Fryeburg Fair Fiber Center 2008 - personal report

Fryeburg Fair 2008 was very successful for me this year! I went into the fair with concern for the state of the economy. Not only has gasoline and fuel oil been running at an all time high, the real estate, stock market and financial industry have landed a blow that will take us all years to overcome!

The weather during the first two days of the fair created a pretty dismal fair opening with attendance being way down. It was unclear during those first days how the economy was affecting traffic and sales but by the end of monday, I was certain that fair week would not match those of the past years.
To my amazement, as the week progressed traffic flow picked up and days that historically were slow reached record and near record numbers. People were coming and people were spending! I can only speak for myself in this however from what I experienced during the week, it seemed that people were willing to spend money on practical purchases. Sales for wearable items and gift items as well as gloves, mittens, hats & scarves on the cold days sold very well and beyond my prediction given the economic situation.
I did experience a slow down in two of my most expensive items that I historically sell out of. Based on comments and body language, I believe that those sales were affected by their price. Though they are great values and less than they can be purchased for elsewhere, they are items that retail for over $100 and in spite of their popularity and people taking notice of them, I did not sell out as usual.
The other bright spot for me was Hairlock Painting sales! As the guest artist last year, I did not have the luxury of being with or near the work to experience peoples comments about it. This year I added a display that allowed me to show my work in my space allowing interaction with fairgoers and being able to hear and see their reactions to my work. That was very rewarding! I continually hear comments such as "I've never seen anything like it before.... This is beautiful work... How do you do this, it's amazing!" All music to an artists ears :-)
Rumor in the Fiber Center was that Art sales were not up to par this year. I believe that is because people are reigning in their expenditures and purchasing fewer luxuries and fringe items than they have in other years. Though I did not sell as many art pieces as I did last year, I was very happy with the sales I did have especially knowing that the people who bought them absolutely love them!
Additionally, I experimented with Wire & Fiber earrings that I have been creating. My space is very small for the amount of merchandies that I show there but I managed to find a hole and brought a small quantity to test the waters with. I was very please with the results. I had a number of different styles and was surprised that two of my favorites did not sell at all but I had a total of six styles and sold out of several of them. I priced them very modestly at $12US a pair for two reasons. First, this is all new for me and I really wanted to get some sales activity as a test for design purposes. Secondly, again because this is new for me, I did not want to invest in Sterling or fine metals at this stage. I had no idea if they would be well received and did not want to invest too much in materials that may never be used or be wasted while creating. It turns out that I wasted little. This is good because one of my pet peeves is waste and I am a great recycler, reuser, and thrift store shopper. I hate to waste anything! SoI learned alot and am encouraged by the results as well!

So in all and in the end, Fryeburg Fair has been another successful story for me! It is also a bittersweet event. I put in hours of work for my own preperation as well as many more for management of the building. Many 12-16 hour days are lived for days before, during and after to see it through. Additionally, I spend many hours thoughout the year organizing and working on the Fiber Center program. I love it and will not be ready to give it up for a while but as much as I love to see it come, I also love to see it go by. So now I take a breath and begin to make the journey for next year!

In the mean time, the Bermuda Fiber Festival which I organize has begun registration and I will be busy seeing that event through in early December!

More later!
Until then...
Thank you for reading :-)

Audubon Show Report

After months of anxiously awaiting the arrival of my participation in the Audubon Show, it has finally come and gone so quickly, it seems like it must certainly have been a dream! Susan Mills shared a booth with me for this event. Not only was it a blessing to be sharing the workload for set up and tear down for both of us, but she is a dear friend and you ALL know how important quality time is with the people who are important in your life!
Maine finally experienced a few days in a row of good weather and
though we had a shower late in the day on Saturday it was late
enough that it had no grave effect on the event. This Audubon event's presenters, Jim & Holly Gallante do a fine job. Not only is the setting for this show terrific, they run a class act! A few details make such a difference. Exhibitors were welcomed with a little goodie bag, and all attendees had access to coolers of FREE ice cold water, and very nice catered food. Doing shows is always tiring and getting good food and easy hydration is a big deal.

Our booth looked terrific! Susan and I spent hours designing our space in hopes of being able to create the best presentation possible for each of our work. I believe that the pictures I have included will convince you that we succeeded.
Traffic seemed light to me but considering this was the first sunny weekend in Maine for weeks, and summer coming to a close I was not surprised. Having never done this show before, it is impossible for me to judge how attendance compared to other years.

Most pleasing to me when showing my work is the reaction I get from the audience. It is very heartening for me, a new artist, and creator of a new art form to hear people say such things as:

" Your work is beautiful!"
"I have never seen anything like it before"
" How do you do this!"
"This is amazing work!"

These are the things that re-enforce that I am onto something, that I need to continue.... It is validation that the time I have spent in research and development and creating the bodies of work that I have has been worth it.

