What I won't miss is the weird feeling of the studio and, by extension, the house, being open to the public. I find I'm hypervigilant, looking up constantly to see if anyone is coming down the path, jumping at sounds -- ridiculous, really. Especially as there hasn't been a constant stream of visitors so most of the looking and jumping is quite pointless.
I've enjoyed showing people what I do and everyone who has come has been very nice but I'm not sure what I do is to most people's taste. It's strange, because I don't think what I do is very 'difficult' or 'way out' but I think a lot of people have a relatively narrow 'bandwidth' of what they like when it comes to art -- and I don't think Open Studios is a good way to sell paintings or anything that you want to charge more than a few pounds for. In terms of my experience this past month (which is, admittedly, very limited) people are not coming in looking to spend wads of cash. But I have sold some cards and prints and have broken even on the money I invested in joining the Open Studios scheme (ie going in the brochure and getting some 'Open Studios' bunting to put up) -- so all good. But this time sitting surrounded by my very eclectic artwork has focused my mind somewhat -- if I'm going to have a goal, going forwards, it's to try to get into a gallery or even more than one. We shall see if I manage to do this...
