setting up a booth

Sometimes people are very surprised by the amount of work that goes into setting up a booth at an art show.... all the pre-show prep and packing (not to mention storing all this stuff!), setup, working the booth during the show, tear-down, unpacking... Some people think that an artist can just show up and hang things on the wall. Ha ha, noooo. The booth is not provided. Nor are the lights or the furniture or anything. You get an empty part of the floor, electricity, and some shows will provide a table and chairs if you need them. Here's how it goes:

This is what you see when you arrive:

How did all that crap fit in the minivan anyway?

Setting up the panels:



Setting up the shelves:

And the lights:

I think better when I'm barefoot I guess. ;-)

Hanging the art:

Jan went with me to supervise:

Sometimes things don't work the way they're supposed to:

I can get a little stressed... ;-)

But in the end, even with having to make some changes, it all turns out just fine!

It took a whopping five hours to set up this time, I'm not sure why it was sooo long, maybe because things didn't fit quite as I had anticipated and I had to change some things.

Then I sit in the booth for a few days, and when the show is over I have to take it all down again and load it up. It took two hours to take the whole thing down last night. Needless to say, I slept in today!