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....