Thank you, Nashville!!

We had a great show - good weather, good booth, great neighbors and good sales.

As we do every year, we bring a generator and supply electricity to run fans for our booth and several neighbors'.

This year, the show had music on Sat and Sun afternoons. This was something started by the city of Nashville, but because we were in the park, we had to have it as a part of the show. We don't really like music because of course, it is competition for our bells. Now this music performance also had a dancer who performed both afternoons for the entire performance. I believe this is one of the homeless gentlemen who frequents the area.

I'm sure there was an interesting story about his hair, but no one I asked seemed to know.

Lucien is pretty much the only person left who has been with the show all the years we have been going. She will be missed.

We had our on entertainment out in front of the booth when this beautiful young lady stopped and demonstrated her skills.

We met up with several sets of friends, Carla and Bill Plunkett and Michael and Diane Hughes. Michael is a great photographer plus he arranges travel adventures and takes people to great destination.  His website is http://www.treadlightadventure.com/about.

Here are a couple of other shots I took.

The lower front of the booth.

A one dot up in front of the neighbor's landscape painting.

A close up of one of the sails on a display bell.

 We made it home Monday night. Travel was uneventful - even though I did get locked IN the hotel room on our last night out (well the next morning, actually). That was interesting. I finally had to be let in to the room next door and got out that way. Apparently the locks on the doors needed oiling! Anyway, we are home now. It rained 2 inches while we were gone, so everything looks great. And we are working like crazy to get all of those Nashville orders out.


                       Next comes Rockport!!  July 7th and 8th. Get ready to SWEAT!!

 

http://www.rockportartcenter.com/exhibitions/detail.php?uid=45

We meet the most interesting people...

We always meet interesting people at art shows and certainly Nashville is no exception. First of all there are the artists around us . For instance: Greg Davis, who is a fine travel photographer (my terminology) is here. His website is www.gregdavisphotography.com. Dave Piper, of course the best sandal maker ever. His website is www.pipersandals.com. Our neighbor is Suzette Nesbitt, a fine jewelry maker from Missouri. Her studio is called Rowdy Blonde Studio. Then we had a guy who came by the booth and bought a bell. Turns out he is a master fiddle player up here who has played with/for a lot of famous singers. His name is Rob Hajacos. Go to his website and see the people he has played with. His site is www.robhajacos.com. Will Conner is here with his great photography and I really mean great. His site is www.willconner.com. Threads of Change is a shop I had previously seen on etsy, but yesterday I met the artist. Just google her name an her website and her Etsy shop will come up.

Nashville Bound

We finally finished getting everything ready for the trip to Nashville. Well, we would like to have more bells making the trip, but you can only cram just so much stuff into any given space.... so we had to stop, pack up and go. Philip got the paperwork in order....

These were the last three bells ordered ahead by Nashville customers and were wrapped and ready to be packed.

Then began the loading process. We used to pull that giant trailer, so we had all the room in the world, but paying for gas while pulling that monstor cut deeply into any profit. So... now we manage to make everying fit in the back of the truck.

The old adage, "A place for everything, and everything in its place". is very appropriate for us!
But we also adapt with almost every show. Philip has now begun to use shrink wrap to temporarily hold the boxes together while we travel. And for this show, he decided to hold the 5 dot bells together in a stack.

                                              And actually, this gets a second layer later!
                           The sails are compressed from two to four boxes for the sake of space.

Ava, the current "shop dog" watched over the whole packing event.

   More is packed in. Those three bags are full of all the supporting poles and canopy pipes.

Now, I had to stop taking pictures so I could finish loading, get the ice chest ready, get the suitcases packed, etc.... but, when we get to Nashville, to the beautiful park in downtown, I will try to remember to take a picture of the back of this truck FULLY loaded!

The Blanco Lavender Festival

Today, as we traveled back from Austin, we stopped in Blanco. Their annual Lavender Festival was underway. The town square was full of artists and the streets were full of people! So we stopped and started by visiting our friends Jan and Jon Brieger, owners of Breiger Pottery. We have know them since way back in the 70's when they used to live in San Marcos and we all did the Texas States Arts and Crafts Show.
Some years ago, they moved to Blanco with their daughter, Tasha, and opened a pottery shop right on the street that surrounds the square. So, today, when we went to the shop, we found that they have purchased the store next door and opened a restaurant there. Very cute!



http://www.briegerpottery.com/Brieger_Pottery_site/Home.html

The restaurant is apparently a big hit. Jan was busy making cookies this morning . Jon was buy too, but I'm not sure what he was creating.

Plus we learned that their daughter, Tasha, is now the owned of Hill Country Lavender

 http://www.hillcountrylavender.com/

And we found out that Jan is the founder of this Lavender Festival and still juries the show along with another person! We walked through and met up with fellow metal artist, Bob Tomson.

http://www.naturalmetalsstudio.com/about.html

And we saw David Busch
http://www.raindancewatercolors.com/

All in all, a nice visit!

It's June Already??

Another year of the Kerrville show has come and gone. Ok, this posting could make you feel old - beware. Philip and I spent time in the truck on the way to set up for this show last week remembering all of the years we have done this show and all of the changes it (and we) have gone through. We calculated that we have been going to The State Arts and Crafts show for 30 years!! We started when our daughters were so small that we brought a playpen (yes, that's what they were called back then) to the show for Jenny to sleep in and Carla (about 4 years old then) took a nap under the long table we used as the front of the booth.
And the first year we did the show, the folks that ran it had a pioneer theme going on and asked that the exhibitors dress up in pioneer clothing. (I do have a picture somewhere but would have to go on a hunt for it that would delay this posting even more!) Philip wore overalls and the girls and I had long dresses and bonnets. That only lasted one year.
Initally, and for many years to follow, the show was held on the grounds of Shreiner College. It was held for two weekends and it was HUGE. All of the artists were very successful. Customers traveled from all over the state to attend. There was a Board of Directors made up of some pretty influential people and a board of artists that judged the applications and judged the artists for awards.
I guess I could say time has not been kind to this show. Many more arts and crafts shows occur now throughout the year which afford competition. The economy has had it ups and downs, gas is expensive. The directorship has certainly gone through changes and the location has changed to a fairgrounds area of Kerrville. Sadly, for us, many of our great friends no longer exhibit at this show and some of our fun in going has diminished.
Now, on the positive, we have made new artisit friends and still enjoy the visiting that goes on while waiting for the show to open  or waiting for customers to show up. The folks that run the show still feed the artists breakfast and one evening meal. And for us, the show is so close to where we live, it just makes sense to keep being there.
This year, there was a new and very young director. Several changes were made, including time changes. This year the show was open to customers on Friday night and not on Monday at all. For us, sales were adequate only. Certainly not like the first year, when we sold so much that we had to go home every night and work in the shop until the we hours of the morning to be ready for the next day. People would stand in a line 10 people deep waiting to buy their "bell".
On a positive note, this was probably the best weather we have ever had at the show - no rain, no heat wave, had a nice breeze. And we had great neighbors.

The art show grounds.

This was a cool community mural. ANYONE could paint on this.

This was the pavillion where music was going on all day and food, wine and beer could be enjoyed!