Notes From The Road :The Land of The Incredibly Tall Festival-Goers

Y'all, it's been a while. While I'd love to excuse my silence by saying I had been doing something really cool, it's just been life getting in the way.

Surely you can relate.

ANYWAY, life finally allowed me time to do some shows, and I got accepted into three in a row. The first was this past weekend in a lovely, hip neighborhood in Chicago.

Perhaps the only selfie I've ever taken that didn't make me look deranged...

The weather was beautiful, which was obviously a result of my having (after way too many years of getting soaked inside my tent during downpours) put waterproofing sealant on all the seams of my tent roof. Kinda like taking an umbrella to guarantee it won't rain, or getting your car washed to guarantee a monsoon, right?

As always, art shows are great people watching venues. A few random observations from the weekend:

            1) Apparently, it's a requirement that one of every six or seven people who attend this show
                be over 6'2" tall. Seriously, I have never seen so many statuesque people in one place in
                my life.

            2) Two very pregnant women were strolling down the street together, with one of them
                pushing a stroller with no child in it. Either the stroller child was in the park with dad, or
                these ladies were very prepared in the event of labor.

            3) A skateboarding dog will stop everyone in their tracks to watch (sorry, I was too
                 astonished to take a video)

            4) Accosting every fair goer who walks by your booth with a shouted question will, in
                 short time, annoy the hell out of the vendors around you.
          4a) Corollary to this observation, I could recite for you my neighbor's come on questions
                and subsequent sales pitch verbatim. The fact that they were selling candles and kept
                referring to their "best smeller" should sum it up for you.)

            5) Wearing a parrot on your shoulder as you walk the show will stop almost as much as a
                 skateboarding dog (see #3 above).

It's probably also great advertising for your business, which is why I blurred his t-shirt

At a certain point on the first day, I noticed that a number of people were stopping to gaze in the direction of my booth and taking photos with their phone. While I'd love to say they were overwhelmed with my jewelry, turns out they were taking pictures of the house behind me that looks like it's being devoured by ivy....

The windows are nearly covered!!

So all in all, it was a good weekend - one down, two to go over the next couple of weeks. 

I Survived the Show!

This weekend's incarnation of the booth setup. It worked okay,
but there will be layout changes for the next show. Granted, I was half-asleep
when setting up, so it's a miracle anything is upright and organized!

This weekend was my first art show in many months, and I went into it with equal parts excitement and dread.  Not dreading the show itself, but worried that after several months away from doing shows, I would forget something crucial, like a vital part of my tent.  Or all of my jewelry.  Or my pants.

I'm happy to report that I did remember to wear pants.  Both days.  Win!

We were supposed to set up on Friday evening at 7:30 (they had to let cars clear out of the town's center before letting the artists invade).  At 6:00, it was raining, with predictions of continued rain and gusty winds until after midnight.  Been there, done that, could do without it again.  So sweet husband agreed to help me set up the next morning at 6 a.m. (putting him on the fast track to sainthood).

The next morning was dry and clear. And early.  Drag-your-butt-out-of-bed-at-4:30 a.m.-to-shower-and-dress early. After setting up, sweet husband went home with all good intentions of not going back to bed.  Intentions that went out the window about 30 minutes after he got home.

Most shows involve a story about a neighboring artist. This time is was the stogie-chomping neighbor.  Mercifully, he didn't light up the big ol' cigar he kept clenched between his teeth.  But he did talk. A lot. Bless his heart, he was so eager to share the stories of his work that he'd chat the ears off his customers.  I saw more than one couple flee, heads down, without a backward glance.  On the bright side, if he'd had to step away, I could have told any of his customers all about each piece from having heard the stories so many times!

There were no jingly men or killer cicadas at this show, but there were a couple of toddler meltdowns, including a hysterically funny moment when a boy who looked about 2 or 3 sat down in the middle of the street and said, very emphatically and in a voice that must have been an imitation of what he'd heard his mother say a thousand times to him, "No, no, no and NO!"  Every parent in the vicinity chuckled.

