Sold a print to a woman who'd seen it on the wall of a chipper in Kinvara

I do a market in Galway most Saturdays, small stall, prints in a rack and a box of seconds, and I've been half hearted about it lately because the online thing is eating the hours and giving back less every month. Last Saturday a woman picked up one of the hare prints and said "I have this already, well I don't, my sister does, it's in her chipper in Kinvara."

I'd sold that one two years ago at a different market to a fella who bought it for cash and never gave me a name. Never saw it again. Turns out it's been hanging above the fryers in a chipper in Kinvara for two years, in the steam and the grease, and it's still up there and people are looking at it while they wait for chips.

Anyway she bought two more off me, one for herself and one for the sister, because the sister's one was "gone a bit grey at the edges." So the steam did eventually get it.

I don't know what the lesson is, if there is one. I spent a fair chunk of last week building a carousel of studio shots with a caption about process and it got 12 likes. A chipper wall in Kinvara sold two prints. I'm not going to go chasing chipper walls, I'm just noting it. Somewhere in the middle of that there's the actual answer to this whole carry on and I keep missing it.

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Karen Wessel·1h

This is the thing nobody tells you when you start selling online, that the print you mailed out in a cardboard tube just disappears. No idea where it lands. And here you found out yours is over the fryers in a chipper for two years, still hanging, still doing its job. Honestly that would keep me going through a slow market for a while.

I do the local fair thing too, mostly weekends, and the online side eats so much time for so little back. Can I ask, what are you printing on? I've had trouble with anything near damp or steam curling at the corners and I'd love to know what's held up that well.

Niall DohertyOP·36m

ah now, the paper question is the right question and I wish I had a tidy answer for you. It's Fabriano Rosaspina, 220gsm, the soft one, and honestly I think the reason it's survived is that I print it damp and let it dry flat under boards for a week before it goes anywhere. Damp printing pulls the fibre in tight and it seems to hold its shape after that. Anything I've done on a dry hot press paper has cockled on me the minute it met a bit of weather.

But I'll be straight with you, I don't know if it's the paper or the fact that a chipper wall in Kinvara is probably the least fussy gallery in Ireland. The fella who hung it did it with two drawing pins and a bit of hope, by the look of the sister's photo.

What are you printing on at the moment? If it's curling at the corners near steam that's usually the paper fighting the ink more than the damp, in my experience anyway. Could be as simple as going heavier.

Margaret Hsu·32m

The damp question is the one I'd want answered too, so I'll add what I know while you wait on theirs. Rosaspina is a good choice precisely because it's soft and unsized to the point of being thirsty. A harder, more heavily sized sheet will cockle and curl at the edges the moment the air turns, whereas a soft paper moves with it rather than fighting it. What matters more than the brand is how it's mounted. If a print is hinged at the top only, the sheet is free to expand and contract and it will stay flat. Dry mounted or glued down at all four edges and it will buckle eventually, steam or no steam.

Two years above a fryer is still a remarkable result. I'd have expected foxing long before that. I'd be curious whether it's behind glass, because that would explain a great deal.

Gloria Mae Jackson·1h

Oh honey, a hare print over the fryers in Kinvara. That picture's been fed on steam and hot oil and somebody's Friday night supper for two years, and it's still up there doing its work. That's more than most galleries ever give a piece.

I know the half hearted feeling. I sell at a little market too, and there are Saturdays I sit there and think why am I doing this, the sewing machine at home and the screen both pay better. But then somebody tells you where the thing you made actually lives. Not who bought it. Where it lives. That's a different kind of knowing. My grandmother used to say a quilt isn't finished till it's been slept under, and I think a print ain't finished till it's got grease on it.

Keep the stall, baby. The internet will keep moving the goalposts on you. That woman's sister won't.

Niall DohertyOP·36m

Ah stop, "fed on steam and hot oil" is a better review than anything I've ever written on a label. I'm going to be chasing that standard now, "this hare comes pre-baptised in fryer vapour."

The bit about the tube, though, that's the one that sits with me. I post prints out and I genuinely have no idea where they go. Nice enough to sell them, don't get me wrong, but it's a strange feeling, firing a thing into the dark and never hearing it land. Half my editions are out there somewhere with no address I could point to. And then two years later a woman tells you yours has a fryer and a Friday night and a whole chipper's worth of company. That's worth more than the few quid, if I'm honest.

Your grandmother sounds like she had it right. My own mother used to say a thing isn't finished until it's out living somewhere without you, and I never knew what she meant till last Saturday.

Anyway. I'll be at the stall again this weekend. Might even dust the box of seconds.