The Tiny Cat Gallery

The first week’s exhibition is packed away (but available to buy in the gallery shop)

The second exhibition is by Philip Ryland and it is a Retrospective of his current work. Philip sent me 10 paintings, each 95 x 63mm. They are all mounted on foam board so stand proud of the cardboard walls which makes them look more like they are canvas over a stretcher.

Photo By Philip Ryland

Gallery layout for multiple works

I mounted the paintings low to the ground, thinking of a cats eye level but in future I may provide seating platforms that are elevated because cats can jump! I’d never considered eye level in exhibiting before, that is another gift that the Tiny Cat Gallery has given me; the chance to think about different ways of looking at artwork.

The gallery is as brightly lit as I can make it, with a long bench in the centre of the room. I am using 3 anglepoise lamps with thin paper taped over them to diffuse the light. The lights are the brightest I had in the house, one is actually a grow light so the colours are a little on the yellow side.

Philip Ryland – Retrospective preview event

Further expansion of the Tiny Cat Gallery

I spent some time on Sunday linking the new Facebook page up to the Shopify Lite account. It wouldn’t link up without Facebook and even then, since Facebook have changed things around, it won’t let me install the shop. It is early days yet. I looked into using Printful for merch too.

The first week of the Tiny Cat Gallery has gone very well. From an open call on CuratorSpace to a jam packed programme that looks like it will run into September. All in a cardboard box.

This post is a note of what is working well and what is helping. There was a sort of domino effect happening this week with one thing leading onto another….

Automating posts
Mostly this week I’ve been posting on Instagram erratically. I’ve been making up little stories about the tiny cats, school visits, lovers meeting, guided tour…. taking pics and posting them when I feel like it. I tried saving a few images in draft form in Instagram but I cannot retrieve them.

On Thursday I set up a free account on Later which gives me 30 free posts on Instagram and Facebook a week. It is pretty easy to use through the app but easier on a desktop. There are limitations with the images, you can crop but not rotate and the filters are a bit basic.

It looked like the best thing I could get for no money though. This link is a referral which gives me 10 extra posts a week. I’m actually happy with 30 but I’m not going to say no to something free – https://later.com/r/info-a3a564

Setting up a Facebook Page
Instagram can post to Facebook too when you link a page up, seeing as they are the same company. I hate Facebook but I’ve set up a page with the intention of ignoring it as much as possible.
The Tiny Cat Gallery is on Facebook here.

Adding artists to my shop
I have a Shopify Lite account ($9 a month) on my WordPress website.  This is because I don’t like the way Woo Commerce looks or works and because Shopify can accept more payment methods. It looks pretty swishy with a pop out cart to the side and customers like it.  I haven’t set up a main shop page yet, but I have started a page for the Tiny Cat Gallery artists. You can see that here https://www.lisa-cole.co.uk/tiny-cat-gallery-shop/

Curating tab on my website
I want to do the best I can for each artist that exhibits so I’ve set up an area for Curating on my website. That means I can write up each exhibition with a selection of photos from the week and link to the artists website.

Streamlining submissions
Curator Space is great but the messaging system is a sod to navigate. I’m using it to chat to the artists initially but after that I send them to a Tiny Cat Gallery FAQ with a form that gives me all the info I need to put on their show.

It has been a bit of a busy week but I’m hoping that putting some of this automation in place will make things easier. On Sunday I’ll set up the preview for the next artist and I’ll try to schedule a week load of Instagram posts too. That won’t stop me from dropping in and taking the odd picture when I feel like it but it will stop it from being an unpaid job that sucks all my time away.

Yesterday, through the wonders of technology, a few tiny cats visited another non traditional gallery.

The Open Dresser Gallery is a multi level exhibition space inside a salvaged dresser. It is curated by mixed media artist Sally Eldars who’s current exhibition “Reflections in Time” uses found objects in the dresser to represent some of the compartments in Sally’s mind, giving “space, substance and presence to a thought helping to untangle and process it.”

Tiny cats help you to see your work in a different way. Taking the human element out of it, scaling it up and imagining how it could work if you could walk through it, over it and under it has really helped me take my personal practice to a new level.

Continuing the exhibition of Susan Plover’s ‘A Feast for Your Eyes’ and taking some candid shots of the goings on in the gallery space.

The Instagram account reached 50 followers on the same night as formation dancing practice in the gallery.

The school group was ready to leave but Cedric was missing

Sometimes words have no meaning

Susan Plover can be seen at www.susanplover.com

The Tiny Cat Gallery is at https://www.instagram.com/tiny.cat.gallery/

and of course there was a straggler