Now, the work as I go forward, is about sharing it with the public and finding the best venues in which to do that. I welcome all comments and suggestions that you have to share. Feel free to post comments to this posting or contact me with any advise or information that I might find useful. "It takes a village" as one famous woman has said. And whether you like the famous woman who said this or not, it is fact that we can not do it alone. In all parts of life it is the individual with our family, friends and supporters who make it happen for us!

In the end, I learned lots about the show circuit, met some fabulous people and had a great time. Susan's and my work seemed to represent the more Artful side of the show as compared to craft and because of that, I am not convinced that I will pursue this venue next year but in everything, we have the opportunity to seek, learn, and evolve! And so it was....
Until next time!

New Work!

Well here it is! In one of my last posts I described that I would be moving onto a different color palette and I have completed a sample painting on both the off white and black felted wool boucle .


The Hummingbird was the first and is done on the off white boucle wool felt. I decided to make a few pieces in the round which is often found in Sumi-e. This piece is not quite finished though. I will add a silk braid or cording around the perimeter of the paper in a coordinating color to frame out the piece. I love this little guy and I can't wait to see him completed!


This is the second piece done in black. The photo doesn't do it justice. I am very pleased with the way this piece turned out. I have always been drawn to the black Sumi-e paintings using color density to create the depth of the image. There's something very intriguing to me about the simplicity which depicts a subject. Although I have achieved success with the brown color way in the past, I was anxious to see how the black would translate in this medium. I feel I was able to achieve a sense of depth in the painting using various thickness of fiber to create tonal variation which is done with different dilutions of black ink in Sumi-e. I did add a bit of magic green in the center of the flower and yellow for stamens to help create a bit of interest in the piece. I expect to frame this piece out with a braid or cording of some kind also. I will be visiting the states soon and will look forward to shopping for an appropriate option.
Bermuda has many fine points but shopping is not one of them! I drool thinking about spending some quality time in Michael's, Joanne Fabrics, Marden's, Walmart, Sam's club and grocery stores when I get home! I run the gauntlet of stores and malls in search of things that I either can not find here or are too expensive to consider. I shop for clothes only when I need something and prefer to fill my baskets with art supplies :-)


To learn more about Sumi-e visit the Sumi-e Society of America's website at http://www.sumiesociety.org/frame.htm

Moving On!

It's a new month and with it comes the Bermuda summer humidity and warmer temps, as well as a new era in my work! I am a creature of habit and may have perhaps continued with the brown tones of my work through eternity, but the universe had another plan....

When I first began this work, I decided to use brown as my color way. I chose it because I had a good supply of brown llama roving from my years of raising llamas and never wanting to waste anything, decided this was a good use for it. The fabric I ultimately used for the canvas back was not my original choice but was forced upon me. The best place to buy quantity of wool fabrics is at Oxford Woolen Mills in Oxford, Maine. Though they no longer weave fabric there, they have a voluminous supply from when they did, and continue to sell it. In fact they continue to replace items as they sell due to the reputation they have built as supplier for anyone needing woolen fabrics for Art projects or craft. But I digress....

When I went to purchase fabric from them when I began this Art, I was looking for a nice worsted coat weight fabric to match the roving I had. The only thing they had was a boucle. I was not impressed but I felt it was my only choice and who was I to fool with the universal plan! So, I bought it, used it, and loved it! The texture of the fabric was perfect for my application. It blended beautifully with the texture of my paper pours and unified the look. Perfect!

Well.... it seemed so anyway.... Until I needed to replenish my inventory and they no longer have, and can no longer find a supply of this same color way in this same fabric. Drat! What to do.... What to do..... After a visit to the store on one of my trips to Maine, I spent agonizing time trying to decide how to proceed. Once I got over the fact that the brown was now history, I chose to go black. This is the Sumi-e tradition anyhow, so it seemed right. I would just have to purchase some wool roving to match. Easy... done... BUT, things are not always so easy for me to decide and I was challenged with the idea of the off-white and the use of more color in my work. Initially, I exclusively worked with the monochromatic as done with the most traditional of Sumi-e but had begun to do some color. Why not get some of the off-white and do some experimenting? I indulged myself and so it is!

This week I have poured some canvases on both the black and the white color ways and have a few sketches nestled in the back of my mind for future paintings. I wait for the canvases to dry before I can begin to play....

Sometimes moving on to the unfamiliar is a hardship; it creates blocks of fear that impinge on movement in a new direction. The good news is that I had some smaller canvases of brown remaining and have been working with those, giving the new color ways a chance to settle in and become familiar. Osmosis... That's my best ticket!

As I move forward, watch for postings showing the new work. Or better yet! Plan to come to the Audubon Art & Fine Craft Show on August 16 & 17 at Gilisland Farm in Falmouth, Maine and see it. Up close and personal!

Sunflowers

Well the Bermuda weather is finally settling in and giving us sunny, warm and calmer days. Spring has been slow to come to us as with many parts of the world. My little garden has had it's share of gusty winds and related stress!

