Marché de l'Art at Saint Germain en Laye, 16.06.2018

Here I am with my smile ready to welcome all art lovers ( I discovered during the course of the day that there are plenty at Saint Germain en Laye, how very lovely!)

The Marché de l'Art held at #SaintGermainenLaye has been a continued tradition since the past 10 years. A jury carefully selects the artists, sculptors, printers, painters and photographers who would get the wonderful chance to showcase their work. Here is how the Place du Marché Neuf looks (where the art fair is held):

As with most art fairs, the day can start very early for the artist, especially since we live 30 kms away from #SaintGermainenLaye. Thankfully there is hardly any traffic at 07H30 on a Saturday morning!

My husband has filled up the car with more than everything that's required for the day ( including tuna quiches that his Mom has made for us for lunch. Miam! Miam!).

This was my first time in this beautiful city. I was delighted to know that Place du Marché Neuf, the place where the art fair would be held was right in the center of the city.

By 10am our stand was ready to welcome visitors. However, I must say that the chains you see supporting my frames, I had no idea that we required them ( other art fairs had provided us steel grids to hang my frames on). So a little panic there, but we found a hardware store within walking distance and the problem was solved! After that it was smooth sailing. I was happy to note that other artists, just like me, had plenty of art lovers who were curious to see and to talk to the artists about their work.

In France, I find that participating in an art fair is an important way for an artist to promote oneself, much much more than relying on social media.

Sometimes people want to come and only look, and sometimes they are eager to discuss on the techniques I use for my papercutting and framing. Being able to read people is important, I am personally the kind who likes my own space!

Luckily I love a good chat too. This lovely lady looked through my book and we chatted a long while about #schehrenschnitte, as the art of ppapercutting is called in Switzerland.

My photographer husband did a good job at taking many of my photos in action! :)

Someboday commented that my dress was apt with my silhouette art :D

The quality of the artists chosen at the art fair was breathtaking. Here are links of three of my favourite artists that you can check out!

Arnaud Labarge, Sculpteur : ( second image ). Fantastic creatures made using old household appliances.

Benoit Montet, renowned oil painter. His favourite theme is cars on the 70's in the USA.

Isabelle Molinard, fantastic animal portrait artist

The day turned out to be very busy. I wish I had more time to speak to more artists.

Here I am finishing up that tuna quiche!

I sold a few of my frames but one artwork that I felt especially happy that it found a loving home is my papercut art called 'Hello'. Not sure I will recreate another Hello unless someone requests it, but this piece always brought me a lot of joy everytime I saw it.