Artjools on Artfire!

http://www.artjools.artfire.com/

I finally decided to try the Artfire website, and have a few pieces listed there, with more each day.

A learning experience for me, and I wish I could get it more "personalized", but I'm sure I'll figure it out.

If there are particular pieces anyone would want to see there, please send an email to me artjools@frontier.com

It's certainly been nice to relax and have no pressure to produce more work. Just have a lot of cleaning, reorganizing to do in the studio. Not my favorite thing to do.

I still have pieces at The Garlic Press in downtown Normal, The Bead Parlor in downtown Bloomington, and at the McLean County Art Center's Holiday Treasures Show in downtown Bloomington. Also at the Madden Arts Center in Downtown Decatur, as listed under the shows column.

Artfire vs Etsy vs ?

I've been browsing the sign up info for the online shops of Etsy and Artfire. Artfire appears to be a bit easier to get the whole procedure accomplished. It has a monthly fee with no other fees involved with listing or purchases, whereas Etsy has both. Etsy seems a bit too "full of themselves". The actual storefront you would end up with is certainly more attractive on Artfire. As well as easier to get it that way!

But, maybe I could just list some things here on the blog, with prices, information on how to pay...call with card info, check, etc. Has it been done before? Would it work? I don't even know if anyone even looks at this. So probably not.

This weekend is the last Farmers market...being held indoors on the floor of the US Cellular Coliseum, downtown Bloomington. 10am to 1pm. Lots of fun, come on by.

These pieces above are the latest things made and photographed. Trying some hints from Etsy on photography, and I think I'll stick to my own method! And I do not understand the photo of the coneflower leaf being screwed up...wasn't that way before I uploaded it!?

Bronzclay Class #4

This Saturday at the Bead Parlor, 318 N. Main St., Bloomington, IL, will be the fourth class for making Bronzclay jewelry. It is already full! If there continues to be an interest, I can add classes in December...so let me know!

It's been so great to relax a bit, having the majority of the art fairs over with. Especially the every weekend trips to here and there. Nice to sleep in Saturday mornings! I'm still considering what to do with shows, etc. next year...haven't come to a conclusion yet.

The show schedule for the remainder of the year has been updated, and we added a promising Christmas event during December at the Madden Arts Center in downtown Decatur. More information on that in late November.

The downtown Bloomington Farmers Market has a Thanksgiving Market to be held at the Coliseum, 10am to 1pm. There is a great breakfast using the farmers produce and meat to be held in the Coliseum Corn Palace restaurant prior to the market, and allows early shopping on the ice rink floor, before 10am.

http://www.facebook.com/notes/downtown-bloomington-farmers-market-and-artists-alley/enjoy-a-great-farm-to-table-breakfast-and-support-your-farmers-market/10150931209270438

We hope to see you all there!

PS don't know why the photo of the bracelet looks so strange, but you can get the idea!!!

Another Bronzclay class coming up...

I have scheduled a class in using the Bronzclay to make jewelry pendants, components, or whatever you want to make, on November 12th at the Bead Parlor, 318 N. Main St, Bloomington, IL 61701. You can check online at www.thebeadparlor.com for more information.

The last class had seven students, 3 from the Chicago suburbs! A busy afternoon that was! Each person created several outstanding pieces. I am always amazed at the creativity of people who have never tried using a metal clay before.

One of the students expressed a desire to learn how to make texture plates using the photopolymer plates. I've been using Solar Plates, which can be purchased from Dick Blick. These things are much easier to use than the plates from Boxcar Press or from Rio Grande jewelry supply. They also stand up to use and time with no curling or cracking.

Only 2 more Farmers Markets left for the outdoor downtown season. There will be the Thanksgiving Market held indoors at the Bloomington Coliseum on November 19th. I also will be taking some pieces in to the McLean County Art Center for the annual Holiday Treasures show November 11 - January 7.

