SpringFair

Spring Fair

Luisa Freitas

In the beginning of May 2019 I was honoured to be invited as an artist to have my own Art Booth for the Spring Pop-Up Market in the Coventry Priory Visitor Centre, for a local yearly fair where Art practitioners and other Crafts Makers sell their merchandise to the residents and passers-by of the city of Coventry. This Market initiative aims towards social causes and supports small and individual businesses to boost the local economy, as well as charitable organisations.

The Priory is a community led Social Enterprise in the heart of medieval Coventry, functioning both as a museum and event space for community businesses and events. The visitor centre stands on the site of Coventry’s first Cathedral founded by earl Leofric and Lady Godiva in the 12th Century, whose ruins lie beneath the city centre, while at the surface you can find more remnants of medieval buildings. For this reason the Priory isn’t just a museum with a gift shop but also a centre for cultural activities from guided tours to the Undercroft and surrounding historical areas, Social Café, Historical Reenactments and a Community Space reserved for events that have been lately steered towards a more artistic side in the form of temporary Art Gallery and Art Market.

Art Prints

Keychains

Postcards

Stickers

The Spring Pop-Up Market strives for a wide variety of selling booths to keep up the public interest and also introduce new products and activities, and so this year we had Seamstress booths, Pottery, Face Painting, Handmade Clothing, Handcraft Jewellery, Glass Making and Art booths comprised of paintings, gift cards and others. My booth was focused on Illustration and introducing various parts of my work, featuring a selection of Art prints and post cards of some of my favourite artworks, stickers of food and nature themes with complimentary nature keychains, and notebooks with my art in both cover and back cover. Most of these works are made with traditional artwork or a mix between traditional and digital, placed in versatile formats that the costumer can later use in ways they see fit.

My main goal was to create a series of art pieces that the public could engage with and not simply a series of pictures to hand on the wall, and this way opening up the possibility of taking art with them wherever they go as well as distributing art. This is most prominent with the empty notebooks that can serve any purpose for the user, the postcards that can hold messages to a loved one, and stickers or keychains that can be placed creatively in many different places.

Some of these works are still being sold online. To see more check my art shop here.