Today I finally had the chance to participate in a small farmers market in the village of Willsboro. It’s a Thursday market and very slow but it’s a chance to get out and show my art.
It’s nice to be out and talk to fellow artists. John, a woodworker was my neighbor and we had a good visit. I look forward to tomorrow where I am setting up in Elizabethtown next to my friend Ken Gadway.
This month I challenged my self to create Something every day in May. Many of my creations were paintings but a few were furniture. It’s easier to finish a painting in a day. I enjoyed the challenge but the need to post something on Instagram limited me a little. While I may do anther challenge it will be a while
I have been on a dog kick but feel that one coming to an end. I will do more but will see what inspires me. Maybe it’s more cats.
This past Saturday the Winter Market in Westport NY, was canceled for anyone not selling produce, it would have been my second event of the year.
This coming weekend, I was scheduled to attend my first outdoor art market at the Hudson Valley Maple Sugar Festival. I would have had my own booth outside. Yes it could be cold, but it would have been exciting as well. I bought a new Easy-Up with walls and build a way to hang my art. This delay will give me time to do more testing and experimenting on how to show my work without being a major paint to set up.
It is kind of early to figure out when I will be able start showing my work since in New York State we are locked down until the middle of May at least. Living in the Adirondacks it is about as far away from the City as you can get, and still be in New York State, but we need to have the visitors to make it work.
Unfortunately I just was informed that the first date for the Essex arts and Craft festival on July 5 has been canceled.
This leaves me with only 1 confirmed date where I will be showing my art. This will be a return to the Essex County Arts and Crafts Festival in Westport NY. The art fair will be held on August 3rd, essexartsandcrats.org. I have been trying to find other events to have a booth to show my art.
Once I know more about new events I will add it to may calendar.
Stay Safe ….
The past week has been spent finishing one last driftwood frame and painting the blue jay to fit. This time it took a couple of tries to get the painting I wanted. I always learn from my less than acceptable work (mistakes). Balance and placement within the driftwood frame is very important to me.
I also spent time finishing another lamp and drilling stones. The process of making stones fit is a lot of trial and error. One of the biggest challenges is drilling on an angle to fit stones on an angle.
I also spent some time doing a little drawing, planning for future dog paintings.
I have made several cards from my paintings and the were very popular at the art market I was able to do before the lockdown. These as a few possible subjects I will work on to expand my offering.
Looking forward to another week in the studio.
On to part 2 of my week of driftwood frenzy – Lamps. I was able to spend some time on the beach collections more driftwood for my drying bin. It takes weeks to prepare driftwood for working into art.
These lamps are special, they were claimed by my wife even as i was making them, and are now in our bedroom on the night stands. With these lamps the I didn’t use normal beach stones, instead I used some of my stash of rock crystal to make the pieces special. The base is a slab of rock crystal on black walnut. The top of the lamp body glows with a large rock crystal ball.
These lamps are the only ones like it I can build, I have no more rock crystal bases. I don’t have a current resource for more.
Still sheltering in place … and not upset about it.
This past week in the studio had led to a frenzy of new driftwood inspired art.
I completed 8 more driftwood accented frames. With each new frame, I compose new paintings to fit the frame. Its different for me to have to scale my pieces for the frames. When making the frames I look for the right place to blend and fit the connections to the wood used to build my normal frames. Once I have attachment points I will then lay out the scale for the balance of the frame determining width and height to achieve balance.
These paintings are larger than my regular paintings, so scaling up has been part of the challenge.
On to some more lamps …
