It has to be said that a tiny minority of exhibitors don’t exactly forget your home is a private place during those four weekends in May, they actively never engage that idea of it in the first place. In their mind it’s their exhibition space and as it’s open to the public, they treat it like a public place.

So, if you find yourself sharing your home with an artist like that, what do you do? A softly-softly approach would be my recommendation. Often, the stress of exhibiting, the confines of space and the high expectations lots of artists have of the Open Houses means that they are not deliberately abusing your hospitality – it’s just that it comes somewhere far down the list of priorities for their exhibition. A gentle reminder will suffice 99% of the time and given that you’re going to be spending most of your time in close proximity with said artists is better than confrontation.

However, if even your most clearly expressed wishes are ignored by the remaining 1% then a bit of firm laying down of rules must be done. Never forget it is your home and that the artists are there at your invitation. If they don’t like the way you do things then they should not have accepted your invitation to exhibit with you in the first place. While it is their individual exhibition, it is your overall exhibition and your home.

The flipside of that, of course, is that you can’t go shifting the goalposts on an exhibiting artist. You have an obligation to make it clear to exhibitors in your home what you will and won’t accept, what they do/don’t have access to and how you expect them to react when visitors come in. It is a mutual agreement. After all, even if as home owner you have the right to determine all the rules in the first place, you should stick to them yourself.