Another session of stewarding at the Bexley Arts Trust Spring Exhibition, and fresh insights from spending 4(!) hours stuck (this time on my own!) next to my own artwork in an art gallery. After last time, I was sort of immune to people ignoring my piece, so I was fine with that.
This time (perhaps because I was alone), a few people came over to chat and one asked the dreaded question, "so do you have anything on display here?". I said mine was the face in the 3d section... They looked puzzled, I pointed... "The face", I said again... They were still puzzled, despite looking right at it... I could tell they were searching for something to say next, so I picked it up to show them (one perk of being present in an exhibition containing your own work is the tingle of the forbidden when you TOUCH THE ART!) and as I held it upright, their faces lit up "Wow! Yes! It IS a face!"...
The horrible realisation dawned on me - I know it's a face, so I see a face which ever way it's orientated.... Nobody else can see it's a face...
I experimented with positioning it in a more upright position, and immediately got more people stopping to look at it, but I became worried it would fall over and wipe out a bunch of lovely ceramics next to it... Later, I had an almost exact copy of the conversation above, with the same excited delight when I held it up.
I tried really hard to make a stand, I tried to work out how to hang it... I should have tried harder, or perhaps I should have seen with fresher eyes. I don't know for sure, but I feel pretty confident that, of all the hundreds (probably thousands) of people who stood in front of my work, probably only half-a-dozen actually realised what they were looking at.... What a waste!
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