Packing for Martinez Art in the Park

A small oil painting in a warm wooden frame, held up in the studio: a pale blue inlet under a soft sky, a gold rocky point with wind-shaped pines, and a cream shoreline curving into still water.

Martinez Art in the Park is tomorrow and I’ll be selling my work there. It’s my first art fair so I thought I’d detail what I did to prepare.

Originals

I’m planning to bring 11 paintings, but I’m not sure how many I’ll hang. Rather than spend a bunch of time laying out against an anticipated panel size, I figure I’ll just overshoot and then develop a rough stack ranking in my head so I know which ones I want to make sure make it up.

The main task I had to do today was wire up all of my frames for hanging. The frames I’m using came with built-in hooks on the back, but those are incompatible with the gridwall system I’ll be hanging them on. This ended up being a straightforward task of measuring, marking, screwing in the D-rings, and attaching the wire.

I actually prefer the panels bare, or at least being able to see them edge-to-edge. I admit the frame pulls it together though, so I think the best option for me is floating frames. That said, floating frames cost a bit more and would probably push the price higher than what an art fair could carry.

Postcards

In addition to my originals, I’m also bringing singles and box sets of postcards with my prints on the front of them.

For the singles, I got some cellophane sleeves. I made sure to get the kind with the adhesive on the sleeve, not the flap, so that the postcard never made contact with it.

For the box sets, I got kraft boxes with windows so people could see an example of what was inside, then I designed a sticker for the back to explain what all was inside and to show thumbnails of the different designs.

A kraft box set held up in the studio, a clear window in the front showing the top postcard: red and purple coastal bluffs above pale water. Bookshelves behind.

The work today was assembling the boxes, loading the postcards in, applying the sticker to the back, and then assembling the singles as well. All in all, I had 50 singles (10 each of 5 designs) and 16 box sets.

Table setup

For the table, I also designed a sign that had my name as well as info for the 2 products I plan to lay out: the postcards and the box sets. I got an acrylic slanted frame and tested the layout, trying multiple variations depending on how much space I had.

Business cards

I was originally planning on placing my business cards in this nice ceramic dish I had because I liked that it showed the multiple design options as well as allowed me to show both sides of the cards.

However, I was advised by people who had done this before that it was best to hang business cards by the originals, rather than have them on a table. My wife had the great idea of reusing the box that the cards came in, painting it to make it fit in better. Then I could use binder clips to hang it next to my paintings. It came out great and I think this will work well!

The business card box after painting: a small cardboard box washed in orange and yellow acrylic, lid folded back, held up on a table with packing boxes behind it.

Lastly, I got some small bills for any cash sales, put everything in boxes for easy transport, and put them in the garage. I’m planning to head out around 7:15am tomorrow morning so I want everything as grab and go as possible.