Wish List

I am love, love, loving this bag that I found on Etsy by DrikaB. Not sure if I should splurge or not, but I am in love with it!

Hope you had a fantastic weekend! It's a short week at least, which makes Monday at bit more tolerable.

Go Birdie Go

Go Birdie Go, 6x6

Booth Nazi

Not only was the River Festival a great experience and an all around fun weekend, but it was also a tremendous success.

First things first, I got the greatest surprise on Saturday morning when I'm talking to my family as we sat outside my booth and from behind a tree walks Moe! Moe!? "What are you doing here? What are you doing here? What are you doing here?," I said in disbelief. Apparently she decided a few weeks ago that she would both surprise her parents and me with a surprise appearance in Salina. I was in shock. I think I may still be in shock.


Moe was a great sport and sat with us behind the booth until about 7 p.m. that evening. Being in Chicago, she had never been able to see me at an art fair. This time, she got up close and personal view of me in action. I hope you enjoyed it, Moe. You will never know how much it meant to me that you were there!!

The festival was great. It always is. We ate great food and we saw lots of friends, young and old. The festival is a virtual reunion for families from Salina. It truly is remarkable.

I did do fairly well. I sold nearly half of what I brought and confirmed three custom orders already. There was also an article in the paper about me. Funny that I can't find the archive link for it though.

My dad helped me set up the tent on Thursday night. As much as he didn't understand why I hang everything the night before the show for placement and then take it all back down and pack it away in boxes only to put it back up the very next morning, he helped me out anyway. There is a method to my madness, I assured him.

On Friday morning, my mom helped me out. She helped me place the packed up pieces back on the wall, roll up the sidewall, sat with me for a several hours, but she also got me an assortment of tulips for my booth. I had to get on her a few times for the placement of her chair while she was on duty. I went away for a brief break to come back and see her sitting in the director's chair INSIDE the booth, BLOCKING THE ART. You can't it INSIDE the booth, I told her. You can sit in front of the booth about 15 feet out or about 3 feet behind, but not inside the booth. And, really, not within a three foot perimeter of the booth. It intimidates the customers. This all took plenty of explaining. At one point she moved the chair right up next to the front of the booth and the photographer from the Salina Journal assumed she was the artist since she was sitting SO CLOSE to the booth and took HER picture to accompany the article that was written about Me. The poor photographer went back to the Journal and sent the photo to the reporter only to find out that the person that the reporter interviewed was ME and the person that the photographer shot was MY MOM. Poor guy had to come back. Neither photo accompanied the article after all. Long story short, my mom now calls me the booth Nazi. I appreciated all of her help and support, nevertheless. Love you, mom.

One last tidbit about the festival is the great music that they have. Everyone needs to go to iTunes and check out Black Violin. I cannot wait for our next dinner party to kick their tunes. My mom and Dave weren't fans, but Chris and I listened to our two new cds all the way back to KC. They are two violinists that play hip hop covers. I am a semi-closeted hip hop fan and hearing Kanye and Timbaland violin-style was the greatest. Seriously. Check them out. Now. iTunes. Black Violin. Click on Dirty Orchestra.

Off to the River Festival

Fly, 8x8

I'll see some of you in Salina, otherwise have a great weekend!

Guide, 8x8

No Weakness, 12x12 (right)

Those I Hold True

This is two scan of one 12x12 titled Those I Hold True. The top is the left side and the bottom is the scan of the right side. Oh, how I long ofr a larger flatbed scanner. Splitting the image in half does it no justice.

Another word about the past

In The Know: Our Troops In Iraq

This clip is relevant considering the post about the past. Ha! LOVE it.

On hating the past

In one passing moment several years back, I revealed to Ivy that I hated the past. I can't recall what we were talking about , but I felt it was really quite normal to hate the past. Or so I thought.

This statement was met with howls of laughter and after a little bit of searching myself, I came to the conclusion that I really didn't like the past at all. At least anything earlier than World War II. I hated history in school. I can't recall with any sort of working knowledge the time periods that are so important to our nation's history. I hated my history teacher. She taught us to take tests and then purge everything that we had learned.

I'm not a big fan of historical costumed characters. Civil War Reenactors. Renaissance Festival. Dungeons and Dragons. Pirates. It's not limited to characters, though. I had no desire to see those Dead Sea Scrolls when they came to Kansas City. I'm not a fan of history museums. Really, I have no desire to see Rome. And Washington D.C.? Meh.

