Distraction Tactics

If I had a pound for every time some idiot has made a comment to me like 'Cheer up, it might never happen"....

My default expression is, I gather, quite surly. Off-putting, even. I've got used to it over the years, but it occurs to me that it might be something of a disadvantage when trying to sell work at print fairs. After all, when in second year we had to show our work to the third year and absorb their critique, NO-ONE approached me. I sat in splendid isolation, avoided by all.

So, should I practice being more personable by smiling in the mirror?

Maybe not. so what am I going to do?

Then I remembered something that had always puzzled me. Inevitably at print fairs there's one person who is working at his stall, cutting away at a lino block. Why, I wondered, are they doing that now? How do they concentrate? But now it occurs to me that they too might not want to scare the customers away.

So that's what I intend to do. And of course potential buyers can see the skills and effort involved in making the work (and justifying the price). Result.