Had an interesting time stewarding at the Church Stretton Festival Art Exhibition last Friday. All exhibitors have an obligation to spend 3 hours on steward’s duty. I took along a fellow Ludlow Art Society member Margaret Oakes and we were allocated reception so I had to operate the till.
We arrived early to have a look round - Margaret is a canny Yorkshire lass so she always looks for the 'red spots.' She was quick to tell me there was one on my watercolour of a Burrowing Owl. There is a second week to go so if I sell another it will be jam for tea next week-end.
Normally on reception things are generally quiet enough for us to take turns to look around but not last Friday. Paintings were not selling like hot cakes but we did have a steady flow of visitors and we sold three in the first hour or so. We were just coming to the conclusion that it was unlikely that anything over £90 would sell when a lady came in with £150 of nice crisp notes in a brown envelope. To "Buy a picture for my daughter." she said. Margaret quickly dashed off to put a red spot on the label and complete the paperwork while I quickly put the cash into the till and binned the brown envelope.
It's a funny business you can never tell what will take peoples' fancy or how much they will pay for something they really like. So we drove back to Ludlow pleased that we'd done our little bit. Many of our LAS members look on compulsory stewarding as a chore but I confess I enjoy it. It gives one the chance to meet the public and talk about the work on show.
