Matt Brown's Craft Fair 'Exhibitions' ...
(entry by David with additional comments by Matt)
This past autumn (1999) I visited a craft fair in Woodstock Vermont, where I had a chance to see Matthew Brown in action with his display of woodblock prints.
Matt has years of experience at doing these shows, and has developed a very finely 'tuned' approach to displaying and selling his work. Let's take a 'virtual' visit to his exhibit ...
The most important feature of Matt's display technique is 'versatility' - he has to be able to alter everything about his display to suit the conditions at each particular venue. Today he has been allocated a 10' x 10' space at the fair, so he has brought his largest tent, which just fits that space. He has another model (6' x 10') for those occasions when a smaller space is available.
The tent is made up of a set of nesting aluminum poles, over which a strong plastic type of material is stretched. It goes up in just a couple of minutes, and is very wind and rain resistant. The translucent white material provides a wonderfully soft light under which to view the prints. Matt purchased the awning 'option' when ordering the tent, and these are coming in handy today, in a light autumn rain ...
As Matt has obtained a choice 'corner' location at this fair, he has laid out the tent with two sides open; this provides a good flow of traffic, and draws people into the interior space.
Here is a direct view of the tent. The panel on the right, at which the girl in the blue jacket is looking, is a free-standing wire frame unit over which a cloth is draped to hide the wire mesh. (The back side of it can be seen in some pictures below). Hooks are hung on the wire at various places (piercing the cloth), and framed prints are hung on these.
The 'flow-through' layout works very well ... a constant stream of people go through the space ...
The view looking into the other open side of the tent.
This is the system for hanging prints from the tent walls, which being plastic sheeting, cannot support anything directly. Matt has prepared a series of 'sticks' tied together with ropes, which are tied to the horizontal support bars and allowed to hang freely. Wire hooks are clipped onto the sticks here and there, and these support more prints in frames.
Matt sells prints in three basic ways: in frames ready to hang, in mats ready for framing, and as loose prints. Here is the 'browser bin' with matted prints (shrink-wrapped for protection). What is not visible here is the ingenious way that the bin folds down for easy transportation. All the 'furniture' in the tent was of course made by Matt himself, and the whole thing packs down into easily transportable packages.
Another small browser bin, with smaller black & white prints ...
With
only a 10' x 10' space available today, Matt isn't able to display
much of his educational material. This is another side of the
free-standing wire frame unit, and hanging from it you can see one of
his very well made 'panels', this one showing a sequence of stages in
printing, along with a few tools attached. He has a half-dozen such
panels, explaining many different aspects of the woodblock printing
process.
Here is
'command central', the desk at which Matt sits and carves while
talking with the guests. The rear side of the wire-frame unit is
clearly visible in front of him. The table surface to his right is a
simple 'extension' unit that attaches to the main structure of his
desk.
I've asked him to move out of the way so we can see inside the box ... In here are more prints ready for sale, wrapping paper and plastic bags, receipt book, cash drawer, etc. etc.
This is the third way that Matt sells prints - as single loose sheets. He keeps them in plastic pockets in binders, which store on a shelf in this large carving box. He brings the binders out to show people whenever he feels that someone would be interested in browsing through the prints.
I mentioned that 'versatility' is the word of the day - and the layout we have seen here today is only one of an infinite ways that Matt can set up the tent and displays. In fact even as the show was going on this weekend, he sometimes rearranged things, moving one group of prints 'indoors', and other group onto the outside display area.
I
watched him in action for a few hours, and he was obviously enjoying
himself in this environment - sitting in a 'house' of his own design
and creation, surrounded by his prints, and talking about his work to
anybody who came by.
I certainly can't understand how he can possibly work in such a situation, but as the hours of the afternoon went by, the block on his desk proved me wrong. It was a colour block for his newest design, and we could see it come to life, as the pile of wood chips on the top of the bench grew ...
Perhaps by next week's craft fair, this print too will be hanging
up on one of the tent walls, waiting to find a new home
...