So I Gathered...

When the Cats Are Away...

So, I had the house to myself from Saturday until Tuesday afternoon.  What did I do with all of that space?  Did I revel in having the king-size bed to myself?  Play my music as loud as I wanted?  Nope.  I did this...

 

Plopped everything down in the middle of the floor so I could work.  I didn't have to worry about being in anyone's way except my own!  Just had to keep in mind where I left that X-acto knife...

 

Even the kitchen was taken over!  For whatever reason, I always tend to do my gluing in there...

 

 

I am trying to get ready for an art fair in San Antonio this week...I was waitlisted for the Austin Fine Arts Festival that happens this weekend...very disappointing.  Here are a few works in progress...I apologize for the poor quality...couldn't get good lighting...

Gertrude merely skimmed the chapter on pulling an outfit together (the book says "Fashion 101)  She is holding an antique button and standing on a vintage zipper

 

She was a royal pain

 

They were wanted for racketeering (they also seem to belong to the Marge Simpson hair club-I didn't want do mess that up by putting crowns on them!)

 

Get the Lead Out

 

And Sew On   (The little metal containers are vintage sewing kits.  This piece is special to me because it has 'Austin' in the title and 'Lone Star' on one of the kits.  Plus these wings are always a favorite!)

 

Last week I played around with making some mock-ups of prints from older boxes.  Here are a few of my favorites...

 

 

 

 

I posted a bunch more on my Flickr site under "Prints".  Well, I guess it is time to get back to work...

Hodge Podge Post

So I hope everyone enjoyed their Easter weekend!  A few photos to share of the goings on at our house...

Making cupcakes from scratch to take to our family get-together...

 

Everyone knows what the best part is...

 

You know it was good if you end up wearing it!  Or are her testosterone levels out of whack and she is sporting 5 o'clock shadow...

 

Thankfully, there was enough batter left to make some cupcakes!

 

Paul agreed to be Littlest Pet Shops transport because Fiona had her hands full...  I could really embarass him by making some comment asking about the rabbit in his pocket but I shall refrain...

 

On the hunt...

 

Fiona spied an egg on the back porch and rather than waste the time going around to the stairs (where she might lose out to her cousin!), she did her best SpiderMan impersonation and went right up the wall! 

 

 

 

And now to share about the Woodlands Waterways Art Festival...

I hadn't been out north of Houston since I had lived there from '93-'99.  I used to attend concerts at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion.  Now they have built in these beautiful waterways with lovely bridges, sculptures, parks and all of the amenities.  It was a beautiful area.  We pulled in that  Friday afternoon to set up.  Fiona was with us, and she oversaw our efforts with no trouble, giving us encouragement along the way about what a good job we were doing.  It was pretty funny and I think she liked being included in what mommy was doing.

They had a VIP event that evening before the festival that weekend.  Paul and I walked into the lobby of the Mariott hotel/convention center and were overwhelmed by the sounds of drumming and the sight of people dressed up in Asian dragon costumes!  I thought we were at the wrong event!  It was very cool!

 

How do they determine who gets to be the back end?

 

 

 

They had  lovely buffet and even an ice sculpture...very swank.  The food was great and the bar was open!

The artists were asked to donate a piece of art valued at $150 or more, so I did.  I went to check out the auction and my piece didn't have a tag in front of it like everyone else.  I tracked down a member of the committee and she checked her file and it was right there on top!  I am glad I took a look, otherwise it would have been nameless and no one would have known which booth I was in. 

They had an "art dash" were people paid $100 for a dash ticket, then their name was put in a lottery.  Names were drawn at random and the person had 60 seconds to pick out a piece of art from over 100 pieces. 

Some people knew exactly what they wanted and made a beeline, while others freaked under the pressure and couldn't make up their minds.  I suppose having someone follow you around with a stopwatch can be a bit disconcerting...  It was entertaining for a bit (as an artist), then I started having flashbacks to elementary school where  I was feeling like the kid that was going to get picked last for the kickball team.  I know art is subjective, but still...it is hard watching your work get bypassed time and time again. 

