Moving Forwards

So in my last blog post I mentioned how difficult it had been to get sales through a gallery. With this insight into the issues with gallery sales in mind I withdrew all my paintings from the gallery in Cheltenham. One sale in eight months wan't something I could rely on to earn a living.

I decided to look for another gallery but try to set up a very short agreement with them in order to gauge if my experience showed a general trend in low art sales or not. I contacted Broadway Contemporary Gallery in Broadway, Worcestershire and paid them a visit with some work. The owner Gary Thompson was very keen to show my work so I decided to let him have several paintings but also show work in Abbey Galleries in Tewkesbury as I know Chris and Jilly, a lovely couple who worked very hard to establish themselves with two galleries, one in Pershore and the new gallery in Tewkesbury alongside Chris's framing business.

In only a few short weeks, Gary had sold two paintings:

Kemerton Court Wood II - Oil on canvas

Buddha in Blue - Oil on Canvas

Kemerton Court Wood had been exhibited in the gallery in Cheltenham and at Fresh Art Fair but didn't sell in either location but it seemed Broadway was the perfect location. The buyer lived in the Cotswolds. Buddha in Blue sold to a customer from the US who took it back to New York with him. Financially this was a great relief and I began to have faith in getting the sales I needed.

My agreement with both galleries allowed me to take all my remaining work out and show the work at 'Art in the Park' (https://www.instagram.com/aitp_cheltenham/) an annual art exhibition held next to Imperial Gardens in Cheltenham each summer. Each morning you hang your work on a screen with hooks and take it down each evening. The slots run for a week at a time over a period of 4 weeks with different artists each week.

Due to my prices, I wasn't expecting to sell much if anything but within a couple of days, to my great surprise, my Waterlilies oil painting sold:

Waterlilies - Oil on Panel

I also sold a watercolour of three chickens I saw at Batsford Arboretum - 'The Ladies':

The Ladies - Watercolour

Later in the week a couple approached me to buy 'Oddington Bluebells III' but also to find out what other Oil paintings I had for sale of a similar size or larger. Although they didn't buy the work at Art in the Park, they definitely wanted either Bluebells (if it remained unsold) or a new painting, fresh off the easel - 'View to another Place':

Oddington Bluebells III - Oil on canvas

View to Another Place - Oil on Linen Canvas

'View to Another Place' was based on a wide and sparse hedge bordering a field by the nature reserve in Tewkesbury. A few years ago, this wide hedge full of wildlife and home to many species of birds was several hundred meters long. But with the advent of constant house building, a new housing estate wiped out much of the hedge and consequently the local wildlife lost it's natural habitat and refuge.

I walked past the original hedge on a regular circular walk in autumn one day and saw the sun shining through the saplings at a low angle, lighting up the orange leaves littering the ground beneath the bare branches. It was a lovely sight and one seen rarely so I snapped a photo on my phone with the intention of painting it at some time.

Things were beginning to look up although I say that cautiously but at least sales were improving. I'll be contacting Gary at Broadway Contemporary Gallery soon with new work and I'm also visiting an interior design centre in the Midlands with work to show the owner who was very interested in buying some work. But even after 15 months it feels like early days to start saying I can definitely make a living from my art.

Fingers crossed for the next few months....