Thoughts on Art Fairs and Old Friends No Longer There

Sitting at   Briggsville Art in the Garden,
my  first time in 38 years -  north of Sturgeon Bay WI
Saturday September 21, 2013


THOUGHTS ON ART FAIRS
AND OLD FRIENDS NO LONGER THERE

It has been a while since I stuck my neck out to face the unknown in this way.  I  am an old Art in the Park  renegade, after trying this in 1975 while living in Fort Dodge, Iowa, I was discouraged with the results,  and instead spent the next 15 years as a co-chair for the event, behind the scenes gal, with the Fort Dodge Area Fine Art Council, I watched the art in the park event morph through several incarnations, from a free- for- all show for anyone (can you say clorox bottle piggy banks?), to a juried show that offered purchase awards and other enticements for the working artist.   I don't know if there is an art fair in Fort Dodge anymore.

Here in Door County, there are any number of public art events, and I have in the past participated in a few Door County Art League shows, but held back this year. and I usually have chosen not to participate in festivals, fairs and special public events, until this year when I was invited to be one of ten artists at a show at Briggsville Gardens. I sold something even before we opened to the public, and then  three more paintings found new homes as a result of this show. My first and only sales of the year.  I have renewed respect for those artists who do this for a living every weekend during the summer, the packing, the displays, the weather, the crowds, all variables in the day and the miles of driving, the promotions, the web sites, the marketing.  Makes me tired just thinking about it.

 I still call myself an artist, but I am not a pro, and I  admire those who can persevere through all things necessary to carry on.

 As a newly arrived senior citizen, I can now enjoy the meager earnings of my social security - that is helping pay for paint and other supplies, but the act of selling an art work, that is a rare moment for me, and it feels like the circle is complete,  saying a proper good bye to the work, it has a new home, I get some money, which helps me feel better about letting something go. Did I mention I hate to let go of my work, my scribbles, even old calendars, my archive of my daily life is  at times a burden, but then I look at a sketchbook or journal from a trip in 1993 and I re-live a moment in Scotland when I ate haggis,  or how the butterflies looked when they landed on the wet pavement...I look at a drawing I did in 2004 for an invitational exhibit, a drawing that I loved and no one bought, I am glad I still have that, even though its sitting in a closet right now. But what a great surprise to realize that I can still do an art fair, and enjoy it... thanks to Briggsville Gardens, and organizer Karen Lee DeNoto, it was a good day.

This has been a difficult year  all things considered, increasing mobility issues and now some vision concerns, plus some muses have passed to the other side, my friend Diane,  most especially, I will miss, and on a recent trip to Iowa and my home turf, I felt that gap that she left.  She was foremost in my mind when I decided to do the art fair this year.  She forged on with a plan for a huge solo show, and a smaller solo show at my art space last year, then passed away a few months later. I now think of this when I have a chance to do something, I think of her when I am making a decision . When I was visiting  in Jefferson last week for an all school reunion I stayed at a friends home, where Diane frequented. On the bathroom wall, this friend has encouraged her house guests to submit graffiti, and there on the wall was something Diane had written, 

"The reason for making art is  that there is no reason for making art"  that was Diane... and it made me smile. 

Diane Foster at Chez Cheryl Art Space in August of 2012, sitting with a few of her works

Door Prize for Portraiture, 4th annual event upcoming June 28- July 27...

LAST YEARS EVENT WAS A PERFECT NIGHT
THIS YEAR WE HOPE FOR MORE OF THE SAME

Winner Buttons Wolst
all smiles after her announced big win last year.

       Honorable Mention winner Mark Zelten-2012

Kirsten Christenson 

Just a few photos from LAST YEAR----- Door Prize for Portraiture party for the artists and their friends was a beautiful evening...

 Judge Graeme Reid at last years event...

PORTRAITS

The 4th annual Invitational Door Prize for Portraiture is starting to take shape, with a few works delivered early, I am excited about this annual event which Steve and I sponsor.  The farm house is transformed into a gallery space for the month of July, and  will be open to visitors a few days each week, for those who might be interested in the work, or  follow one of the 21 artists included this year.

Artists included are; Sharon Auberle,  Sister Bay WI, Ernie Beutel, Julia Van Roo Bresnahan from Baileys Harbor, WI,  Pam Clausen, from Kewaunee WI, Sharon Delvoye, from Green Bay, Sally Everhardus, Fish Creek, Lynn Gilchrist, Sturgeon Bay, Paula Swaydan Grebel, Plymouth WI, Emmett Johns From Albuquerque NM and Fish Creek WI., Ken Klopack, Chicago , Liz Maltman, Fish Creek, Mary Ulm Mayhew, Newburg, WI, Tim Nyberg, Stillwater MN, Randy Rasmussen, Sturgeon Bay, Rick Risch, Sturgeon Bay, Suzanne Rose, Kohlberg, WI Stephen Titra, Evanston , IL, Cynthia Wolfe, Baileys Harbor, Archelle "Buttons" Wolst, Sturgeon Bay, Jeff Young, Green Bay and Mark Zelten, Green Bay... Though I have been drawing portraits weekly for the the winter months, I opted out this year, making room for one more artist.

