It's sad to say the entire month of May went by without a post from either of us. We had our first real art show in Blowing Rock, NC on May 14th and it did not go very well.
We were up ugly-early for the long drive, which was made worse by a long-slow creep through thick mountain fog to arrive "late" at 2 1/2 hours before the 10am start of the show. Almost everyone else had already arrived; had their canopies up and seemed to be doing nothing more than tweaking their displays. Aggh. The set-up was therefore more tense than what I had already expected on our first go-round with the EZ-up canopy (not so EZ is what I say), the hanging bars, mesh panels, and display bits. After the initial rush to set up, the day was slow with a moderate traffic and not many sales. It's really hard to not let the excitement of heady compliments and then the disappointment of a non-existant sale not affect you. And just after we made a real sale with the 24"x34" framed print of "Study In Color I" the skies opened up, and thunder and lightning dispersed any remaining customes. We packed up (actually threw everything back into the van) early and drove home feeling ill knowing we had lost inventory to water damage.
Anyways since then we have lacked a certain joie de vivre.... umm our mojo maybe? We spent a recent weekend cleaning up the mess; re-matting and re-framing stuff. It was disheartening.
We just did our second (of six) shows last Saturday and although it rained all morning it went so much better. We got there earlier, our expectations were more reasonable, we had steady, if not terribly significant sales, and the usual happy interest. I am going to get one of those crowd counter thingies just to count the number of people who stop, exclaim "Pancakes!" and laugh when the see Sean's 24x30 poster sized pancake print in our display. Sean has sold quite a few pancake prints, both matted and as cards, and I feel there must be some kind of prize to reward the first purchaser of the framed print.
Blowing Rock episode III is July 14th. We think the summer shows will have more tourists, more people and better sales.
Sean has been subjecting me to Star Wars the series. We just watched episode IV last night (which was really the first Star Wars movie made. I know, I know it confuses me too). I can't keep straight half of what we've already seen so he will probably make me watch them all all over again.
We have finally got our interview with INS for my conditional residency permit (a few weeks shy of the deadline for submitting my application for permanent resident status).
Not too much else going on. Work has been extremely busy for both us. I am working on a project to expedite an entire cooling tower to Venezuela, which like some kind of Lego (TM) kit comes in thousands of pieces purchased from manufacturer's from Bellingham to Florida. Let's just say consolidating, documenting and getting this stuff inspected has been taxing. I get no sympathy from Ms. Arghi but I've actually had to work Friday afternoons lately.
Sean's days at TCW have also been more challenging than usual. He is in such desperate need of vacation time to decompress he's told me he just wants time on his own. Since I can't take time off until October and he can't wait that long, I've decided to let him spend the week studio-hunting, playing video games and making his wife supper. Aren't I sweet?
Yes studio-hunting. Sean is looking for space to do portraits. He's been practicing on me. If anyone out there will volunteer to sit for him please please please let me know. (I hate having my picture taken unless I get to goof around). The portraits of me are in the gallery.
Okay until next month, this one's a wrap.
Posted by mrivinus at June 19, 2005 06:40 PM