An adventure in showland

Well, it's history. Another adventure in showland. Once again the strategy became outwitting the rain and humid weather on Saturday and well Sunday show day was called at eleven after several hours of pouring rain. It continued to rain throughout breakdown and home again home again jiggity jig.
I could jump high as my pockets
were not over laden with coins. ;-)

The only given about a show is that you can not get in without paying your fees-after that it is anybody's call.

Well, since it is a blog, let's start at the beginning and stand by for a typical adventure of -

The life of the artisan-the modern gypsy of sorts.

I arrived on Friday afternoon about one in a light drizzle. I was assigned a nice neighborhood with some old friends and all of my new neighbors were pretty neat people and during this horrible breakdown in the small flood, everyone helped each other to get out. It made me remember how valuable our friendship is to one another. OH , back to the story line.

When I approached my new land lease, it became noticeable that the tent line to tent line was only about a foot at most apart from one another. I had the good fortune to have my neighbors tents on either side of me already set up. If you are an exhibitor who does out door shows, you know this is not a good thing. Here I stand having to squeeze my big tent into this spot. This was beginning to look like a challenge- the rain now beginning to sputter a bit more heavily. Perhaps this is really of no importance except for one of my neighbors. She informed me when I arrived, that I should set my tent over a couple of feet as she likes to use the sides of her tent to display other paintings. I replied, "Oh I need the 15 feet for my booth." Finally, after a wee bit of discussion, she became informed that there was no extra room and she was not happy. After such, the gods punished me for my small unkind thoughts and it began to pour down rain. Here we-go a pattern emerges.

Kelley arrives, the rains stop and we get the tent up, the floor in or as we call it "the boot" and around 6:00 we were out of there. There is something to say for those pop up tents and the screens that hook together for sides where one displays their art. (As an aside-my tent has rails around the bottom for stability and we draw up a tarp over this pole and lock it down with electric ties and many look at us like - "What the ..."-but it keeps moisture out and certainly rain. At night the moisture rises from the ground and gets trapped in tightly locked up tents and the work will happily absorb that moisture. That is why a floor is pretty important, but so few give detail to it.) Oh, the days of carrying heavy pots, never a worry about rain, just wind.


Saturday was a pretty nice day- lots of visitors and dogs. Many, many dogs. People should crawl around on the ground in a congested area and see if they like feet coming at ya- Just a thought- yanno? Well, some nice sales, lots of interest and loads of really great comments. It appeared my work was different from most and it was all good. As every artist knows there are so many stories one can tell during the course of a show - so many interesting people to chat with. Here are a couple of stories- alike but so different.

A gentleman appears to be very interested in a larger maybe 5 x 7" tan glazed leather journal with hand made marbled end pages in an accordian bind of 6 - 30 page signatures then again bound to the leather. The paper was water marked and 100% cotton rag with proper grain cuttage. It was marked $70. I finally walk over and chat about - "Do you journal?" and then we go there or not. He responded, "Why does this journal cost so much?" I was a bit taken aback and said, "Well, I guess I thought it was worth that." We continue on in chat and talk about his journals, hand written words, etc., and I came upon asking him what he does for a profession. Without hesitation, I found out that he was a pediatrian at the big hospital in the area. The following words just popped out of my mouth.

"Why do you charge so much?" We continued to chat as if I had said nothing. He didn't buy a journal and I am not sure he ever understood my question. ;-)

I think the best chat and laughs and good times came from 5 young theatre people doing something with the play "Wicked" in town. After it all came to pass and it was found to be so-I held my heart and exclaimed, "Oh my, then you know Elfaba?"
I showed my great flair for drama and almost wept. We all smiled and it was good.

They were young graducated "hope to bes" with grand plans and adventures and they each felt sure their turn was coming soon. I wished them all great luck and one young girl bought a small brown leather accordian journal that she most likely could not afford.

Funny how things go round.

It was wonderful to be in the artist environment again. I hate to be out of doors but I so miss the strolling street art shows where so many attend to try to win the prize money. It draws out those who might not sell their work and deserve recognition. Keeps the work fresh as well. The energy is strong there. So much art made through expression. Two old potter friends were across from me and down. One was doing mixed media now with these wonderful nudes (the other potter and myself who know this potter's wife thought it looked a bit like her.) He then produced an image by layering negatives and then developing them. These photographs were then formatted into these very large and interesting vessel forms that were altar looking. Much like his pottery. It is interesting how no matter what medium one works in, the work will have such strong traits and similarities. I heard him say over the course of Saturday - "this is analog all darkroom no Photoshop here." Interesting how we value how things are made .. -it all felt so good again. Much of the work at this show is new and innovative. Many young people showing and as the judge so awarded a great diversity in those presenting the art.

We attended the award ceremony that evening and chatted with some old friends, listened to way too loud music and watched as the artists so proudly accepted their awards. Six awards were given to young artists who are hoping to follow in some of our footsteps. It is always good to see the youth who realize that this is not a way to find wealth or fame, but a place to grow spiritually through the creation of energy that grows so rapidly within us. It is all good. At this show, unless under some strange conditions, most awards go to 2d art. There is the Mayor's Award and even one award that goes to drawings only. The booths who brought their drawings-so few-but all very exciting.

The rain began to fall heavily, again, so we left-tent well secured and knowing that tomorrow was going to be more of the same.

I learned something of great fortune from this judge. She gave an award to a sculptor and said that one reason that she was drawn to this work was that the booth was minimal. At first, I thought, what does she know it is a place to sell, put it all out so they can choose. Perhaps after thinking back to carrying podiums around to set baskets upon at the old fine art shows , I had to with personnal disappointment agree with her -she has a point. Hearing her voice repeating this comment over and over in my head, I realized that I had joined the ideas of "the market" and needed to revamp my display for my next shows. It is always good when we learn by listening deeply to others and then seeing if any of their words can be used to help us in some way. I set up my gallery room and think the mixing and matching and fewer items is a better way for enjoying my work. It is all good.

Sunday morning we arrived in rain and many tents with standing water. My booth was very secure and dry-the trimline served its purpose as did our little boot. The foundation volunteers and workers immediately started handing out huge bags of mulch in hopes of solving a problem that already was too deep to fix. The show was called at eleven on Sunday morning and we all slowly and completely soaked worked our best to save our product and load up and prepare for the drive home.
Heaters on -wet clothes off. Kind of like the wax on wax off thing.

So there ends another saga of a show weekend in the rain. Looking back, I don't like shows in the rain-but oh how the outside art venue captures the essence of what we are. It is a crap shoot!! Even in the rain, it felt good.

See you around town soon,
in an another adventure,
waves from her car and she drives by,

Janet