More Reasons To Celebrate

As if having a successful art show and being on the cover of the paper wasn't enough reason to celebrate... we have a birthday in the house today!! My Jacob (aka Bee-Bop to Lauren) is ELEVEN today!! WOW, how can it be?!? It was so funny, Jacob was asking me this morning as I was making his specially requested pancakes, "What were you doing right now when I was born?" I told him that at 7:15am I was getting ready to go into the doctor's office because I had been up all night with severe back pain. I told him, I didn't go to the hospital until around 2pm. Lauren asked "but Momma, who is gonna take care of use when you are at the hospital?" LOL.

And now... the official recap of the show! (with a couple photos)I'll say off the bat that I am pretty tired, and it is a Monday morning, and I am pretty tired... so if I repeat myself or lose my train of thought or go off on tangents and forget what I was going to say, you'll just have to forgive me.


As you know, I set up Friday afternoon. The staff at the museum was AWESOME! They unloaded my van for me and had all my "stuff" to my spot in about 10mins. It took me about an hour and a half to set up the tables and arrange all the display stuff. Not bad for working by myself. (everyone was working so no assistants, aka my sister, was available to help for set up) I decided to go without the white swirly fabric table clothes on top of the black ones. It was distracting. I will still use it for outdoor shows, but for here, it wasn't the right fit. The displays really worked great!! I loved being in front of the window, the view and natural light was wonderful.


Friday night was the preview party. This was the view from my spot! Those paper lanterns were highlighting the silent auction that benefits the museum. In the center "pavilion" area were 4/5 other vendors. The main ballroom was up the stairs that were near that last big pillar. This is when we figured out that the traffic really wasn't going to naturally flow our way. People would come in the front door, wonder around the center pavilion, then head up the stairs... not knowing anyone was in the back corner. The museum put volunteers at that last big pillar to start directing people our way by Sunday morning, so that was nice.

Oh, those half mans on the floor? Yeah, those are from my booth neighbor. She was still setting up at 8:00pm when that preview party started at 7:00pm.


First thing Saturday morning, Bonnie and I did end up doing a quick booth rearrange. Actually, it was more of a maneuver then a rearrange. We pulled the tables back about two feet and lost about two feet of table space and our way in and out of the booth. If you look at the tiles on the floor, you see where the neighbor's tent leg is? Well, there was only one tile worth of a walk way before moving my tables. But hey, at least the trees were fake, so we didn't kill them when we smashed ourselves against them to get from behind the booth. (insert eye rolling here)

One of the highlights of the weekend was the dinner party we were treated to after the close of the show on Saturday. The homes of 5 or 6 of the Gallery Council member's homes were opened to vendors for dinner. We were invited to the home of Teddy Carr and her significant other, Mark. The other artists there were Nancy & Alex Solla of Cold Springs Pottery, jewelry artist Nancy Valle, and you aren't gonna believe this... the teapot guy, Eric Serritella! Eric and I talked about the Rochester Magazine article and had quite a laugh. He had wondered "who the heck is this?" when reading the weird quote they had from me. He was really down to earth, and it was great! There were two other artists there as well, but I am terrible with names. Sorry other mystery guests! Dinner was fantastic, the best roasted salmon I have ever tasted. And the conversation was even better. It was great to be at a proper dinner party. Ten guests gathered around a beautifully set table with gorgeous artwork on the walls and great talks over wine. Makes me wanna get myself invited to more of those!! LOL! Anyone having a dinner party soon?!?

I don't have any photos from Sunday, but Francie from JOOLZ stopped in to say HI and she posted a photo from Sunday on her blog. Sunday was the big artist presentation day. I was nervous and excited at the same time. The demo room in the Creative Workshop at the museum was set up theater style with rows of chairs. First thing I told people was they wouldn't be able to see if they were so far away, so I told everyone to gather up close around my table. At one point there were about 40 or so people packed around. I was asked lots of questions and we had a good dialog going over the roar of my little Hot Head torch. I think it went well, people laughed at my silly nervous jokes (I even joked about there being too many people and that was why my hands were shaking adding some raised dots to a disc, lol), and many people came up to me after to show to thank me for showing them what I do. Gallery staff told me it was great too. It is always a relief to get through things causing such nerves.

Sunday really flew by. I was packed up and heading home before I knew it. I can't wait till next year. I hope hope hope I get to be apart of the show again!!

Alrighty, that is the official recap. Time to get ready for the birthday boy's family party! Oh, and Luaren just informed me that her stuffed monkeys are getting married today. It should be quite an event.