My prints sell better in person than they ever did online and I keep fighting that
I did a market stall last weekend, first one in over a year, and sold eleven prints. Eleven. More than I moved through my whole shop last month. And yet every morning I sit down and put the energy into the Instagram grid, because that's what you're supposed to do.
It's not that the online stuff is useless. I met a few real collectors through it, one who bought a big piece. But the work is so physical. It's paper that's been soaked in seawater, it has salt crust on the edges, it smells like the shore. You can't convey that through a screen no matter how good your lighting is.
There's a pattern I keep noticing in the work I'm most proud of. It always finds its people by accident. Someone sees it pinned to a wall somewhere, or held in a friend's hands, and that's the whole transaction. The algorithm has nothing to do with it.
I keep telling myself I'll spend more time doing markets and studio visits and less time pretending the numbers mean something. Then a month goes by and I've posted every day and done one market.
Does anyone else have this split, where the thing that actually works is the thing you avoid because it's more tiring and less measurable?
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That salt crust and the smell of it, that's the whole thing, isn't it. People buy with their hands. They want to turn it over, feel that rough edge, hold it up to the light. A screen can't do any of that for you.
I've spent my life in cloth, and people used to ask me all the time why I didn't just sell online so more folks could see the work. And I'd say, child, you have to touch these quilts. You have to run your hand along the stitching to know what they are. A picture of a quilt is a picture. A quilt in your hands is a whole other thing.
Don't let the grid make you feel like you're falling behind. The market stall is the truth of your work. The internet is how folks find out you exist, but the table is where they fall in love. Keep doing both, but don't be ashamed that the real thing wins every time. That's not a flaw in your shop, that's a compliment to your work.
A quilt in your hands. Yes, that's exactly it. I think a lot of people in this trade secretly know it and just won't say it out loud, because the grid is where the numbers are. But nothing beats the moment someone picks the piece up and goes quiet for a second. That's the sale. The rest is just paperwork.
I'd love to see some of your work, if you ever post it. There's something about the patience of handwork, stitching, soaking paper, it's the same temperament, I think. The slow things.