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I have a tendency, when I am setting up my booth, to group paintings into arrangements that I would like on my own walls at home. My dream, of course, is that someone comes in and buys the whole grouping, but beyond that, I tend to group pieces together by color and/or content. 

At a slow show this weekend, someone suggested that perhaps the groupings were cutting into my sales, and I might be better off just hanging the pieces straight up and down the walls. 

I began to wonder if this person was right (as I said, it was a slow show, and so I had plenty of time to doubt, second-guess, third-guess, etc). I wonder if maybe buyers have trouble seeing separate paintings in a grouping, and if perhaps there's something way down in the subconscious that doesn't want to disrupt the grouping. 

I'd love your thoughts and insights, not only as artists, but as buyers, too. Photos follow. 

The top photo is the wall the way I first set it up. It suffers from not having a strong focal point, I know. The middle photo is the aired-out, ungrouped wall. The third photo shows a grouping that I really, really love. The gap below the cow-on-black is where I put my chair. 

These are not booth shots, just pix I took during the show.