Sym Wanderer

Back when my first born was little and I'd recently jacked in my full time senior creative artworker job, I started an art print side hustle. I have now realised that this is a pretty common occurrence among new parents, especially those now stuck at home on childcare duty.

I'd been working on a process to transform photographs into complex vector illustrations with a hazy and translucent glow. I'd been making my own greetings cards for family and friends. There seemed to be a local community of artists and a few small galleries nearby. I felt inspired and then came the trigger which put everything into motion. 

The park just down the road was having a summer fair and inviting local arts and crafts people to set up a stall. Here was a place where I could showcase and launch my prints. After a chat with the owner of a tiny gallery in Brixton Market, I took the plunge and developed a series of views of my favourite London parks. 

I got ambitious and put together a set of ten views and with a generous wedding gift from my Great Aunt, found a really good printer to produce 25 of each. I ordered custom mounts, backing card, plastic bags and made up business cards and flyers. I spent hours signing and mounting them.

The day of the fair arrived and I set up a gazebo and hung my prints and waited for people to snap them all up. As you may well have guessed, I sold very few. Perhaps my £40 price point was too high for the punters or perhaps those passing the stall weren’t really looking for that sort of thing from their day at the park. Either way I packed up feeling rather deflated.

Not to be put off though, I managed to blag a window display at the aforementioned art gallery. This would be more like it. I’d get a prime spot in the markets, the gallery would stick my prints and I’d soon sell the stack of prints and be able to make the investment back with a healthy profit. 

Anyway, to cut a long story short, after several months of being stocked by the gallery, my sales were not as hoped and I was left with a lot of stock to shift. This was made more problematic as we moved house and away from the area where a lot of my views would have a better chance of selling. The whole lot was boxed up and put into storage waiting for me to have time to do the leg work required. 

I had a plan to get the prints stocked by suitable shops and displayed in local bars and cafes but the childcare demands on my time have meant that this hasn’t happened. I’d really like to get them out to homes where they’d be appreciated so I have them listed on Artfinder.com. Every so often I get a message telling me that one of them has sold which puts a smile on my face. Maybe you’ve a space on your wall.