Half a weekend in (or mostly near) a white tent

I suppose not just the Midwest, but most of the northern hemisphere, has been plagued with a heat wave of some sort since late spring. It was our turn here in Michigan this past Saturday, just in time for the fifth annual Cass Area Artists summer show. As one of the organizers of the event, I became a bit distressed as the 105° heat index that was forecast  caused a number of cancellation emails to arrive in my inbox the night before. Earlier I had sent out an encouraging email to all participants letting them know that the venue site always had a breeze, if not a stiff wind, blowing. And that if they had chosen a space in the covered pavilion they would be in the shade. Even if they had a tent, the setup was such that the tents faced toward the pavilion and they could just step across to the shade and still keep an eye on their booth. Then I prayed that the weather wouldn’t make a liar out of me…

Amazingly, those who showed up got to experience what turned out to be very similar to an ordinary summer day.

Nice shade to stroll and view art

See the wind whipping the tablecloth in the lower right corner?

One of our heat-defying exhibitors had this intriguing collection of hand made yard art, everything from glass wind chimes to huge flowers made from repurposed tin cans!

My booth was set up outside the southern end of the pavilion, which was kind of a strike against me in terms of heat–the wind was blocked from the sides. The sun pretty much stayed on the back side though, and really lit the booth through the top skylight.

The back wall got rearranged from the usual 3 canvases to 4. New red version of Sky Pads in the upper right corner.

My sunlit booth at the very end of the pavilion.

I had a special guest visit, probably related to the same special guest who visited my booth (scroll to the bottom of that post) back in 2017…

A mayfly–which after a year or so at the bottom of a pond–is born, mates, and dies all on the same day! They seem to think my lily paintings are real leaves–maybe for lack of education in such a short life?

First place, overall excellence

This must be my year for awards, which astounds me because until last year I hadn’t won anything since 2010. Because I’m friends with the judge for this event I had recused myself from award consideration. However, the judge insisted that I accept the award because my work was truly outstanding. I was still hesitant but decided that to make myself feel better (I was really concerned about bad optics of the situation) I would donate the money back to Cass Area Artists and just keep the ribbon and certificate. I didn’t even hang the ribbon up until too many people had asked me who got first place. Much to my relief everyone agreed that I deserved it, so I guess I can set aside my fears of unbridled cronyism for now! There are still two more shows for me this summer season, but thankfully they are a few weeks apart instead of every weekend. Hoping for uneventful events…