Intense, in tents craft show experience

Building a 10x10 space in an art festival or craft show takes some creative thinking and more time than one might imagine.  I've been thinking about it for weeks; luckily I came across a great fold up table and a folding screen without really searching, but I did have my feelers out.   When we arrived at Topnotch Field in Stowe on Thursday afternoon we found the wind blowing and that we had forgotten the sides to our Caravan canopy.  Hard to hang silks with a gale force coming through.  Bruce elected to go back and get them.  I fought the winds, made some progress but remembered again the trials of this work.

My new silk, 44x72, Windows and Doors looked good at the back of the booth and seemed to compliment other pieces.

This silk scarf glowed from the center; its colors so in union with the large painting, Seismic Segment.  Putting up the work in a 10x10 room lets the maker have a different and more complete view on what the maker has been making.  Some rewards are not the sales hoped for.

Some of the rewards are the neighbors, meeting and seeing for 4 days other artists, hearing their stories and celebrating their successes.  Peter Fried was opposite me.  What a talented and wonderfully cheerful man.

 These 2 neighbors talked plants and transformation and shared some much needed laughter.  Beth Netelkos

The weather was sunny.  We could open our tents to the open air.  Jon Turner typed up a poem every day while his partner Kathy hung out with dogs and friends.  Jon's presentation of his Combat Paper Project was inspiring.  Poems and prints on hand made paper composed from the military uniforms of his father and uncles.  I just went to www.greendoorstudio.com to find out more about this project and I see it has traveled widely for the past 2 years being much more vast in scope than I had thought.  Amazing people come together and share.  It was intense in the tents.