Street Trader

Day One

How exciting! I pick up the licence and I am good to go so I go home and get my things.

So how do I get my things down to the dome? I have paintings and a sign and my paints, brushes and some water. I can’t carry everything and there is nowhere to park near the dome.

Wifey to the rescue! She will take me and drop me off with my 9 year old son who is going to busk on his violin nearby.

When we get to the dome, there are some people sat inside eating their lunch. The windows of the dome are filthy and the floor covered in cigarette butts. I will have to bring a wet cloth and a blanket next time. I smile at the people who look at me and my things and prepare to leave. They are obviously under the impression that I am going to try and sell them something.

I set my son up with his music stand and sweet violin playing nearby. This deflects attention away from me as I set up my stall. I place my paintings on the ground and start to sit and paint. I have a sign that tells people I am in the dome and I wait for people to come and look and hopefully buy.

My son is quickly attracting people and they are throwing coins into his violin case. I wait and I paint.

Someone comes in and looks closely at my paintings. I look up and smile and she is pulled away by her carers. It’s a start! Someone is interested. Another person comes into the dome and plonks themselves down next to me and unwraps a bag of strongly smelling fish and chips. OK, nothing wrong with that. Adds to the ambience.

More people coming into the dome! I must be popular! My son is in the dome -why? It is raining. Not raining but pouring. Why am I getting wet? There are no windows at the top level of the dome and the rain is being blown in. I run around trying to cover my paintings. Watercolours painted on to wooden frames will not take kindly to heavy rainfall!

I gather everything and stand dripping wet waiting to be collected by wifey. Lessons are learned and nothing is lost. My son earned twenty quid.

I applied for a Street Trading Licence because I live in a seaside resort that attracts many visitors throughout the summer and I cannot afford the rent for a static shop. The aim is to produce saleable paintings within the £25 -£75 range and sit and paint whilst displaying (and hopefully selling) my work.

The Licence restricts me to one area within the town -a ‘dome,’ one of seven in the town that are used as seating areas for people and are adorned with reasonable looking hanging baskets of flowers. My dome is situated directly in the centre of town on the sunny side of the street where everybody passes heading towards the beach. What could possibly go wrong?

Isn’t it ideal? To have the freedom to set up my ‘stall’ when the sun shines and display my work to people desperate to spend their holiday money? Why sit at home painting when I can sit with my paintings outside and wait for the queues to form?

The nice man at the Council has arranged for a trial period of three months ‘to see what complaints they will get.’ Complaints!? who could possibly complain about an artist sitting, painting and displaying his wares? A clause in the contract prevents me from ‘displaying nudity, political works or profanity’ and I got the impression that cartoons and caricatures would be frowned upon so i am going for swift watercolours and impressionist style oils of local scenes with some paintings and prints from some previous popular works thrown in.

There is only another ten days of the school holidays left but I can carry on selling to the locals and we still get a good weekend visitor trade through September. I may also catch some trade on the run up to Christmas so I am going to be busy.