March 2020 First Friday: Trophy Tap and Table

wanderingwonderbread
Mar 17, 2020
3 min read

Updated: Sep 1, 2020

I have been slowly trying to get my photographs seen by the public. I use social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to try and promote my work. Along with social media I have been getting into local arts and craft shows. This has been a slow process because I am self taught and do not have contacts to help get my foot in the door places.

Having said all that, I feel like I have made great progress so far. Recently I was given the chance to participate in First Friday. First Friday is held on the first Friday of every month (hence the name) at local businesses in downtown Raleigh. Participating local businesses will host an artist for the month and have their art displayed. This is a big deal because they do not charge the artist to hang their work and they do not take any profit if the art sells. It’s mutually beneficial for both the artist and the business.

Five out of twenty of my framed photographs.

I was very excited when a downtown restaurant, Trophy Tap and Table asked me to participate in their First Friday for the month of March. This was my first time having my work professionally displayed. I hung them up on March 3rd and will take them down on either the 30th or 31st of the month so the next artist can get their work up for April.

Five more of my framed photos.

I did not account for the amount of preparation that was needed to get things ready to hang. This is where my newbie status really showed. I had to decide how many photographs (and which ones) I wanted to hang and then order the prints and frames. When the frames arrived I had to first clean them all before I could even think about putting anything in them. The frames were in good shape but they were dusty from whatever warehouse they were stored in. Once the prints arrived I had to mat them before they could be framed. I was really proud of how all the prints looked framed. The last step (which I thought would be pretty easy) was to add the hanging fixtures on the backs of the frames. This turned into more work than I realized it would. The screws would not screw into the wood on their own. I had to borrow a drill and some drill bits from a friend before proceeding to pre-drill holes for the screws.

Another five out of the twenty.

What turned out to be one of the easier parts of all this was hanging everything up. Luckily for me, Trophy Tap and Table has their walls rigged with a walker hanging display system. This system was incredibly easy to use (especially for a newbie like me). So when March 3rd rolled around I went in and hung the twenty frames up. It took me maybe thirty to forty minutes to get them on the wall? I was nervous how they would look up on the wall, but I have to say, they looked really good against their exposed brick wall.

The last five out of the twenty.

With COVID-19 running rampant, less and less people are going out to dinner and drinks (obviously this is a good thing to help prevent the spread of the virus), just has not been good for my work getting much exposure. There was no way in knowing when I chose to have March as my month that the world would be fighting a pandemic. Today, Governor Roy Cooper has issued an executive order stating, “restaurants and bars will close for dine-in customers. Takeout and delivery orders can continue.” So nobody will be able to sit in Trophy to enjoy a beer and my art. Oh well, the safety of humanity far outweighs me selling anything.

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