Apple 'n Pork Festival

This weekend we'll set up at the annual festival in Clinton, IL. This originally started over 40 years ago as a local festival featuring what else...locally grown apples and pork, and the many food specialties made from them. Local organizations have booths providing their specialty food and make darn good profits from this heavily attended event. This takes place on the grounds of the C.H. Moore Homestead, a beautifully restored mansion on the north edge of Clinton, which has many ties to Abraham Lincoln. The small fine art fair is located on the east side of the mansion, which is where we're situated. Steve will have his leather booth too! Other artists will bring pottery, porcelain pottery, watercolor, oil paintings, wood turning, photography, and fabric art. We all hope you will attend!

Due to the numerous other events all along Center St, and at the Antique and Craft malls on the West side of town, this is a HUGE event. Early arrival will make for a more pleasant day, due to finding a good parking place. I would recommend driving in on old Rt. 51 from the north, to the nursing home parking grounds just north of the mansion. If that is full, return to "new" 51 and drive south to the intersection of Rt 54, where the high school will have shuttle buses driving out to the mansion all day.

This is our last outdoor weekend event for this year. Finally! October has the farmers market/artists alley each Saturday morning, then we are finished with the weekly shows.

Thanks for visiting my booth over this past year.

The top photo will be shown on the Bead Parlor website, www.thebeadparlor.com, as the class photo for the Bronze Clay class on October 8th, 1:30 to 4pm at the Bead Parlor, 318 N. Main St, Bloomington, IL. Contact me or Di at the Bead Parlor (you can purchase the class online). Limited seats.

Arts in Central Park

This weekend we'll be taking part in the annual Arts in Central Park, downtown Decatur, IL. Our booth is #46 which appears to be along the sidewalk in the south east corner of the park, junction of Park and Franklin Streets.

http://www.decaturarts.org/event/301/arts-in-central-park-1/

This is our second year here. We were happy with the friendly and helpful coordinators and the great treatment of the artists. It was also very nice to receive an award here last year, 3rd in Jewelry! So we are looking forward to it, very cool weather and hopefully dry. There's a great Preview Party Friday evening, with great food, music, and hopefully sales!

I've had a few comments from people that wonder about my wanting to retire from the jewelry shows. I do still love making bronze and silver components, etc. It's just that I am supremely tired of the art show life. I've never enjoyed the actual part of getting ready for, traveling to, setting up the booth for, standing and selling (hopefully) during, tearing down the booth, and finally traveling home from an art fair. Even more, I hate searching for profitable shows, having jury photos taken or taking them myself, entering the shows either online or by mail, learning how to impress the juries for the art show to increase my chances of acceptance, paying out some very large jury fees, and, if accepted, very large booth fees. Then, do I actually make any kind of profit? Not much.

So, I am really ready for something different. Maybe an online shop at Etsy; consignment or wholesale; or just not do it at all. Time will tell................

Maybe, if anyone reads this, they will have some suggestions???

Lincoln Art & Balloon Festival

We'll be returning to the 38th Annual Lincoln Art Fair in Latham Park, downtown Lincoln, this weekend. Around 80 artists are setting up around the park. The festival also highlights hot air balloons from around the country, stationed and lifting off from the airport. There will be a wine tasting event, and a barbecue cook-off at the downtown location. This link will take you to their program, http://www.lincolnillinois.com/Documents/ABF_Program_Guide.pdf.

The Economy

As we all know, the national economy has been quite slow for a few years. It has been evident in my sales at the Farmers Market/Artist Alley for the past 3 years. I take home around 70 to 80% less each day (with a few exceptions) than I used to. Although it is still very nice to tear down at 12noon, and have the rest of the weekend off. I'm really very tired of the downright hard work of setting up a booth, sitting through the slow sales period of 2 or 3 days, tearing down the booth, with a long drive home ahead of you. Consequently, I'm considering retiring from jewelry making next year. The amount of sales just isn't adding up to the amount of work we put in. We both enjoy actually making the jools, just not the hassle of trying to sell it.

