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Winter Park

Posted in About My Work, art, Family, Festivals and Shows with tags art, bird, Florida, mikel robinson, mixed media, photograph, show, winter park on April 19, 2011 by candlesandghosts

The last show of the winter season for us was the 52nd Winter Park Art Festival; it ran March 18-20 in Winter Park, FL. The weather was about perfect, and the location almost couldn’t have been better. It was a beautiful park in the middle of town, and there was a large area behind our booth where Jeremia could play.

He particularly liked this one tree which was perfect to climb in.

I liked being able to shoot his shadow in the late afternoon.

From our experience- don’t know if it was the same for everyone- the crowds were great, but there weren’t that many people purchasing art. For the show to be located in such an affluent area, and garnering such a prestigious reputation, we were expecting to be swamped. We were busy from time to time, just not as much as I expected.

So in between, I had plenty of chances to shoot some photos. Lately, I’ve been beginning to experiment with photographing objects, animals, and such in motion -especially birds in flight- and I think there are a lot of possibilities; especially when combined with mixed media. Here’s a piece I sold, that I hope better illustrates the point.

“Flight Study III”

My favorite shot of the weekend, at least of the birds, was this image of a pigeon taking off.

J and I had been feeding it crackers, but it would only let him get so close before it would take to the safety of the tree above our booth.

Finally, on Saturday afternoon, a lady came along randomly snapping photos and decided to take a shot or two of us.

Kristina and Jeremia were their usual, beautiful photogenic selves, whereas I was too busy yacking about some nonsense to stand still. Oh well, at least we’re all in the same photo. Often with us and family pictures, it’s like trying to herd cats…

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On Sunday evening, we packed up but decided to stay an extra night at the hotel before heading home. This seems to be a theme for us, but we tend to do better with the long drives once everyone has had some rest. The next day we were back on I-95 heading north, but we quickly found a detour at Washington Oaks State Park just north of Palm Coast. Not a well known place, but it was beautiful and secluded- we practically had the place to ourselves.

Definitely the kind of driveway I’m going to get when I move out of my parents’ house.

The was a small playground where Jeremia could play, and some nice hiking trails that went around the park, so we decided to check them out.

It didn’t take long for J to find some large palm leaves-

I’m not sure if he was happier carrying them or “sweeping” with them.

He certainly was enjoying trying to whack me on the head with them as he rode on my shoulders.

We strolled around for the better part of 2 hours, but decided that it was probably time to get on the road.

On the way out I shot one last image of this nice large oak.

It might make for a good art piece sometime in the future.

Until next time,

-M

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Gasparilla

Posted in art, Family, Festivals and Shows with tags art, festival, Gasparrilla, mixed media, south of the border, Tampa on April 17, 2011 by candlesandghosts

Up next for us on our show schedule was the Raymond James Gasparilla Festival of the Arts in Tampa, Florida the first weekend in March. It was great to get out of snowy Baltimore, and though we were only able to stop through at home for basically a day before heading to Florida, once we got there the view out our hotel room more than made up for it.

It was clear, temps hovering around 80, perfect weather for an Art Festival. Or so you would think…

Let me tell you first off, the show was in Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park which is a beautiful location, but load-in for this show was an absolute beast. Kristina was watching Jeremia, and because I was not allowed to take our small trailer directly into the park, I had to instead unload piece by piece, then trek each load app. 150 yards to our booth space. What normally takes us 15-20 minutes to do, took me a full 2 hours. By the time I was done I was sweating more than a fat cow in a hamburger commercial.

Once in the booth however, set up was fairly easy, and I was happy with the final look.

For this show, I tried to choose bolder and larger pieces which turned out to be a good thing.

Sales were good for the two days, and it was interesting in that people seemed to want to purchase the larger rather than smaller pieces.

I’m not complaining, with so many shows lined up one after another, it actually makes my life a bit easier by not needing to make as much work.

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Sunday evening came, and load out was a little easier; some of the volunteers came with golf carts which helped shorten the number of loads it took to get everything back to the trailer. By the time we left, Jeremia had just had more fun than he could stand and promptly passed out in the car with a fry in his mouth. We couldn’t resist a good picture before removing it.

The next day we headed home again, and as per the usual, we made a slight detour on our way home. If any of you have ever been up or down I-95 then you know that on the border of North and South Carolina there is perhaps the largest and most ridiculous tourist trap known to man, “South of the Border.” Seriously, its one of those places that understands what it is, so it relishes in it rather than try to deny it. Its been there probably since dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and its mascot is the most prototypical politically incorrect figure, “Pedro.”

Someone of whom Jeremia was not a big fan…

However, all hope was not lost, while stopping to look for me a leather hat which I could wear at shows to keep my head out of the sun (Yes, I naively thought that we could stop here and I could go into a building simply marked, “Leather” and there a hat would be, miraculously waiting),

we met none other than….

Fabio.