I though, have been making progress on the body of work for the Audubon Show on August 16th & 17th at the Gilsland Farm in Falmouth, Maine. I have recently finished pieces of Heron, Sandpiper, Loon, Rose Bud and Sunflowers. All of the birds are in the monochromatic color way but the flowers I have done with color. I am especially pleased with the "Sunflowers" painting that I added to this post, which began as a drawing that I did a few weeks ago.

I have only five more weeks to create paintings that I will have time to have framed before the show. All finished paintings will travel with me to Maine on July 1st when I will spend time with my family, prepare the dispay booth for the show and take paintings to the framer.

So off to work on my next subject! More later.....

From Drawing to Painting

Well here it is folks! You may have seen the drawing at left from an earlier post that I did for a commissioned piece. I'm very happy with the final result! The completed piece measures 27" x 39". It only looks smaller in the photo because the drawing was only done on an 11"x13" sketch pad. In order to create a painting with the same proportions, a few hours of math becomes involved in the process. YES Math! When I want to duplicate a painting from a drawing it's important that I get the proportions right and very difficult to do with the naked eye. For many of us, the brain is unable to process the spacing and dimension of one line or object to another without adding it's two cents. Because of this, we create what we think we see instead of what is. No doubt there are artists who never do a single math equation to determine how long the boot foot should be compared to the length of the overall boot and do a fine job of creating appropriate proportions; perhaps they have an inate instinct to be able to do this accurately. But know that, any basic drawing class will teach you how to use a grid to establish proportion and we all know a grid is just another way of determining fractions or math! It is easier to accomplish the "no math" method when free painting which I do regularly. However in the case of replicating from a drawing where you want the finished piece to be as close to the original drawing as possible, you do the math.... It goes something like this: In the drawing, the space from the top of the boot to the edge of the page is 2.75" or 25% of the 11" height of the paper. My paintable canvas is 22" high so 25% of that is 5.5". This tells me that the boot has to sit that far from the top of the paintable canvas to look like the drawing. Etc... To prepare for the actual painting, I spent several hours figuring the equations that I would need to tell me the lengths of spaces and lines on the drawing so that I could as accurately as possible re-create the drawing on canvas. The unfortunate part of this process is that without a copy machine, the drawing that might have been framed as a pencil drawing now looks like a math problem or blue print for building something! I would take a photo and show it to you but my light pencil marks wouldn't reproduce well.

If someone had told me little more than a year ago that I would be doing this work and accomplishing these results, I would have definitely told them they were crazy! But it has become a passion for me to create these "hairlock paintings" and now that this piece is complete I will begin the body of work to get ready for the Audubon Art & Fine Craft Show in August in Maine.

The above piece will live in a house by a lake in North Carolina that sports a western theme and I hope it's owners will enjoy it for many years to come! I have yet to name this piece which I would like to do and include in the signature. Anyone have any suggestions?

Current Commission

Today I wanted to share with you the beginnings of my current commission. This will be a Hairlock Painting approximately 28"x32" (unframed) which I am creating for some folks in Atlanta. It will hang in their lakehouse which has a western theme. They asked me to create an image for them to include cowboy boots and the drawing at left is what they have decided to go with. The hat was inspired by Clint Eastwood in one of his Classic cowboy movies "The Good, Bad and the Ugly". We are currently discussing the canvas that it will go on and though there are a few options, I am partial to and recommending that they use a canvas that I created and haven't used yet! Its reddish brown tone and off white paper reminds me of a cow hide. My more spiritual side tells me that this canvas has been waiting for this project to live on it! This particular canvas is more unusual than my others in that the felt backing I made from hand made felt so is a bit more rustic looking. Since the initial layout of fiber must be about 30% larger than the finished size, it began it's life with three layers of sheeps wool about 3' x 4'. That's a lot of sheeps wool and very time consuming since I have a fine hand in my method of laying out the fibers. As soon as I hear back from them, this will be the next "painting" project on my studio table. Watch for postings of the finished painting!

Creating a Canvas

Let the process begin!
I am currently preparing some canvases to paint on. The balmy humid Bermuda air makes this process a bit of a challenge. I have to monitor the drying process to be sure that they are drying quickly enough to prevent them from molding. I once heard that it takes years for paper to truly dry out so although they may not be completely cured for a very long time, they must be dry enough to the touch for me to work on. In the initial stages where I am adding the pulp on the felted fabric backing, I set them on these screen racks in the images so that they benefit from the most air circulation I can provide. It takes an average of three days for them to dry enough to move forward. I create canvases in batches of different sizes with no specific image in mind. Instead, I simultaneously yet independently am creating canvases while seperately researching and working on drawings of images that I will use for the inspiration for my paintings. It is rare that the paintings become an exact duplicate of the drawing. I prefer to allow the freedom of creation while painting to present to me what the final image will be.