Saturday, September 15, 2012

recap x3

Holy cow! September is off to quite a start, and I'm just now getting the chance to blog about it.

First Friday Art Walk in Portland was fantastic. The place was packed with friends and strangers, thanks to the wonderful live music by The Intergalactic Yurt Band, my friend Erica's other band besides Cumberland Crossing. I was thrilled to be sharing the evening with my husband Terry, who- in honor of his first Art Walk in a long time- got all dressed up for the occasion, and my dear friend Tim, who was visiting from New York for the weekend (in his words: "special guest star, in the tradition of Charo"). Tim had heard me talk about First Friday ("I want to walk with the art!") many times and he really wanted to experience it for himself, so when his vacation time came up at work, he jumped at the chance.

Tim had a bit of a working vacation, though: Sunday was the Family Arts and Science Festival in Brunswick, and I presented a mixed media/collage workshop for kids. Thankfully, Tim was more than happy to be my assistant! Not only was he into helping out with everything, but he even brought a box of supplies from home (beautiful batiked fabric scraps from quilts he had made, burlap, cardstock, wooden buttons), and he made a piece himself! At one point, I apologized for putting him to work, and he looked at me as if I had three heads. He was loving everything about the festival, and he even learned a new technique from one of the other workshops: cyanotype printing, which allows you to "photograph" an image onto fabric. I'm sure I will see him using this newly acquired skill the next time he makes a quilt! Anyway, this is the third time I've done a mixed media/collage workshop at this festival, and every year I'm amazed at the quality of the work the kids churn out. We had a fair amount of adults making artwork, too! We were scheduled to be there from 10 am to noon, but it was so popular, we ended up staying until 1:30. We almost ran out of glue!

Yesterday was Second Friday Art Walk in Brunswick, and it was another great night. Terry was able to join me once again, which was wonderful. It's always so nice to have the company, and it made packing things up at the end of the night a breeze! I'm getting spoiled. I had the same room at 98 Maine that I had in July and August (yay!) and this time, I had music with me (which, as you know, makes everything better). The turnout was good, and I am happy to say that I sold four mixed media pieces- three to the same woman! It was funny: she walked into the room and spent a lot of time looking around (especially the spot where the three pieces she ended up taking home were). She said, "You know, this usually isn't my style, but I'm really feeling drawn to the spiritual element in your work." She started out choosing two pieces as gifts for friends (one of which is battling cancer) and decided at the last minute to add one for herself. The other person who bought from me was a gentleman named Rick, who was there with none other than the fabulous fiber artist, Susan Mills. I hadn't seen Susan for a while and it is always such a pleasure to run into her. They came into my room and we chatted for a bit, then they left and came back. When they walked in the second time, Rick went over to the piece he wanted and said, "I need this." Then they admonished me and told me I need to raise my prices, which Terry happily echoed (this has been a common topic of discussion in our house). Hmm...maybe soon...but that's a topic for another day.

No comments: