one-day wonder

All set on the Sunday morning
© Teresa Newham

Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with the challenge that Art on the Common poses to its exhibitors. Will the weather set fair? Will the wind blow the artwork /gazebos over? Will we get soaked this year or suffer from sunstroke?

our pitch right by the road sign on the A1081
© Teresa Newham

The forecast wasn't looking good - rain on the Saturday morning while we were due to set up and high gusts of wind in the afternoon.  Then the Council decided to ban inflatables and gazebos from the Carnival for health & safety reasons. Art on the Common couldn't take the risk . . .

my display included a couple of watercolours, safely sheltered from any rain . . .
© Teresa Newham

So it became a one-day event, Sunday only, and a lovely day it turned out to be, too - the only lovely day, in fact, in a series of pretty stormy, cold and wet ones.  Hillary and I set up our display on our usual pitch next to the road sign - a useful landmark!

Hillary's prints displayed in card racks
© Teresa Newham

We had a good mix of paintings - no rain was forecast so I brought along a couple of watercolours, prints (linocut and giclée) and photographs, plus a lot of greetings cards. There was certainly plenty for our visitors to look at . . .

Never knowingly short of a greetings card - Hillary's (middle) and mine
© Teresa Newham

And we had a lot of visitors - from before we opened until the very end of the day when the weather started to deteriorate. By the time we closed, Art on the Common had managed to raise £3000 in a single day for Cancer Research, with 15% of all artists' sales going to the charity.

cheerful display at the Cancer Research stall - thank goodness the weather stayed dry!
© Teresa Newham

We had a great time chatting to people, making sales, and admiring fellow exhibitors' displays; despite the loss of the Saturday, everyone agreed that the event had been a great success.  So we put our names down for next year!

visitors enjoying the Photographic Society's display
© Teresa Newham

Huge thanks to David Whitbread and the team from Harpenden Photographic Society for organising Art on the Common so efficiently once again.