A Long Hiatus, Killer Trees, and Show Lessons Learned

Hoo boy! If the road to perdition is paved with good intentions, my plans for making regular blog posts over the past seven months has me more than halfway down the road...

Lots has happened over the past few months (sold our house, bought a new place, moved, been asked to step into my former boss' position on an interim basis, took an anniversary trip to Paris), but I'm going to pick up the blogging where I left off -- smack in the middle of summer show season.

Each show has its learning opportunities.  For example, I learned that all the time saved by my neighbor artist when she set up the display of her whimsical bird houses in the open air instead of under a tent was equaled out each morning, when she had to spend quite a while cleaning the bird poop off of her pieces. Lesson One: there is no real shortcut in display setup.

The next show had no advance set up - rather, we were to arrive at 6 am to set up for a 10 am open. It was raining. A lot. And I was alone. I got my tent up enough to shelter the rest of my stuff, unloaded completely, and went off to park the car. I came back to discover that my spot was near a blocked storm drain, so that all the water draining down the street was pooling at the back of of my tent and those near me. God bless the volunteers who tracked down shovels and brooms to clear the dam and keep us from floating away! And thank goodness I had "borrowed" a straw fedora from my husband that morning so that I could stuff my rain-soaked hair up underneath and look (at least in my own mind) cute and stylish despite having been soaked all morning.  Lesson Two: rain + show setup = bring extra shoes and a cute hat.

The after effect of all the rain became obvious as the sun came out and the show opened.  Across the street from my tent, I saw this:

Take a closer look:

See it?

Killer tree!! Killer tree!! Yes, they moved the artist for everyone's safety.

This was a fun show (once I dried out from setup), and a good one. People were engaged with the art, enthusiastic about being there, and willing to buy things that they liked.

My favorite show of the season was held in a park on the shore of Lake Michigan. This was the view out of the front of my tent:

And this was the view out of the rear of my tent:

Not a bad place to spend a weekend! And though there were no Jingly Men, the music was great, the weather was lovely, and I went home with less jewelry than I came with. This was also where I learned Lesson Three: a tent that's near the boat launch will regularly be subjected to diesel or exhaust fumes from the trucks hauling said boats to the aforementioned launch. Nice views sometimes entail health hazards...

So another show season done. More lessons learned, and more fun memories.  Next time, I'll share some of my latest work.

Wherein We Kick Off The Show Season, Try A New Setup, And Make Some Discoveries

This weekend was the first show of the season for me, a smaller, new (to me) show called Art on the Parish Green.

Arriving at setup, I found I had a corner space - and decided on the fly to change my booth arrangement to take advantage of the additional open side.  I also found that the person whose house I was in front of had cut his grass, kindly sweeping all of the clippings off of the sidewalk.  Right into the area of my booth.  Discovery #1: shopping bags, when used like miniature snow shovels, make a pretty credible grass clipping removal broom.

Usually I have my earring screens at the front of the booth, on either side of the entrance, with the tables set up along parallel to the back wall, with enough room for me to stand, handle transactions, and wrap purchases.  For the corner setup I lined the earrings all along one side, used a screen for extra necklace display, and shoved the tables together to give an island o' jewelry that people could walk around.

It worked pretty well.  And it led to Discovery #2: Dear Husband, who is my stalwart setup and breakdown assistant when he's in town for a show, was quite patient as I dithered around trying to figure out where things should go.  He's a good guy (but I already knew that!)

I had been thinking of making some tweaks to my earring cards, and I figured this show was as good a time as any to debut the new ones.  Spent several nights cutting, laminating, trimming, punching holes, writing information, and putting earrings on all the cards.  When I went to add the little strip of velcro (the hook side) to the back to hang from my display screens, I remembered that I had finally used up the industrial-sized roll of velcro I had, so grabbed some little hook and loop dots that were hanging out in the craft room.  I mean, hook & look is hook & loop, right?

Discovery #3: Different brands of hook and loop do not necessarily play nicely together.  Saturday morning, I arrived bright and early to put all the jewelry out, and started hanging earrings on the screen, only to see each card sail, gently yet insistently, to the ground three seconds after I attached them.  The hooky parts on the backs of the cards just would not attach to the loopy strips on the screen slats, no matter how hard I pressed, how nicely I pleaded, or how nastily I cursed.

After a few really frustrated minutes that included a fleeting fantasy of calling and waking Dear Husband to make an emergency run to Home Depot (it was still quite early, and even he has limits to his patience), I figured the only way to get the cards to stay was to wedge them between the slats and backing of the screens.  This worked, but the cards were, by necessity, a little at an angle and off center.  You'd think that someone who enjoys freeform peyote and asymmetrical design would revel in this little bit of freeform display, but having my earrings look like a bunch of drunken fraternity boys careening around after a hard night of partying made me slightly crazy all day.

Kind of hard to see how catty-wumpus these are, but it made me crazy.  Okay, crazier.

Discovery #4: Home Depot opens at 8 am on Sunday, and you can replace the velcro tab on nearly 100 earring cards in less than two hours if you work really, really hard.

