I apologise for the radio silence, like every other exhibitor at the Min I am working up to the line.
If you have never exhibited at a show, you might well wonder what takes the time? Surely between the shows we all make the stuff we are selling, don’t we just stop and take what we’ve made?
The crucial consideration, is, of course, the size. Other than actual houses, which can be the size of a sideboard, and three lifted on to a table can take about ten minutes, most exhibitors are exhibiting miniatures.
There are over 100 exhibitors, each filling, mostly, a six foot table, which is about the size of your dining table, with things the size of your thumbnail. You have to plan how you are going to display them, so that people can see them without bending over to get to the back of the table, inadvertently picking up all the stuff at the front on their clothes.
As you know I have an entire new display.
It has taken nearly a year to design, sculpt, mould, pour, fire, colour, fire, china paint fire, assemble, wing and tail two different kinds of gargoyle. Having done so I then had to design a way to display them which was fun and effective. It took a fortnight to make the roof. The tree growing through the roof at the back is actual greenery, which I grew.
For many years I had a wisteria in the back garden. I made an arch for it to grow over picturesquely. It happily grew over the arch along the fence and round the hangers of some hanging baskets. Having done this, but very little flowering, for several years, it died. When I removed it, I found the stem had grown in spirals round the hangers of the baskets, with a fork going in two different directions at the top. Careful use of secateurs gave me a spiral stem on a foot that stood by itself. I kept this for eighteen months, always intending to hang gargoyles off it, as you do. This was built into the footing of the roof, once I had wound wire round it to make hangers for the gargoyles.
To make the roof I needed sheets of tiles, foam core board, big sheets of mounting board and some wine bottle lead. All of which was in the garage, in huge card boxes, slotted in behind the book shelves for the lockdown library. It took a couple of days to find it all, and the library had to be suspended during the finding and the building.
I couldn’t just build as I fancied. The only available space on my Miniatura table was a foot long, so the wisteria, the roof and the base had to be that length precisely. It took a few days to paint the backing sky to go behind the roof, stick enough card layers on it so it would stand on its own and then cover it all with clear sticky backed plastic.
Having designed the display, I then had to find boxes for the gargoyles to travel to the show in, and make boxes for newly rehomed gargoyles to travel in. I was lucky here and found lovely dies to make nice black coffin boxes for the gargoyles, and did so.
If you’ve been adding the time up, you can see how long it takes to invent new things and make the display, means of travelling, means of being rehomed and even the baggage to get them all undamaged to the show. Fortunately a day of interviewing boxes and bags uncovered a zip-top freezer bag perfect for the job, which will also not take up too much room in the car, because whatever new thing I’ve designed and bagged has to go in the car, together with all the previous things and still leave room for the driver and pack together neatly so the porcelain does not bang around in transit.
Having done this I spent a week doing a mock up of everything on my dining table, putting out all the dolls to see where the gaps are and making sure there is room for everything. The Ancient Egyptians are still there
but have had to be crammed into one box, with their pillars left behind at home.
All in all it takes me about a month of long days to get the entire display ready. I have to make sure I can put it all out in the time allotted, which is three hours on Friday afternoon and another couple on Saturday morning.
I have to put everyone away to get safely home at the end and I am nearly always the last exhibitor in the hall because other exhibit-heavy people, such as Petite Properties, have helpers.
But it is all worth it to make the best show in the world with the greatest proportion of original artist exhibitors. I know, right now, a week before the end of the show, over a hundred other people will be doing exactly the same as I am.
We do it because of the motto of the show: By miniaturists, for miniaturists.
I love people who love art. I love people who shrink their troubles. I love hobbyists. I love collectors. I love creative people.
And so does everyone else here: www.miniatura.co.uk
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