Festivals #2 and #3

Festival #2 was the Southern Vermont Arts Festival, held right outside Manchester, VT, and the Hildene's Meadow - a beautiful field on the Lincoln Family estate (Abe's son lived there). I didn't get a chance to visit the house, now a museum, but have heard it is wonderful.


The festival was terrific. An awful lot of work (I was thoroughly exhausted at the end of the day, mainly just from talking to so many people!). But really a lot of fun as well. There are so many amazing exhibitors, and their work is just incredible.



Festival #3 was a last minute super-surprise! A brand new music festival at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center found itself with no art exhibitor coordinators just days before the show. Step up Craftproducers! We were able to organize a really great mix of artists for the show, and we got to go enjoy the festival! Gillian Welsh, Steve Earl, the Swell Season, Levon Helm, and, get this, Bob Dylan. It was pretty awesome. I didn't get photos of the exhibitors, but here's one of the stage!

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Re-located while cleaning. A copper plate intaglio print I made last year. I also did a painting of this image. For a while, I was very interested in the female back. I didn't want this to be a seductive type of pose, more of a casual stretch. Not sure if it comes through or not. But I like the print.

I am still here!

Crawling slowly out from the piles of boxes and desks (I had so many desks - who knew?) and more boxes...

Started putting my studio together this evening. Very exciting. Only I realized that I have a bit of a catch22 - had to get the stuff put away so painting the walls can happen, but now everything is so neatly put away on the shelves and I'll have to move it all again to paint. Hmm.

In other exciting news, we finally cooked dinner. The first actual home-cooked meal I have had in... wow, I can't even remember! Between the festivals and the moving cooking really got lost. I never really knew how much I would miss it.

I shall post pictures soon of my progress, if only to document it for myself so when I look back I can see how far we have actually come. Because there is certainly a long way to go.

Wishing you a very happy weekend!

Painting, Packing, Moving!

The title says it all. A few days back from the Southern Vermont Arts Festival and I am going insane with the, um, joys! of moving house!

I won't trouble you with pictures of my packing. Its really not a pretty sight, I can assure you.

Instead, here is the dining room transformation in the new house - I really love it, can't wait to finish!



This is kind of before.


This is the poor pup who doesn't understand the need to spend such a long time indoors not playing.




And nice blue walls!

Now I just have to get the other house packed up.

Another Day, Another Festival

I am getting ready to drive South, down to Manchester, Vermont for the Southern Vermont Art and Craft Festival this weekend. Tomorrow is setup day, the festival opens Friday. See you there?!


Sometimes little things make me feel quite clever, and I would like to share this one with you. Several weeks ago I had a hankering for waffles. I think those berries brought it on. In a handy moment, I made an extra large batch and stuck the extras in the freezer. Now I can just pop a few in the toaster and violà! Breakfast in a flash!


I do realize that other people thought of this way ahead of me. But my own waffles are so much tastier, and quite probably healthier. So I do feel clever.

#200

Sign seen on my drive home from Syracuse this past weekend:


A message I fully support. Now if only I could remember to make it over to the farmer's market...!

New Taste of Stowe - Part II

I made it to the field about 10am on Thursday, in time for the exhibitor check in. It was really great to finally meet in person and put faces to all those names I have been seeing over the past several months at this job. Not so great were the heavy rainclouds that hung persistently about and periodically dropped buckets of rain on our heads and on the festival field and all the gravel (subsequently mud) roads throughout. It was a fairly dismal day, made exciting by events but with an ever-present fear that this might just be the weekend's forecast.




Imagine our feelings of relief when 6am the following morning brought bright blue skys and mountains glistening from the overnight thunderstorm. Friday was a gorgeous day. We finished the set up and the public began to arrive as soon as the gates were open. It was not a mad crowd, that would have been an unusual - although certainly acceptable - turn of events for a Friday morning. But it was satisfactory. This was our first festival of the season, but some of the exhibitors reported that at other festivals, attendance has been down by some 20-50%. We had significantly better results than those, but the current economic situation was apparent. Interesting how that works.


I spent most of Friday touring the tents, meeting and chatting with exhibitors. There are some really wonderful people who attend this show - I am looking forward to seeing several of them again in Manchester, VT next weekend!



Saturday, I had to make a trip to Syracuse, New York to visit another festival - it was a big weekend!