So, my friends latched on to my "hatred of the past phenomenon" and bring it up whenever they have the desire to creep me out. Little did I know what I was getting myself into when Lisa and I stumbled upon Old Shawnee Days when we went to visit Kerri on Saturday. The word "Old" in the name of the event should have been my first indication. But just past the spinning rides and funnel cakes, lurked those creatures of the past. Lisa took my camera and captured it best.




Funny thing about hating the past is that my artwork almost all stems from antique papers, vintage photos and, well, just about anything from the past. Go figure.

Oh, and by the way, I could really do without the future, too.

Craziness

Have you ever seen the end of the rainbow? You know with a pot of gold and a smiling little leprechaun? I was driving home from a meeting late last week after a crazy rainstorm. Suddenly a rainbow appeared. I get all giddy like a little girl. I will go so far as to call my sister or Chris to see if they can also see the rainbow. Seeing that Chris was in Omaha, I doubted he could share in my wonderment. So, being the prepared blogger that I am, I pulled my camera from my purse while driving along I-635 over I-35 and captured the true end of a rainbow. It literally ended on the road just in front of my car. Pure craziness. There was no pot of gold.

Weekend

Infinity, 6x6

A relaxing weekend for once. Met Ward, Lisa and Reid at Blue Moose Friday night. Chris joined us later after driving back from a week in Omaha and Ft. Collins. Cleaned the house. Shopped for some new summer clothes. Visited Kerri at Old Shawnee Days. Laughed at fake settlers doing fake surgery on a fake injured soldier with fake blood. Continued to hate the past. Date night with Chris at Capital Grille. Volunteered at Dog-n-Jog. Ate breakfast on the patio. Watched my pole beans grow. Took my own dog for a jog. Watched Workout on Bravo. Worked on some stuff for the River Festival. Blogged. Night. Night.

Like a Dream, 6x6

Another one bites the dust

Cross the first of three shows off the list. The Prairie Village Art Fair wrapped up today. It was a fun weekend because my mom came to town to watch Ellie while Em helped me set up. Just when I was checking my cheat sheet of tent directions, Nick shows up and literally had the tent together in no time - and he wasn't looking at the cheat sheet. I guess he is going to the Army and has probably set up a tent or two. You should see him fold the sidewalls. Talk about neat! Anyway, I'm sure my mom would have loved to be a fly on the wall watching the three of her kids laugh and sweat together.

And, man, it was hot! And humid. It was in the 90s nearly all weekend. I know that I complained about the long winter, but did summer have to come blazing in like this? Thank goodness my spot had a shade tree, which was a little bit scarce. My mother-in-law bought me a fan and it helped a little bit, but the patrons surely felt like they were baking in my tent.

Because of the weather, many artists were blaming their little amount of sales on sluggish, overheated patrons. So, I guess I will have to agree. My experience this year was NOT bad, but it was NOT awesome. I got lots of smiles, comments on great work, two thumbs up, had to make a mad dash to Kinko's for more business cards Sunday morning, but not a TON of buyers. That's OK though. The show really doesn't end for me when the tent is all neatly folded and placed in its proper Rubbermaid box. I had lots of questions about commissions, which is wonderful. I also had two gallery owners inquire about my work as well as a cute little shop in Brookside, where the owner thought my work may look great for sale in her dressing rooms. So, cross your fingers for some good things to come my way.

All in all, I did have a wonderful weekend, especially with family and friends stopping by. I don't think a 30 minute period went by where I didn't see or talk to someone we knew. I saw two girls from my high school as well as George Brett and one of the designers that used to be on Extreme Home Makeover. Also, my booth was two booths down from two wonderful artists from New Mexico that I've fallen in love with from my days at the Plaza Art Fair. (We visited them at the end of the show on their tricked out rock star bus that gets 4.5 miles per gallon of diesel fuel resulting in $2,000 worth of gas for their round trip to Kansas! Insanity!). I also enjoyed refilling my water bottle every hour with water from a hose, seeing my glass neighbors' crack every time he bent down to wrap up a piece for a customer and then watching the customer's faces as they then witnessed the crack for the first time, drinking skinny iced vanilla lattes twice a day, bringing an illegal cooler filled with wine and beer for friends and chatting with my husband because we just never seem to make the time to sit side by side for 9 hours on a Saturday and people watch.