framing wholesaler.
One of the hardest parts was getting everything framed without dust in it. I went to the local stationary shop and bought an antistatic cloth and cleaner which solved this problem. Many of the photos I didn’t matte but I wouldn’t recommend that as you do get prints sticking to glass after even a short time.
If I were to do this again, I would consider just matting with no frame and sell everything at a cheaper price.
Find a cheap printer
I love my local printer, but sadly their prices were top dollar. I went as far as the North Island of New Zealand to find the printer for my exhibition. He did the prints in two batches, sending them to me in large tubes to keep the cost down. The one disadvantage was the curling on the prints, but this was soon resolved once the prints were put in the frames.
Have a low key opening
I live in New Zealand where things are often pretty relaxed anyway, but I kept the opening night very low key. I advertised it to my friends but a lot of Mum friends couldn’t come because of the timing, 6pm. However I had a lovely group of photographer friends came and one eventually bought one of my artworks just under a year later – the mushroom one, which I’m very happy about!
For food I think I had some fruit juice and chips and maybe one other thing. It was not expensive! Did anyone mind? No they didn’t.
Use free social media to promote it
I used free social media platforms to advertise my photography exhibition. Plus the website belonging to the Art’s Centre of Christchurch. They did a free advertisement for me to help get people to come visit.
I also had a small sign outside on the footpath – very cheaply printed with an arrow to indicate where to go.
Get a cheap credit card machine
I managed to find a credit card machine which helped me sell my first artwork to a lovely lady from Australia who loved ferns. The machine was free for the first three months with charges after that. I wanted to keep it long term but sadly I had very few clients and no more exhibitions so no reason to keep it long term. It saved me a lot of bother and made sales extremely easy for me. I sold four pieces at the exhibition which I was very excited about.
This is the fun part when you sell something and someone appreciates what you’ve done! Yippee!!!!!
What I would do differently next time.
Johannes who lived just around the corner from the Art’s Centre came to visit my exhibition. He said I needed at least one wow piece that was framed hugely. I told him I didn’t have the budget. But he was right. If I did this again I would have one piece framed very large – spend money on this and put a huge price tag on it. Everything else could be just matted and small and be acceptable.
I would also have more consistency between art pieces. All black and white close ups of plants or all round patterns would work. I had a huge variety of pieces displayed mainly because I ended up rushing just before the opening and decided to throw a couple of landscapes in there as well as my plant pieces. There were square plant pieces and round ones but they were all different styles and colours. I could have had more consistency between artworks.