I am in my first outdoor art show - I am using and ezup 10 x 10. I have read about wire mesh and painters drop cloths. Can anyone give me more information on if you have used either and how you attached it to frame, etc. Thank you?
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For my first shows I used shade cloth as my display walls. A little over 30 feet of 6-foot-wide pale-colored shade cloth. I wrapped it around 3 sides of my tent, suspending the top edge from my tent frame at about 1-foot intervals. I pulled it taught around the legs and used tiny S-hooks to pin the ends back on itself. It took a little fiddling to get the tension tight enough, but it was pretty fast to set up.
It was a delightfully lightweight setup and it folded down marvelously compactly. I do miss the ease of it, although admittedly I don't miss the wind billowing the walls and making my paintings sway. Every system has its pros and cons.
Where did you get the cloth and can you tell me more about how you fastened. Did you have help?
No help, did it all myself.
I got the shade cloth from a garden supply company online. I just Googled "shade cloth." It comes in all sorts of colors but I went with basic beige. I attached plastic grommets every foot along the top edge. I made homemade hooks out of coathangers to hook over the tent bars, to hang the cloth from. An elaborate system of variable length twine loops took care of the zigzag nature of my EZ-Up tent's bars. All very homemade, but it worked.
Tensioning was achieved using a couple dozen 1" S-hooks carefully fastened one by one to the end, wrapped around a tent leg, pulling the cloth as tight as I could. After a few minutes the cloth would relax and I'd have to retension and refasten the S-hooks to get it sufficiently tight. It sounds like a lot of trouble but it was light, easy work. No heavy lifting involved.
I think hiring people to hold your art work up all weekend would be pretty expensive.
But seriously, anything inexpensive will look it, plus will probably be a hassle. The person next to me at my last outdoor show last year had some carpet hung from a wooden frame thingy which was sort of great until her other neighbor stepped on it before it was set up and snapped one of the wooden frames. Then it really looked inexpensive.
You need to frame out the chicken wire so it will support the weight of your frames.
I think that's what you're asking.
Expensively, look at Pro Panels.
Larry Berman
Ok but do not really have time or skills or type of vehicle for framing. Do you know anything about using drop cloths??? I am now thinking they would have to be on a wood frame also.
I'd try to find something that looks a little more professional.
Larry Berman
Thanks - I understand