After Sierra Art Trails. . . . .

My last post was about Sierra Art Trails. The weather was perfect this year but it was a rather quiet weekend in terms of traffic and sales. Julie Mitchell, Vivian Aumond-Capone, and I wish we knew what made it a quieter year than usual. We enjoyed each others' company and the wonderful visitors we had but we are still wondering why it was not as well-attended as usual. Please comment if you have thoughts on the subject. Was it adding the third day? Too many choices of days? Of artists? Too many locations? Too many other events going on? Too tired? Didn't know about it? Too beautiful and you wanted to be at home working in your yard? You've seen all the locations/artists before and decided to take a year off? You've never been and you didn't go this year either? Any thoughts you can share will be appreciated.

Sierra Art Trails/September 30, October 1-2

Tomorrow is Day 1 of the 3 day Sierra Art Trails Open Studio event. Over 90 artists will be showing their work in studio situations in the mountain communities north of Fresno. For the 3rd year, I will be at Julie Mitchell's home studio in Coarsegold with Julie and Vivian Helena Aumond-Capone. Julie makes Spirit Figures and Vivian will have quilts, hand-dyed t-shirts and scarves, gourds and gourd necklaces, and more. I will have cards, prints, and original watercolor and mixed media paintings. At our location, there is a wonderful mix of art and artists and we certainly hope that you will visit during the long weekend. This is the first year that the locations (some of them, at least) will be available on Friday in addition to the weekend. Weather should be excellent.

From Highway 41 in Coarsegold, turn across the highway and go uphill at Pony Express Lane which is right across from the Shell Station. Take a quick right, uphill again, on the gravelled Forest Glen road and follow the signs a short distance to our location.

How Time Flies When You're Having Fun!

Where do the days go? Memorable moments from the recent past:

1.  Bebe Long and I traded paintings. I now have her "Pink Passion" and she has my "TuTu Tangle." We are both thrilled and excited with our recent acquisitions. Photos to follow.

2. Sierra Art Trails was a successful event in spite of the rain. The 4 artists there were a great team: Julie Mitchell, myself, Vivian Capone, and Gretchen Lee. We enjoyed each other's company and making new friends together. I had a successful sales weekend with 2 originals finding new and loving homes and numerous smaller sales.

3. I'm taking Alyson Stanfield's "Cultivate Collectors" online class. Time to clean up my act and move to the next level. :)

Sierra Art Trails 2009

The big Open Studio Weekend is behind us for another year, but I must say that this year's event was my most successful to date. I have participated for 5 years, though I took last year off so that I could go to the other studios, and 2009 was by far my best sales year yet. It was wonderful to see old friends, make new friends, visit with other artists, and get motivated and rejuvenated with many new ideas. Now I am going to get back to serious painting and trying to get back on track in terms of meeting my goals for 2009.

Those of you who came yesterday--Thanks so much!! And thanks, too, to fellow artists Julie Mitchell, Ellen Carnese, and Valerie Runningwolf for a great 2 days. Special thanks to Julie for her hospitality and inviting the 3 of us to join her at her studio. Visit her at her blog and see her wonderful spirit figures.

Dueling Photographers

Julie and I playing around with "dueling cameras" at a quiet (?) moment during Day 1 of Sierra Art Trails 2009. We were being silly, maybe because we were tired after all the preparation, the set up and an intense day of talking to LOTS of people. I will include some other photos and try to write more and show more photos after tomorrow.

The weather was fabulous, the guests were wonderful, and there were LOTS of people on the trail today.

Newest Painting and Latest Adventure

The painting above is called "In the Name of the Rose" and it's one I started at the workshop I went to in January in San Jose. I stayed with Grace and we went together. The images in the painting were inspired by the icons at the Rosecrucian Museum which was directly across the street from the middle school where the workshop was held. The painting started out all bright pinks and oranges but then later I "punched" it up with layers of glazes which really changed the whole feeling of the piece. I let it sit for quite a while before I finished it because I wasn't thrilled with it,  but now, I like it much better though I'm not sure it has an adequate warm or cool dominance. It's pretty evenly split, at the moment, though it looks a little different in person.

If you have been to the Rosecrucian Museum in the not too distant past, you may recognize the (ever-present on the grounds) banana plant, the figure from the top of the fountain (lower left corner of the painting), the columns and their toppers, the Moorish arch, the ram's horn from the statues out front of the museum, the Friendship Garden gate (in the lower right corner, with many small geometric shapes) and other figures that I may have forgotten to list. I did enter the painting last week at the ACA show at Chris Sorensen's studio and it got a 3rd place in the Mixed Media category.

Well, I need to get back to work on my latest adventure. I'm using up 10 inch square plexi pieces to make some small stacked paintings. Really fun! But a challenge when you're painting or drawing on each of 4-6-8 sides because it's so easy to get things upside down or backwards. I'll get better once I've done a few more. I think they will be nice small pieces for SAT which will be here long before we are all ready for it. The preview reception is on Saturday, September 12th in the evening.