Local artists are highly creative with the tools of the trade, be it a camera, a paintbrush, or pencils and an easel, but they are not always great at getting their work into the public view so they can make a living from their craft.
If you are finding you have more of your work in storage that you would much rather have sold, consider partnering with other local businesses to help them create gorgeous wall displays with your work that gets it into the view of potential customers.
In cities and in smaller communities, there are always areas people converge to meetup. It could be the local bar, a coffee house, or a coffee morning held at a local community centre.
Wherever people congregate is prime real estate to advertise your art. A lot of places like smaller cafes will welcome art presentations, especially if there is a community of artists as it would mean they would get to refresh your wall displays with new decor frequently and support their local art community in the process.
3 Places Worth Networking to Get Your Prints on Display
Coffee Houses and Restaurants
To get advertising space in a restaurant, a cafe or coffee house, it will be easier to approach only the independent stores. Those that are part of a franchise may need to stick with a corporate brand identity due to the company policy. This is the case with most chains as they need the customer experience to be the same in every store.
Community Hubs
Community hubs are anywhere members of a community congregate regularly. That could be the church, a community centre or a village hall. Anywhere that is used to bring together members of the community for group meetups, such as a sewing club, a choir rehearsal, or a band practice because at most meetups, there is tea, coffee, biscuits, and chit-chat too.
Community hubs usually have billboards or announcement boards. If the wall space is there, the centre manager may be ecstatic about getting free wall displays as most centres are not decorated due to a lack of funding. Your art could be a welcoming addition to make a centre cosier and give the members some enjoyment and a new conversation starter.
Where the display is restricted to a notice board, consider displaying a smaller copy of your work and your contact details.
Local Gift Shops
Local gift stores are likely better suited to local photography prints rather than art in general, although you may be surprised. The reason for local prints is because historic photos make for terrific gifts as they bring back fond memories of bygone times.
How to Present Your Art
An upside to helping another business beautify their wall displays is you could get it free, provided you do the arranging yourself or at least help put them on display. Another is that you only need to frame one piece per print because you are only showing customers a sample; not the final framed edition.
Over time, each print is going to be changed so it is likely that a black frame with a neutral and light-tone picture mount would be an ideal resource as those colours complement the majority of colour themes.