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!