Whew! I think I wrote about buying a retail rug stand a few weeks ago. We cleaned it up at home and painted it with Hammerite paint; the battleship grey did not in any way flatter my rugs. Now it’s another First Sunday weekend and one of my to-dos was to test hanging the rugs on the rack so we could decide whether to take the stand to the show.
Feeble picture of the rug rack, but it gives you the idea. Need to find a better one./caption]
Most of my rugs are mounted and on display at the Brewery this month, but I have two in-progress rugs and several that have been finished since we hung the show at the beginning of May. It took two tries to figure out how the rug clips worked—the teeth go into the rug; the hook loops over the display arm. Three hooks is not enough; each rug will need a clip approx. every six inches. But I only have four rugs on hand and enough clips came with the display to hang those.
Wow, do they ever look better! One of Bruce Baker’s points in his seminar was that people expect to see retail-quality displays. I didn’t have a chance to ask him about suggestions for displaying rugs, other than hearing that “on the floor” was not going to work. I don’t know that he would have suggested this rack; he’s a jeweler and that’s about as far from textiles as an artist can get. I see his point.
Thinking it might take some serious shopping to find more of the clips, I turned to google and thought I might have to enlist John because he’s better than I am at finding obscure sources on the web. Search on “rug clips.” The very first link takes me to exactly the product I need! It comes in two sizes; I need the small. 800# phone line for orders. I am very happy.
I need to sell more than several rugs to be able to afford one of these racks for my gallery, let alone another one for a show booth. My little 3×5 turns out to be a special-order item, but that’s ok. Now I know that a 4×6 rack exists, and how much it costs, and that it will work for what I’m trying to do.
The downside: Rugs, with attendant display hardware, are not all that much less weight than chainsaw carving. They just pack easier.
