I've hung so many art shows over the 22 years since my first art show and have stressed out way more than I should have. I have made plenty of mistakes from artwork falling off the wall, missing sales, to missing pieces. Hopefully this article can help you relive some stress that you are probably experiencing having to hang your first few art shows. Wether its in a group gallery show, a coffee shop or a gallery, these 5 tips should really help you do it right without making the mistakes I have made. Luckily We are artists, not doctors, so the mistakes we make really only bruise our delicate artsy egos.
5 Tips For Hanging Your Artwork On Display
TIP #1
YOU NEED TO HAVE YOUR ARTWORK READY TO HANG
You want to have your art work ready to hang, not the night before. You want to have this done as far in advance as possible because you're going to have other stuff to do. Something else always come up. Finish your art, be done with creativity, so you can focus on the rest of the installation and selling your most recent body of artwork.
Know all the tools you will need, What type of surface you will be nailing or screwing into. Have everything you need and more. Even if I used a power drill I always bring a hand drill just incase a battery and back up battery die. If the wall is concrete you will need a concrete drill bit, and probably 2 because they seem to break a lot.
Try a test hang at home with your art. What is the distance from the hanging wire to the top of the frame. Have this data ahead of time so you don't have to figure it out on the spot. The less time you have to spend hanging the more time you will have to chat with other artist, fans of your work, the people who may be talking or selling your art. Have everything sorted out ahead of time before you go into hang your artwork. You don't want to be the one artist at the art show that can't figure out how to hang their art. Practice, think about what you need. Have a small bag with the tools you will need.
If you're in a coffee shop where there might be other people around watching, you will want to be as prepared as possible, which will make this stressful experience less stressful.
I'm always stressed and I'm going in to hang stuff. So I try to be super prepared no matter no matter where it is, that way when you're doing it, you don't have to worry about anything else. How high from the floor to my hanger so my artwork will be at a certain hight. How far left and right does the piece need to be 6" from the wall or other art. Figure this stuff out.
You just go in, execute the task and then you can leave. Being prepared is having your pieces ready, finished, done and looking good. You're better off putting four pieces on the wall that look really good, then putting eight pieces on the wall and having four of them or half of them not be that great.
Your art work needs to be signed, Ready to hang, Title and signature on the back. Nothing else needs to be done. The Art work has to be able to be taken off the wall and into the collectors hands.
Put your best foot forward. You want to show your best work, you're going to have a lot more interest in your work when all the pieces look really good and coherent versus having twice as many pieces. When you're getting your body of work together for your first show, it's okay to have a little space between your pieces. They don't need to be stacked and full, just have your best work showing.
TIP #2
GO EARLY OR GO IN THE OFF HOURS
If you're going to an art show for your first art show, be there as soon as you're allowed to hang.
You have no idea what the wall's going to be like, how it's going to go. So give yourself as much time as possible while you're there. Don't show up 20 minutes before they're shutting down. How you approach hanging your art is how others will you your professionalism as an artist. If you don’t know what you’re doing hanging in a group show you might get lucky and have someone help but don’t count on it. every artist there is nervous and stressed trying to hang their art. Go as early as you can. You will probably forget something on your list. You want to have as much time as possible and if you get it done in 15 minutes, that's great. You don't have to stress out about it anymore.
So go early.
If you're doing a coffee shop or a restaurant or something like that, go in the off hours. It's so important to do this. It's going to take forever, you might have to move tables, someone who is on the clock will want to talk about their art or their grandma's art. I understand it may be inconvenient to you to have to work around the schedule of someone else, but it is a privilege to show your art in most establishments. Don't get in the way, don't make a mess. Don’t be a nuisance to paying customers.
So go in off hours if you can or go super early.
TIP #3
HAVE YOUR NAME AND INFORMATION CLEARLY VISIBLE
Have your name on your artwork. That's you'd be surprised how many times I've seen artwork where you just can't see the name or you can't read it. If your name on your artwork is on there but hard to read, the art collector is going to have a hard time seeing your signature and correlate to a website or what to search for when they go back home. My signature is in all caps block letters. Easy to read and google. At first I had a fancy signature but no one could read it so I had to change it. No big deal, easy change to make sure people know who made the artwork.
Make a little aluminum plaque, you can get them printed. Big enough font to read from a short distance with your contact information, website, instagram etc.. It doesn't need to be much.
You can always do this in a printed up on 8 x 10 piece of paper and put that in a frame. But aluminum prints work really well and they're really cheap, so have your name visible so people can find you and access you and your contact information.
TIP #4
SELLING AND PRICING YOUR ARTWORK
If you want to sell your pieces in a coffee shop, it's really important to have the price of your artwork visible. So you either need to have like a little sticker on the side that will say $150 or whatever. Don't do a Red sticker, generally red means sold. Maybe do your stickers in white so they blend in the wall.
Another way you can price your artwork is one piece of paper or plaque like a menu.
If the place doesn't want you to have stickers on the wall with prices on it, which is totally understandable, you can do a menu where this could go on your plaque or a piece of paper printed up. It can have little images of all the artwork, titles and prices.
This way you don't have to have a bunch of stuff up on the wall, stickers and stuff, but people can still see what the prices are and be able to purchase your artwork that way.
TIP #5
KNOW HOW THE SALES TRANSACTION WILL GO THROUGH
How is the sale going to go down of your artwork? If it's just a show where it's a group show, no one selling anything, then you don't really need to worry about it. Maybe you just stand there and try and sell it yourself. Every show is different, so make sure you will know how the sale will go down.
If you're doing your artwork in a coffee shop, a store or a little restaurant, you want to be able to speak to someone like the cashier that is going to be taking the money. Have an envelope for them with your name and number and a list of the artwork on display with prices so they can cross it off the list. Oftentimes people want to buy it right then and there. So you need to make it a seamless process.
If you have a relationship with the people that work there, the owners, employees, whatever it is, that is a good thing. You can have the art collector pay for the artwork at the register and then you go and collect your money later. This is why you want to hang your art efficiently so you have more time to discuss the sales transaction with the people who will be present making the sales. Everyone needs to be on the same page of how the sales transaction is going to go down that way there is no confusion.
Makes it easy for the person who goes in, sees it and thinks, I love that. I want to buy that. They ask the person in the counter, Hey, how do I buy this artwork? And they go, Oh, you can pay for it right here and take it off the wall.
In Conclusion
Be as professional as you can be. Plan ahead. Something will always not wrong so hope for the best, plan for the worst. I got my start in a coffee shops and group art shows. They are a great way to get practice and confidence showing your artwork to the world. Unfortunately, these shows and shops to hang artwork usually have beginner artist showing their work, and in the beginning it's easy to make mistakes. Making mistakes at these venues may result in them not asking you back. You don't want this to happen. You want to be invited back to the group art show, or to stay on the wall in the coffee shop permanently. This will only happen by being as professional as you can. And always, clean up after your art install. Leave the area cleaner than when you got there.
Get out there and show your work!
Stay inspired,
Aloha