My learning takeaway of the weekend was just how rough I look at the end of the day when I've been up and working hard since 4:30.  It was not pretty.  On the bright side, I slept REALLY well!

The best line of the weekend had to come from a lady who, after looking at some of the beadwoven pieces said, "I appreciate that you price your work according to the Pain In The Butt factor that was involved."  So my new pricing formula may be

materials x 2 x PITB factor = wholesale price...

New Town, New Show

My first show of the season is this weekend!

Keep in mind that I haven't done a show in a good nine months, and have moved in the intervening time.  My fingers are crossed that I haven't forgotten any major component of the setup, and that I still remember where everything goes in the tent.

Like any show prep, there are a thousand and one little details that still need attending to, but I'm getting excited about getting back in the show routine.  And I'm interested to see what kind of good stories the weekend brings (hopefully no giant bugs or surprise thunderstorms, but you never know!)

But if you're in the Chicago/Evanston area, come see me!  Whatever happens, I'll share my show tales with you here next week!

Freight Trains, Gas Leaks, Wearing Tablecloths -- Must Be Show Season!

Egads. I have been out of the loop on blogging recently (family stuff that's kept me far away from the computer, but that's beside the point). The upshot is that I did two shows last month that generated plenty of stories, but I have been remiss in sharing them here.

The first show was in the downtown of a small town east of Louisville. It was my first time doing this show, and I had heard good things from artist friends. Most of the show was set up in the park, but I was on the street next to the park. We really were in the heart of the town, and every few hours, a freight train would rumble through, half a block from my booth.

Yep, that's the 12:07 freight  from Louisville...

Running concurrently with the art show, and just a block away, was the town's colonial heritage days celebration. There were numerous people in colonial costume walking around to publicize the event, and even a few stilt walkers and giant puppets.  Gotta say, I think the stilt walker was cute, but the giant puppets were vaguely terrifying -- I imagine they provided traumas that many children in attendance that day will be dealing with in therapy sessions when they grow up.

What the colonial heritage people didn't warn us about were the colonial cannons, which were shot off several times a day, at unexpected moments and on no apparent schedule. Dear lord, they were loud, and boy howdy, did they startle the bejeebus out of people walking down the street!  But every time they shot off, I thought, "another story for the blog, people.  It's another story for the blog!"

Saturday's weather was hot. HOT. So did I check the weather forecast for Sunday? Of course not. I dressed for hot weather.  (You know where this is going, right?)  Yep, it was 50 degrees and cloudy all day. I was wearing shorts and sleeveless blouse. Thank goodness I had a table cover that I'd used for a Christmas show among my setup stuff, so I spent the day wrapped in a red tablecloth. I may have looked ridiculous, but I was warm! (And no, there is no photographic evidence of my poor fashion choice.)

Imagine this in Christmas red. That was my wrap all day Sunday. Classy, huh?

The next weekend (after carefully checking out the weather forecast for both days!), I did a lovely small show just north of town. When I went to set up on Friday, there was a distinct aroma of natural gas in the show area. Turns out that the guys who were setting up the music tent accidentally hit an underground gas pipe when they were hammering in the anchor spikes, and the utility guys were scrambling all over the place to fix it.

Fortunately, the leak was fixed, the show went off without a hitch, and it was a beautiful weekend. I'd been playing with my booth setup for a while, and this was what happened:

If you do shows, you know that the perfect booth is a constantly moving target, but I was pleased with this. A few tweaks on the to-do list, but not bad.

No real "oh my gosh" moments from this show (other than being relieved that there was no way anyone could blame me for the gassy smell), but there were two things that saved my life.  First was the fabulous food truck down the street, where I found this delicious ham, chevre, and red pepper aoli crepe (yes, from a food truck, and every bit as tasty as it sounds!!). 

Second was my little fan, which kept the air moving around inside my tent just enough to keep me from melting when the sun was high and the breeze was low.  Sometimes it's the littlest things that make the biggest difference!

No more shows for a month, so I have a great excuse to hole up in the bead room and make stuff!  Have you been to any great art shows this summer?