Fayetteville Art Walk

So, our last show was last weekend in Fayetteville, TX. This is that quiet little town over by LaGrange that is the easiest show we do. The whole show is set up on the town square, so you can just back your vehicle up right to your booth space and set up easily. It is very small so buyers don't get overwhelmed with choices or forget where your booth is and can't make it back to you when they are ready to buy.

The Fayetteville residents are super nice and everyone is happy to visit with you, talk about themselves and their town. Most of the customers are from Houston. These folks come to country to rest and relax on their farm/ranch or little house in town.

The art show folks take good care of the artists. They feed us on Saturday night. This year, there was a Friday night preview party out on a nearby ranch. They fed everyone and gave artists a chance to sell early. We didn't make it though. This, being our third show in a row, had us really low on inventory. So we were still at home in Boerne making bells and sails until about 4:00 Friday afternoon. Then we still had to load up, pack our clothes, etc before we could take off. We finaly got to Fayetteville at about 9:30 that night and we set up in the dark with our cute little head lamps on so we could see what we were doing!!

Sadly, the original hotel and restaurant that we came to know on our first trip to Fayetteville had a fire last year and this year it was gone - demolished. See the big open space..

This show gives out awards with cash prizes attaches. And two of our friends received recognitions. Both Steve Kriechbaum and Melanie Fain received awards. Here is a picture of Mel's booth.

And here is a picture of Steve's booth. In the background. Uh... with Steve outside of his booth playing his harmonica with a local bunch of musicians who sat aroung in the square playing great music the last couple of hours of the show.

A lot of visiting was done during this show. You can't help but do it. Here's Philip outside of the booth visiting - probably telling some wild tale.

And Frank Bird sitting alongside his wonderul pottery telling ANOTHER JOKE in some foreign accent. We can't see if the customer's eyes have glazed over yet, but Frank's wife, Suzy's probably have!

So, the show ended at 4:00pm on Sunday. That is perfect. More art shows should do that. Sales are usually down by that time, Customers are going to their homes and artists love to be through and packing up so they can get home easily enough.

Windsongs is off this weekend. We shipped out lots of bells for Mother's Day. We will be off next weekend but will be getting ready for the Texas Arts and Crafts show in Kerrville on Mother's Day Weekend. 

King William Show

Another San Antonio Fiesta celebration has come and gone. This is the one day show that occurs on the last weekend of Fiesta.The King William area of San Antonio is full of wonderful old homes of all sizes, shapes and colors. One of the most memorable scandals in the area occured several years ago here when author, Sandra Cisneros, painted her house purple and the neighborhood association was not pleased. It was in the news for sometime.

The house has now faded to blue and Sandra Cisneros is movng from San Antonio. A loss, but I don't think she is moving because of any house controversy.

Back to the Art Show..

We set up our booth on the usual street across from and in front of great little houses all decorated for Fiesta.

 .The booth next to us was run by the art teacher from Brackenridge High School in San Antonio. The great colorful masks were created by her students and they sold them to raise funds to support their art program. There were a huge hit and she sold all of them!!!

Too bad art programs aren't fully funded. But, on the other hand, the students that came and helped sell in the booth got a first hand look at selling art at the ground level.

This festival is also tied to a parade which celebrates "quirkiness" and honors King El Rey Feo (the ugly king). It is full of unusual floats and hosts the down to earth, neighborhood entrants.

Carla, Julien and Sascha came down to the show, visited, watched the parade. Thanks to Dave Piper for letting us hang out in the Piper Sandal booth which is always on the parade route.

All said and done, it was a good show. Fast and furious, done in one day. Seems like we had a lot of customers who were employees of HEB and USAA, a fair amount of out of town folks who were in SAT for Fiesta, and of course, some King William residents. Thanks to the wonderful Brackenridge High School football team and their coach who keeps the whole show and fair clean all day long!!

Last shots of the Show and Fiesta Color - 2012: