We love to meet new artists/makers who share our pleasure in textiles and the making process. We have met so many lovely women through our textile endeavours, and for each event we invite one or two to join us and exhibit and sell their work. This provides more variety and gives our regular visitors something new to look at.
We hope it will be a mutually beneficial collaboration. Our guest artists get the opportunity to exhibit, network, find new markets and (hopefully) make money by selling their work. In return, we ask them to pay a contribution towards the costs of the event, and also to help with setting up the exhibition, taking it down and taking a share of the rota for minding it while it is on.
We spend a lot of time publicising/social networking for each event and print flyers to draw in as many people as we can. We also hold a private views for which we buy wine and nibbles, as it seems to help people open their purses and buy stuff!
We have a mailing list of more than 300 interested visitors, many of whom come to each of our events and buy our wares. Those taking part in workshops also tend to buy work on sale. Our events are popular, well-attended and highly praised for the atmosphere of warmth, colour and inclusiveness we provide.
If you are interested in being considered as a guest artist, please email womenofthecloth2012@gmail.com, telling us about yourself and what you make, along with some images of your work.
How much time?
Being there during the event is an advantage – we find that we are much more likely to sell our wares if we are there to talk to the visitors about our own work and processes.
We understand that everyone has other commitments. We ourselves are not full-time textile artists, fitting it in around work, caring for elderly relatives etc, and we try to be flexible when arranging the rota. Guest artists are usually asked to cover half the number of shifts that we cover.
For our regular exhibitions at the Jeannie Avent Gallery in East Dulwich and Sprout Community Arts in Streatham we are usually open every day for two weeks, 9am-6pm, with some late-night openings. Shorter events such as Lambeth Open are over a single weekend.
How much money?
The main costs are as follows:
- Public liability insurance: We have an annual policy that costs around £100. As we do roughly three events a year, we divide this amount between the events and then divide that among the number of artists taking part.
- Gallery/event fees: These are equally divided among participants
- Commission: Both Sprout and Jeannie Avent Gallery charge commission on what we sell (25% for Sprout, 30% for Jeannie Avent). Both galleries take the income and pay the artists afterwards.
Women of the Cloth 