This collection of artists includes a few new names each year, with a handful of returning friends as well. It will be commemorated with a party for them and a guest judge, Graeme Reid, Director of Exhibitions at the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend WI will once again offer comments and observations on the exhibit, and give awards to Best in Show and two honorable mentions.  We have been doing this event out of a love of the  genre, after seeing an amazing portrait show at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney Australia, where they hold an annual event called the Archibald Prize. Though our little space and small exhibit is a far cry from the scale of the Archibald, it is a great little exercise in curatorial  duties, affording me an opportunity to "play museum  curator" in my retirement, allowing me some networking opportunity with  area artists I admire.

 All manner of media can be considered but most of the work is 2-D paintings, drawings and photos, found object, collage, and we are open to other materials such as wood, clay and glass.  Each year we have extended an invitation to about 20 artists, some get dropped and new ones come in to the list, that list is growing and  we hope to continue the event so that everyone on that list will eventually have opportunity to do a piece.   Each artist who answers the invitation  pays $20, which in turn pays for printing and mailing a beautifully designed announcement card. That card usually features last year's winner of the Door Prize.  The winners receive a cash award, and we have a nice array of food and drink for the party-goers. Every year we have had spectacular weather, no bugs, and glorious sunsets.  I am posting with this blog a few photos from last year's event. We hope our readers will enjoy it and find their way to  Chez cheryl Artspace in late June.

Selected works, then and now

Hickey Brothers Fish Market- Baileys Harbor WI

There has been a fair amount of activity in the studio this month, with painting on a nearly daily basis,  if I could get through the hip deep snow, Steve was able to blow it clear for me, and I spent the days  unwrapping and flattening the rolls of work Steve brought back from Australia. It was work accumulated and left there for years, stored in our car, in a shed, untouched and unseen for a long time, and I forgot I had painted some of the sultry studies of rain forest views. Australiana has been on my mind, but I have also been focusing on finishing up a few pieces started here last summer and fall.  

The red building in the top painting is on property owned by Hickey family, who have a commercial fishing business. I don't know much about the history of this place but the old building and array of ropes, boat accessories and fishing net supplies  attracted me, as well as hundreds of other artists I am certain, through the decades they have been  in business.  This painting was started on site then photographed and finished in the studio over the winter months.

Bromeliad Pathway 2005-06?

Probably done in 2005, water soluble oil on paper, View of the path and hilltop near our cabin-

With apologies for the flash glare here, this is a foggy view of our  rain forest in Gooonengerry New South Wales, the flora and fauna  was dominant in my daily routine, we lived there for each southern summer season, for nearly a decade before selling it. The place changed my life and my perspective. I was amazed at the colors when I unwrapped these studies. Its good to have them back.   I savor the time spent there, and am able to travel back to the moment at which I stood there, leeches inside my socks, the spectre of a brown snake in the bushes, and kookaburra, currawong and tiny fairy wrens surrounded me.  These painted sketches on canvas paper serve as a vehicle for my life's memories. 

Watercolor pencil studies that did get rained on, done from the porch annex on our caravan, 2007

Staghorn Pathway- Goonengerry NSW 2007(?)

 Our Staghorn lined path into the rain forest, which is really mostly eucalypt trees, it is called a dry littoral rain forest, there are some species of rain forest tree there, but the lantana and camphor laurel tend to take over, non native invasives sucking up the water, but our forest had staghorns and orchids and Davidson's Plum and all manner of bromeliads, huge and small. There was always something blooming in there. We would awake to the thump of a wallaby moving up the path, and go to sleep at night often with the sound of a male koala, bellowing away for a female to accept him.

It is my hope to remount these paintings and studies,  and  sometime in the late summer, will host a small exhibition of the work, presented as a  cohesive body of work, Australiana

June Blossoms 2008

Spring Fever or Cabin Fever

It is St Patrick's Day and we had a few snow showers this afternoon. The finches coming to the feeders  betray the weather, with a glimmer of yellow gold coming through on their feathers after months of winter drab.  I have not visited my blog for nearly two months.  The time has flown, Steve  departed and returned after a month of travel in Australia, I  happily endured the snow days and snow plows and kept the chickens fed, the dog walked, and tried to keep up with the increasing blanket of snow on the deck.   I attended art critiques, book club,  spoke as part of panel at the Miller Art Museum, swam at the Y, did gourmet ladies who lunch on a very frigid day,  worked on a new landscape, and two more still life studies, finishing several works which will be posted here later. So just when I think the winter is slow and uneventful, I look back and suddenly its spring, even the new arts guide is out for the season.   Now we have daylight savings time and talk of sand hill cranes returning.  I need to prune raspberries, get some paintings framed,  clear out the spider webs and get  going with a few projects including my garden and possibly some new hens in the coop.