Even harder to see in this pixellated enlargement cropped from the booth shot,
but the cards are all nice and orderly, back in their proper arrangement.

All in all, the show went well -- some really nice art, very nice people, and good sales, which leads to Discovery #5: Challenge pieces often are the first ones sold at the next show. These Adventures in Freeform and Bead Soup Blog Hop #7 pieces were among the works that went to new homes this weekend.




 

So, while there were no divebombing bugs and flying strawberries at this show, it did have its adventures.  And it's just the first show of the year!

Last Show, New Table Drapes, and Ham Hocks

This past weekend was the last show in my fall season - six shows as opposed to the two or three that have been normal for the past few years.  Whew.

It was also the debut of my new table covers, necessitated by the realization a couple of weeks ago that my old covers were irredeemably ugly worn out.  Many of you were wonderful with your suggestions of new colors, and I thank you for your input.  My goal was to find fabric that was sturdy enough for repeated use (bed sheets would be too lightweight), somewhat neutral so as not to compete visually with the jewelry itself, but visually interesting enough to make my booth pop out among others (beige was out, unless I wanted to look like a booth full of oatmeal).  

I fell in love with some beautiful striped fabric in shades of soft teals and greens, but it was too similar to another local jewelry maker -- didn't want people to get confused.  So here's what I decided on (insert drum roll here...)

I'm pretty pleased with them! The show wouldn't allow my type of tent, so I had to use their pipe and drape instead of my regular curtains and sides -- normally the walls will all be beige.

And so where do the ham hocks come into the mix?  My sweet husband came with me to the show and took me out for dinner on Saturday night.  I hadn't eaten lunch during the show, and I was starving.  The menu had something called "Ham Hock Ragout" described as pork in a smoked tomato sauce.  I expected a modest serving of pork in a delicate smoky sauce.  What came out was a piece of meat that was larger than my first car.  Seriously.  It was a full-on medieval feast, Henry VIII moment.  And yes, I ate almost all of it.  Then I waddled back to the hotel...

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, and the Weekend Show

This weekend was show #5 out of my six shows this fall/winter.  It was an indoor show featuring the members of the local artisans guild.

Here's the good -- I bought new lights for my new tent, and it really made a huge difference in the visibility of the work.  Sparkly goodness!

Bonus points - the lights were nice and warm.  Good in a cold venue!

Here's the bad -- these table covers have been worked hard for the past couple of years, and they're looking rough.  Wrinkly, saggy, puckered...I'd say they look like my butt and thighs, but bless their heart, they make my butt and thighs look good by comparison.  Time to replace them.  (The table covers, that is.)

No amount of ironing will salvage these babies.

And here's the ugly.  We can use our tents indoors, without the tops.  I was on the outer row, where the ceiling of the building slants down.  As I raised the tent, I heard a worrisome thud.  Thank goodness we didn't hit the sprinkler head, and thank goodness the acoustic panel dropped right back into place as the tent was lowered after the show.  Whew!

Oh, my, I was sweating this all weekend!

So before the next show I need to buy some fabric to make new table covers.  Any suggestions on color?  If I do a pattern, it has to be subtle, since the beadwork has so much going on visually on its own.  Yes, that will be me, wandering the aisles in Joann Fabrics tomorrow evening...

Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda, Resolved!

Ever have one of those "coulda, shoulda, woulda" moments?  You know, a minor, nagging regret over something you might have done but, for one reason or another, it just didn't happen?

For a long time, I've thought I'd love to add a printer's tray to my display.   Used to be that I'd see them all the time when I went to antique places, but I couldn't figure out how to fit them into my display style, especially the big trays I was seeing.  When I finally figured out a way to make them work in my display setup, for the life of me I couldn't find any.  Despite haunting the antique malls where I'd seen them in the past, there just weren't any for sale.

Coulda bought them when I found them - they weren't outrageously expensive when I saw them.  Shoulda bought them, because, hey, there they were, begging to go home with me.  Woulda bought them if I'd just trusted that the inspiration for how to use them would come to me.

My dilemma was resolved this past weekend.  Look what came home with me!

It's 10 1/2" x 17".  My vision is that rings will go in the smallest spaces, and pendants or pins will go it the others.

But first, I have to get it cleaned up a little bit (any suggestions other than Endust and lots of dust rags?  Maybe Murphy's Oil Soap?) and get some hooks put in....

The hunt may continue for more trays, but at least I've bagged my first one!

Photographic Proof

In my last post (which, if you notice, was more recent than five months ago -- so I'm improving!) I talked about the two exhibitions I was going to be part of. When I went to pick up the pieces at the end of each show, it was such an honor and a kick to see my work in gallery vitrines that I had to whip out the cell phone and take a picture or two.


The picture to the left was from the Berea Arts Council show -- happy to say one piece is missing as it was sold during the exhibition!









The picture on the right was from the Gateway Regional Art Center in Mount Sterling, KY.






Both shows were lovely collections of Kentucky artisans' work, and I was pleased and humbled to be included. And it gave me courage to pursue more exhibition opportunities.