Yes, Fabio.

Well, a cardboard cut-out of Fabio, but close (and scary) enough for me. I mean seriously, wouldn’t it weird you out to know that there were cardboard cutouts of yourself floating around in the world where you were sporting nothing more than a tight pair of jeans and chains? I love how he guards the emergency exit.

Jeremia tried to work a new purse out of the deal (probably to keep things quiet), but we instead we talked him into a pair of plastic glasses with the goofy eyes.

And yes, in the entire store marked “Leather,” there was not a single leather hat. Notice however, the ample supply of Pedro dolls. Needless to say, I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Once we got outside we stopped to shoot a quick photo with a horse. J was preoccupied with noticing that horse wasn’t wearing a diaper and should have been-

I just wanted to find the car. Once we were loaded up and preparing to leave it was then that I spotted it-

a lovely Ferris Wheel just begging to have its picture taken.

So of course I obliged. What I love about this shot is the “Convention Center” in the background. Can’t you just see yourself entertaining some million-dollar clients at that locale next time you need to set up an important meeting? Yep, me too.

I got one other nice shot; this RIDES sign-

then I was ready to hit the road…

Where’s the tequilla?

-M

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Upcoming Shows for Spring and Summer

Posted in art, Festivals and Shows with tags art, art star, artsplosure, bazaar, columbus, craft, festival, handmade on April 15, 2011 by candlesandghosts

It just occurred to me that in the midst of telling you about the shows that we’ve already done, it might not be a bad idea to fill you in on the shows that we have coming up. This is not a complete list, it is just the ones that I know about as of today. I’ve included links to each if you’d like more info.

The first is The Handmade Market which is Sat. April 23 from 11-5, at Cobblestone Hall, in Raleigh, NC

Its a great one-day show with over 40 fabulous designers and craftspeople-definitely worth checking out!

The next show will be Art Star Craft Bazaar in Philadelphia, PA the weekend of May 14-15.

We’ve never done this one before, but Kristina and I have heard a lot of good things about it so we are really jazzed.

The following weekend, May21-22 we come back to Raleigh, NC to do Artsplosure.

The website doesn’t look like all that much, but it is a great show. It gets about 100,000 people in attendance over the weekend, and sales for us have always been strong.

The following week we are taking off to rest, but then the week after that – June 3,4,5 – we are off to Columbus, Ohio for the 50th Annual Columbus Arts Festival.

This is another monster show, getting about 300,000 people over the entire 3 days.

I have several more to tell you about, and I’ll pass that info on once I have all the details.

-M

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Big Changes

Posted in art, Festivals and Shows with tags American Craft Council, art, contemporary, craft, mixed media, show on April 13, 2011 by candlesandghosts

You may have noticed a new look for the blog- I figured it was about time. I felt like it wasn’t looking as good as it could/should and so I’m in the process of making some changes. The most obvious change will be the size of images. Aside from making the page larger, I have also almost doubled the image sizes. I hope this makes them easier to see. I’m also tweaking a few other things, so if things change slightly over the next little bit, don’t be surprised.

Here’s an image of the booth from the American Craft Council show in Baltimore in February. Overall, it was a wonderful show, and we will certainly do it again next year.

If you want to see the best in contemporary and traditional craft this is the show to visit.

Until next time,

-M

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Winter Show Season And Other Things

Posted in About My Work, art, Art Happenings, Festivals and Shows with tags art, artfest, Florida, Ft. Myers, mixed media, show on April 11, 2011 by candlesandghosts

Yes I know we are technically heading into Spring, but I thought it might be a nice time for some updates-especially considering how much has gone on. We had a really successful fall show season which was great, but it left me with quite a dilemma…I had a number of upcoming shows scheduled, but literally almost no new work for them. So, the day after Christmas I set to work at a frantic pace; the advantage to working like that was that I had little time to over think and had to create more on impulse. As a result, I feel my imagery became more bold, and in some ways more abstract, but I’m quite happy with where its heading. I’ve also begun working with a number of new elements which I feel has given the work more punch.

First some images of some of the new work:

“Treeline”

“Big Wheel”

“Three and One”

“Balance I”

“GXM”

The piece “GXM” I’m really excited about because it was made using my new large format Epson printer.

The first show of the season was ARTfest Ft. Myers in Ft. Myers, Florida. I can say that aside from being a nice location, there wasn’t much else about the show to rave about. For us, it was a terrible show in terms of sales, but most everyone around us seemed to be doing well. Go figure.

Otherwise we had a very nice time-

Jeremia was making new friends as always

and the downtown area of Ft. Myers was particularly beautiful. I especially like this great piece of public art outside of the art museum there, and the way it reflects light and casts shadows.

I’ll have to continue this in the next post, Kristina and Jeremia are beckoning me to go with them for a trip to Home Depot, so who am I to argue. I practically keep the place in business.

Until next time,

-M

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