7-day backup!

Seven days ignoring all WordPress posts. That will put you way behind when you finally get enough of a breather to try to catch up on your reading. And I can’t even remember what all I’ve done since my last blog post some two weeks ago, only that there was a lot of it, whatever it was.

There was a ton of prep work done to make some of my ancient paintings presentable for the Affordable Art Fair near Chicago on September 21 and 22. Somehow I managed to load 20 paintings plus a full-size art fair tent into my compact pickup truck and get it all to Chicago on a Thursday, set up on a Friday, and look chirpy and enthusiastic as the rain pelted us on Saturday and Sunday. In spite of that, I did sell three paintings on Saturday which got me my booth fees back and then some. Sunday was a literal “wash”.

Saturday, just cloudy till 4:30 PM when the deluge hit.

Sunday, unexpected bright sunshine until about 1PM, after which the rain never stopped.

This show did have some distinct advantages for exhibitors though. The main one being the ability to park your vehicle right behind your tent and leave it there for the duration. That makes setup and breakdown a lot quicker, and in this case that was of primary importance when breaking down in the rain. Nobody likes to break down in the rain because you have to pack up a wet tent and you can’t leave it that way–when you get home you have to unpack it and spread all the parts (in my case, four 10′ x 7′ walls and one 10′ x 10′ roof) out to dry so the whole thing doesn’t rot, glue itself together with dirt you picked up from the ground when you folded those huge sheets in the first place, or just get moldy. I’m really lucky because I have a huge 3-1/2 car garage that doesn’t have a lot of clutter in it. Ergo, plenty of room to spread things out.

So I get back on Monday, a 135 mile trip from Chicago, and have a meeting to go to in the evening. Have I ever mentioned the distaste I have for meetings? Tuesday I loaded up five paintings for the “Resiliency” exhibit at the Krasl Art Center in St. Joseph, Michigan. Then I went to see my horse, whom I hadn’t seen since my last riding lesson on the previous Wednesday. Poor thing, she must not have missed me much as she was in a “I just don’t wanna do it” riding mode when I got to the barn. She expresses her “I don’t wannas” by being a slug. Other horses might actively resist but she’s more of the passive-aggressive type. Anyhow, I digress. Thursday I had to head out early to pick up one rejected entry and be happy about my one accepted entry (YAY!) to the Midwest Museum of American Art in Elkhart, Indiana for their 41st regional exhibition. It’s a privilege to be participating in two prestigious shows at the same time, but here’s the rub–somehow they both managed to schedule their opening receptions on the same evening and I have not been able to clone myself yet. The Krasl reception is from 6PM to 8PM in St. Joseph, Michigan, and the MMAA one is from 7PM to 9PM in Elkhart, Indiana. No matter which way I travel (and Google maps gives 3 routes) it is a one hour and 2 minutes journey. Sooooo, I will go to Krasl from 6 to 7, hop in my car for an hour, and be at MMAA from 8 to 9. At least that’s the plan.

This went to Krasl:

This went to the Midwest Museum:

I spent the weekend and today creating a new website for Cass Area Artists. We’ll be migrating to a new web host at the end of the year, so the site has to be completely rebuilt. Have I mentioned how little I enjoy building websites? This one isn’t turning out to be any easier than the last time I redid my own site almost 5 years ago…for the third time. However, I think we’re really close so the only hurdle left is bringing the URL over to the new host. I hope it’s as easy as the new host has promised…