I love to paint. I paint miniature landscapes now, although have painted larger in the past. I've been entering gallery art shows geared specifically towards that niche, and have been fairly successful there, with sales at higher price points than what I would get locally. I've also been awarded 3 Best of Shows, several Peoples' Choice awards, and purchase awards. Those are such a thrill to get! The photos at top are some of my past work. The Barn Owl was posing for us on admission to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum a few years ago. The cornfield is in Dewitt County.

So I'm thinking of just doing paintings, and exhibiting those next year on a less busy schedule. Still not sure about the jewelry though.

The "jury" is still out on all these possibilities! Stay tuned.........

News: Bronze Clay class; The Garlic Press; Washington Art Festival

This Saturday afternoon I'll be giving a Bronze Clay class at the Bead Parlor, 318 N. Main, Bloomington, 827-7708. Register with Di or Jeff at the shop or at http://www.thebeadparlor.com/. Starts at 1:30 pm, goes till we finish off the clay packet, which could run til 4p or even 4:30. Time passes quickly as we go over the fundamentals of working with metal clay, rolling it out, texturing, sanding, adding embellishments, discussion of kiln firing (which I will do in my kilns at home), and how to polish the fired pieces. I will return the fired pieces to the Bead Parlor on Monday, for you to drop by and pick them up. Cost is very reasonable: $40 class fee, $10 kit (clay) fee.

A few weeks ago, during the Sugar Creek Arts festival in Normal, I met Sarah McManus, a co-owner of The Garlic Press, a wonderful long established shop of all things good in uptown Normal. She is the buyer for jewelry and clothing, and is now carrying my work! I have been asked numerous times during my shows in and around Blm/Normal if I had work in The Garlic Press...finally I can say Yes! Please stop in soon...

Next weekend, 8/13 & 14, we will be taking part in the 4th Annual Washington Arts Festival. Following are the directions to Washington Park:

From the Square go North on North Main, turn Left on W. Jefferson, at the stop sign turn right on Lincoln and proceed to just beyond Lincoln School. Park is on the left. Here's the google map: http://www.washingtonfinearts.org/News_and_Events.html

The layout appears to be different this year, in that the booths will be more "together", and not scattered all around the park. Which is bound to be better, as it was difficult last year in the heat wave, which hopefully is over with now.

My eye surgery went very well, the stitches are out, and the bruising is decreasing. I still have some eye "issues", but all in all, it (I) looks much better. Thanks to everyone for their good wishes.

The images above are not of my work: these are Ancient Bronze pieces from the Middle East. I love them, and hope mine look like this thousands of years later!

See you at a festival soon......!

Scorching Market

It promises to be a scorcher this Saturday. I imagine the shoppers will be mostly gone by 10am, since temps will be zooming up to the mid nineties. I wish we could also leave then, but by 11:30, I'm pretty sure we'll be packing it all up!! CVS down the street will most likely be my "go to" spot of the day!

I considered not taking part again this weekend. The reconstructive eyelid surgery that was done last week is doing fine, but leaves me with 2 nasty looking eyes, one with a nice black suture taped to my forehead. In my late 20's, I contracted Graves Disease, a thyroid disorder that does a number on the muscles surrounding the eyeball. This actually was what first drew attention to the disorder, in that my left eye was protruding much more than normal. Rumors started that I had a brain tumor, and yes that was certainly checked out, but a thyroid scan showed a very overactive thyroid, and I was treated with I-131, which eventually slowed the thyroid to a sluggish underactive gland, and I now have to take replacement thyroid meds. But, the eye never really returned to normal, and it has been a huge bane in my life, and I've finally attempted to get it fixed. Wasn't planning on surgery on the other eye too, but the docs say the brain is attempting to "even out" the lids, and while the left eyelid has been "wide open" (to say the least), the right eyelid has dropped.

So if you visit my booth, be aware I'll be a hot old woman with bruised eyes.

