"Presentation is very important"

...in fact it is free.
No matter how weak or good the work is, just presenting it well can add 10% to the marks it will get - or so I used to tell the high school kids.

I can't tell you how many times I've sat with a group of family or friends and watched a piece of artwork - the birthday gift and often from me - get passed around and manhandled all the way round the room with greasy crisp fingers etc. You can't keep jumping up and getting all precious and telling everyone off, so you cringe, And c-r-i-n-g-e. (Like squeaky chalk on a blackboard)

So whenever I give a print, a photo or a piece of artwork to friends or clients, I back it with nice mountboard (not rubbish old corrugated card which devalues it instantly) and wrap it is cellophane before gift wrapping or packaging it. They don't take the cellophane off when they pass it round. Voila!

An anecdote: I used to teach at Hyde Park High school in South Africa and seemed to need to say "Presentation is very important" almost daily. especially to the uninspired kids who took art as a soft option because geography was too difficult. I did not even realise how often I pronounced these words of wisdom. About 7 years later my brother (11 years younger than me) was an army chef, some 1100 miles away. In his kitchen, he told two troops off for chucking food into a dish and said "Presentation is very important" and one of them said "Oh, we had an art teacher who used to say that".  
So they learnt something after all. 
Or did they?

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