Paul said we didn't have to stay until the bitter end, but I did want to meet the person who chose my piece, so I stubbornly stayed (had another glass of wine), even as about 3/4 of the pieces had gone.  Finally, a woman went in and went straight to my box and picked it up.  When she turned around, I had a bit of a shock...it was the Brenda Gottlieb, the director of the art festival!  I went over to chat with her and she and her husband, David, were  very complimentary and said how they had had an eye on the piece ever since the set up the day before.  Way to pull the ol' ego out of the fire!  It was a very nice compliment and I appreciated their patronage.

 

I got up early the next day to make it to the show to set up.  It was very pleasant...ducks chuckled to themselves as they paddled by and the water made soft slapping sounds against the retention wall...

 

My booth backed up to the water, so I got to see the floating parade first hand...especially since they broke down right behind my tent and I almost went insane hearing some disco song over and over again from one of the floats.

The day was beautiful and lots of people were out...I was right across from the featured artist, so we seemed to get quite a bit of traffic through the area. 

I had one lady come in who was upset that she had been one of the last names called during the dash and my piece was already gone.  So she bought two from me...  A good friend of mine that I hadn't seen in several years stopped by and we had a good catch-up chat.  A man came in and read the article I had hanging...he turned and said, "You went to TAMUG?  Wait!  I know you!"  Only people who went to Texas A&M University call it TAMUG, so I realized I recognized him too!  He and his buddies were known around campus for their fishing and hunting activities and proved to be invaluable to me and my partner when we were collecting for our ichthyology lab semester project.  They taught us how to cast net and drove us to all sorts of places so we could have different types of fish.  Small world!  The event stayed open until 8 pm, which was tough, but it was pretty after dark...

 

Sunday was super windy and at one point my tent acted like a great big sail and the whole booth almost ended up in the water.  All in all, a good but exhausting weekend.  That is why it has taken me so long to catch up and post.  I spent yesterday working on cleaning up the house and the day before Easter we picked up my card catalog, so I had to move almost everything out of the studio and shove things around to get it in...

 

 

Now I have to figure out to get it all back in!  I hope to post again in a few days and show all of the fun things that I am getting to put away in all of the nifty little drawers!

Warrenton Wares

  So I woke up during the wee hours of last Thursday morning to thunder cracking above the house and the hissing sound of a torrential downpour.  This upset me greatly because I had planned on driving about an hour east of  Austin and attending one of the largest antique fairs in the nation centered around Round Top, TX.  I staggered into my studio to check the weather on the computer and the storms were supposed to move out by 9 am and be sunny and windy the rest of the day.  Yay! 

I made it to Warrenton, a small community outside of Round Top around 9:30.  As you drive in, the traffic slows along the two-lane highway and every pasture and property has sprouted tents like mushrooms!  To give you an idea of the sheer size of this event, Marburger Farms is an area farther up the road and it consists of 43 acres...and that is just one venue!  I parked in the Old Gin parking lot where the elderly attendant who has been there the last 3 years handed me my parking pass...a yellow Post-It with the number 23 on it.  High tech stuff!  After parking in a cow field (minus the animals, thank goodness!),  I made my way over to my favorite vendor, taking a few pictures along the way.  This post is going to have lots of photos, so grab a soda or a cup of coffee and stay for a spell!

 

Doll parts anyone?  These were all porcelain...

 

This vendor is from the midwest and has multitudinous boxes, trays and bins filled with game pieces, metal letters and numbers, keys (typewriter and otherwise) flashcards, paper ephemera, etc...then you go into their two other covered areas and find even more stuff!   You have to move boxes and trays around because they are all just stacked upon each other.  Honestly, I don't know how they cart all of this around and set it up!

     

 

 

She had deep bins of vintage Christmas ornaments...this one of silver mercury glass balls was my favorite!

 

I spent half of my allotted money with her...here are a few of my finds.  A bunch of vintage toy coffepots and teas sets, baby and measuring cups to put pixies in...

 

I'm a sucker for vintage dominoes and I fell in love with these...