Recently I've been fascinated with the history of the ancient Middle Eastern cultures and the formation of the first script invented by the peoples of the Mesopotamian area. I've made texture plates for use on the bronze clay of the Cunieform script, which looks like "chicken scratches". Very interesting look when the bronze is fired. We discovered a museum in Chicago, The Oriental Museum of the University of Chicago, http://oi.uchicago.edu/museum/meso/, and have spent quite a lot of time browsing their website. Hoping to visit there this fall. The images above are from using texture plates I made using photos I took of my sisters collection of African fabric designs. Worked much better that I thought.

Stay cool!!!!!

This Saturday is the 3rd year for the Lincoln Celebration in downtown Bloomington, and at the David Davis Mansion. It has always been fun, very interesting and educational. Last year's activities had some reenactors portraying the medical community of the Civil War, and had some very interesting tools of the trade to see and handle (carefully!).

I will have to miss it this year. Having had some eye surgery, I'll be staying home, but definitely plan to be there July 23rd.

Sugar Creek was profitable, great turnout, and very hot. Apparently, those temps are returning tomorrow, so please be careful out there....

Sugar Creek Art Fair

Yesterday I found out that our space has been changed to B16, located on Beaufort Street near the Children's Discovery Museum and Firehouse Pizza. We also are on the corner of the alley access to the railroad parking behind the buildings. It seems to be a nice open area, not closed in by other booths, so more air movement that will be desperately needed on the very HOT weekend coming up!

Hoping to see lots of familiar faces from all my market friends and customers!

More Good News!!

The Danville Arts in the Park judges awarded us with our 2nd Best of Show award this year! How cool is that! We got a nice purple ribbon and nice check! It was fun too to have a couple of great friendly women in my booth when the award was announced, and helped me celebrate...so much fun.

This weekend is the annual uptown Normal Sugar Creek Art Fair.

http://www.mcaart.org/mcac/html/sugarcreek.html

Our booth is just East of the Normal theatre, second booth down the row, in front of the Coffee Hound and Jimmy Johns. A great spot.

We've got some really cool new pieces. Please come by and see them!!!

Arts in the Park

We've not been to the Arts in the Park, Danville, IL. It appears that we should have. This is held in historic Lincoln Park in the SW corner of Danville. http://artsinthepark.us/location.htm

This nice fair will have 60 artists in amongst the trees. It looks like a great weekend weather-wise!

Sadly, I am not able to take part in the art festival at the Shakespeare festival, due to unforseen circumstances.

Next weekend we'll be back at the Downtown Farmers Market and Artist Alley. Then, the wonderful Sugar Creek Art festival will take place in Uptown Normal the following weekend. More about that later.

Computer Issues

Last weekend my computer suffered an unknown problem and all my photos, documents, favorites, even the icons on the desktop...disappeared! I was able to restore it to a previous date and most of the icons came back, but nothing else. I found that I could mark "show hidden files" and most of the pictures and documents appeared, but the picture icons have a hazy grayish look, even though they open and appear normal. The Windows photo gallery at first looked ok with normal appearing icons, but suddenly they began to disappear before my eyes! It is empty now. What a pain...

At the market last Saturday I met Dick Folse, Managing Director of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. He has invited me to take part in the Art Fair Sundays at the Festival, which starts on June 26th. As I'll still be in Peoria at the Luthy Botanical Gardens (see the show schedule), I won't start there until July 3rd. I'll also have a few pieces in the Ewing Manor gift shop through the summer. http://thefestival.org/.

The Bead Parlor in downtown Bloomington has had some changes recently. The bead sales have moved to the mezzanine, and Mary Lynn's Yarn Garden has moved into the shop with the Off The Wall Gallery of local jewelry artists, including Artjools!. http://www.thebeadparlor.com/.

I'll be having a class on working with Bronzclay on June 18th, after the market, there at the shop. Contact me or Di at the Bead Parlor.