 Here are some firm plans for the coming season at Chez Cheryl Art Space this year;

• June 27 Private party for artists  and friends of artists, participating in Door Prize For Portraiture 
• June 28 through July 27 Open to the Public on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday through the month of July,  11-4 each day, or by appointment. Invitations will be going out later in the spring, early summer.  I will have 21 artists this summer as part of our tribute to the portrait, Door Prize for Portraiture was conceived after one of our last trips to Australia together back in 2009. The Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney Australia was so mind-blowing, we wanted to do our own scaled down version here, so this year will be the 4th annual show.  I will write more about this at another time. 
• August- open by appointment
• September workshop    Ken Kloplack
• September workshop with Emmett Johns in Plein Air Painting
• Dining for Open Spaces, a Private Dinner Event for Door County Land Trust October 11
• date to be announced holiday open house and exhibition of work by Cheryl

GINGKO DUET

waterbased oil on canvas

2011

on exhibit at the Peninsula School of Art Annual Winter Salon, Fish Creek WI 2013

SEPTEMBER WORKSHOP 2012

JANUARY FREEZE

The furnace at the farm house quit yesterday. This means the studio is cold, and while the sun may be shining out there, the frigid countryside is both brilliant and brutal. The oil paints are still sitting out, but they might do better inside the insulation of the oven in the kitchen until a new furnace gets installed next week.

This 100 year old farm house is a dream for me, after living in various houses by myself  since 1989,  I got used to a space of my own. Even after Steve and I got married and moved to a cabin along the  rustic road  of Glidden Drive ten years ago; we down sized, sold things, stored things and eventually lived in a 28' travel trailer in a camp ground every summer, spending winters in Australia, living in a cabin in the sub tropical bush.  This went on for about six years.

  Australians who have not been off their island probably can't imagine the challenges of a northern climate in January, and many question the sanity of our decision to stay  here rather than continue the annual migratory path down under. The  truth is I love a good snowstorm and the isolation and beauty I witness as I gaze across the frozen lake is as inspiring to me as the warmth of the Australian  holiday season. I realize we have other worries now, like pipes freezing, plants that I have nurtured these last 4 years, suddenly  exposed to the hazards of a broken down furnace.  We keep the farm house as a workspace for  me and the place is a sanctuary of  quiet, when the lake noise of summer tourists gets too  annoying.  The farm house is most of all, my space for my thoughts to ramble, to play with materials, to sort  through the odd collection of stuff,  as well as a place to display my own art and feature others during special times through the summer season.

 Workshops in painting and drawing, art critiques and other special events  that somehow find their way to me, offer a chance for us to share our love of the place, the wonderful views, the  light, the geography of the place,  all of this has enhanced my life and level of creativity. So investing in a new furnace seems like a small thing, compared to all that the place gives to me.

SO  OUT INTO THE NIGHT WE GO SNOW OR NO SNOW

Last night we attended the Peninsula School of Art  Annual Salon, floor to ceiling art work, with my friend Renee Hilgers winning the Peoples Choice Award for her massive  assemblage  of a haunted house. It was her first time to exhibit at this event and I was not surprised to hear her name called when they announced the winners for top three peoples choice awards.  There was a raging blizzard off and on outside, cars parked in every spot in the parking lot spilling out into the street; the place was packed, the food tables  looked like a plague of locusts had moved through, the live music was happening, and people were having a good time.   It would take more than a little snow and wind to keep these people home.  I have lived here a while and know a lot of people, but have to admit there were many new faces, many I did not know, in fact, I am getting old and the crowd last night, was definitely getting younger. This is a good thing.

I received some encouragement last night as I was removing my art to take it home, as we are supposed to do at the end of the evening. A young man was lingering with his companion, in front of my work, and he complimented me - said it was beautiful, and since the work was a new direction for me, abstract diptych  of gingko leaves and  earth colored forms, it was all I needed to confirm my thoughts about what to do next. A little compliment, a nice word given at the right time is often all that is needed. A sale would be ok too but just the fact that someone else enjoyed the work was good.  So Chris, if you are reading this, thanks.   That  made my night, and we loaded up and took off shortly  after 9pm, into the night, filled with worry about the furnace, and the swirling mess of snow in front of our headlights, positioning the car  somewhere in the middle of the road, in a white out blizzard, 15 minutes later, we were home safe on Kangaroo Lake Rd. Hoping that everyone else made it home too.