The Farmers Market & ARTISTS ALLEY

We read the article last Sunday in The Pantagraph about the Market. We were "distressed" to see no mention of the Artists Alley section of the market. This is an ongoing problem...every year no mention of the artists. It has been awhile since the decision was made to completely remove the artists booths from the farmers "area", and place them in a section of our own...which this year has become primarily Food Booths. So, little by little, we are dwindling. Wonder what next year will bring??

Regarding my last post, we did receive official notification and remuneration for the Best of Show award at the Celebration of Art Festival at Eastern IL University in April. But no ribbon, just the papers. However, it was greatly appreciated!

Yesterday we spent most of the day at Weldon Springs State Park, south of Clinton, IL. A beautiful day, finally, so I got my fishing poles out, got some worms at Walmart, and enjoyed the beauty of the day along the lake. 3 little sunfish were caught and released. But we also took some work along, and strung some gorgeous beads and bronze bracelets. Got some great photos for future reference for my paintings, especially the cute House Wren couple nesting in a hollow tree along the lake shore. Photos of our day are above......

I have been trying to decide between Etsy and Artfire, for an online store. If anyone reads this, is there any difference? I'm a bit late at doing this, and still not sure how it's done. I'll learn someday....

We were honored!

Last show, the Celebration of Art at Eastern IL University in Charleston, IL, we were honored with the Best of Show Award!!!

Still waiting, however, on anything to arrive to be able to prove it!! Strangely, there was nothing on hand to give out to the winners Saturday or Sunday. No ribbon and no check, as had been listed in the prospectus.

Just an announcement and the fact I had to provide my social security number is my proof of winning. I have contacted them, and they promise it is on the way, someday.

This weekend we'll be in Davenport, IA, in the Beaux Arts Spring Art Fair. This is held on the plaza of the Figge Art Museum and the downtown streets of Davenport. It's a long established show, and attended very well, at a perfect time...Mother's Day weekend.

http://beauxartsfair.com/

Next weekend starts the summer Farmers Market in downtown Bloomington. I'll be again situated at the corner of Jefferson and Center Streets. We're looking forward to a fun summer downtown, and hope to see many familiar faces!

Working Hard.........

Getting ready for a new season of art fairs is hard work. The first outdoor show is this weekend, in Charleston at Eastern IL University, Library Quad. Of course, it is going to be cold and rainy!

But, the show must go on...we have bills to pay!

Steve continues to have blurred vision in one eye, but he is enjoying creating new constructed 3-D jewelry pieces. I would never make this sort of work...but I love what he's doing. It takes some refining on his work, changes here and there in order to make it into a piece of jewelry to wear, not just a sculpture. They are attention getters, so that accomplishes bringing the buyers into the booth. The show at the Sale Barn last month was good, so we're hopeful that means a good rest of the year!!

A New Season

This Saturday we'll be taking part in the Spring Bloom Art Fair at the Bloomington Sale Barn in south Bloomington. My booth is #46, which is in the approximate center of the building. We have many new wonderful pieces of bronze, silver, and gorgeous new stones. Hopefully there will be something for everyone.

Our schedule isn't completed yet, but I'll be posting new shows as soon as we know more.

Of course, I'm still working at home, and can bring out our work for you at any time. Email: artjools@frontier.com to setup a time.

The One-Eyed Jeweler!

Last year I talked about Steve having surgery for a scarred retina. Unfortunately, it so far has not helped his totally blurred vision in the right eye. But, when one has been living "a life of art", not creating is terribly difficult. When we met, Steve was teaching Jr-High Art. His favorite art form was clay pottery. And now, after many, many years of no clay, he's now making his one-eyed bronze clay pieces.
He's having a ball, made all of the above.

Let us know how you like them, please.

I've sent in applications for the Spring Bloom Art Fair in March at the Sale Barn in Bloomington. Also, to art fairs in Barrington and Riverside, IL in May, and to fairs in Wheaton in June, and Batavia in August. Way too soon to hear if we'll be accepted at this point. Fingers are crossed. There will be more to come. The economy sounds promising, which would be good for us all.