 

plus they had a cool embossed dog (even though I am a cat person!)  image on the flip side!

 

A bunch of spoons...ice cream testers and baby spoons.  I love the alphabet blocks on the one and the pierced "Baby" on the other!

 

Vintage jacks, post numbers, game pieces, watch innards, etc...

 

Cool blocks and Bingo cards...

 

I couldn't resist these tiny doll bodies and these nifty sewing machine needle packages!  The little ice cream spoon is there to give you an idea of the diminuitive size...

 

I spent several hours there, then broke for an early lunch because once the crowds hit, the waits are very long, especially for restaurants like Royer's of Round Top, famous for their pies.  I placed my order and took my stuffed armadillo (yes, you read that right) to a picnic table.  The table markers were things like my armadillo, a very large sapphire blue sequined sombrero (which the gentleman wore to his table!), a Woody Woodpecker lunchbox and a large string of huge iridescent plastic spheres about 5 inches in diameter each.  Of course, to keep up my strength, I had to have a bit of pie...Tollhouse to be specific...and yes, the Diet Coke cancels out the pie!

 

I went back out to wend my way between permanent buildings and tents, always keeping an eye out for something interesting, on a path to Clutter.  Great name, huh?  I had been so disappointed to miss their grand opening the past Thursday, but I was setting up for the Bayou City Art Festival then.  My friend Sharon is part owner of this venue and cooks light victuals out of her Airstream trailer for their "tea" area.  I met Sharon (again) this past Christmas when she was a booth down from mine at the Blue Genie Art Bazaar here in Austin.  She looked so familiar and we finally figured out that we had been formally (and formerly!) introduced by a mutual friend earlier that year in April at the annual grand opening of Clutter.  Small world!  I love their set up because they always have very interesting and unusual items displayed cleverly. 

My favorite part though, is their walls strung with tie wire and packets of goodies clothes-pinned to the wire for display.

 

I found these fun things and quite a few antique bird prints and catalog pages from the turn of the century!

 

I also found these clay pipes and thought they would be fun in the bottom of a box!  I am not sure why, but these look like little sea creatures to me...

 

As I said earlier, tents and structures line the road for miles.  The rest of the time I spent wandering around and taking in the sights.  There is one area where all they sell are large architectural antiques...huge altars from chruches, glassed in structures, doors, arches, metal finials off the tops of houses, etc.  I found this guy with these boxes and boxes of cool,  silvered-glass apothecary bottles.  I wanted one (ok, several) quite badly, but they were a bit out of my price range.

 

I also covet anything with drawers, so here are a few things I found...this one was just gorgeous!

 

LOVE the triangular drawers!!!  For a mere $3500 it could have been mine...

 

This one was incredible because it had the little glassed-in display areas...it too was not cheap... 

So, here area  few more things I saw as I wandered for what must have been several miles...

 

The name of this store cracked me up!!!!

 

These are what the aliens use to get to Earth.  I have no idea what these are and couldn't find anyone to ask...wait, now that I look at the picture, are they street lights?

 

Have a seat...

 

I want one of these old cars I always see for my garden...

 

You see, they do have everything AND the kitchen sink!

 

At this show you can see gangs, I mean groups, of women walking around wearing matching t-shirts...this group was a bunch of lovelies with belly-dancing accent-wear around their hips.   They were attracting quite a bit of attention...I can't remember what the group name was...something "Gypsies", but not the Junk Gypsies, they are a whole other gang that drive a vintage pink SUV with a set of longhorn horns on the front...kinda like Boss Hog in the Dukes of Hazzard, but sassier...

 

Here are a few other finds for the day...

 

I adore old metal scissors...I might have to keep the top pair for myself!

 

I think I mentioned earlier that I am a sucker for vintage Christams glass ornaments, especially the mercury glass ones when the inner coating has crazed and cracked...

 

 

 

I also found this wonderful ampersand to add to my collection of channel letters...right after I sand off that hideous kelly green!

 

All in all, a fantastic day!  The wind was fierce all day long, gusting up to 20 and 30 mph.  It made for some nerve-wracking moments as one wondered if the walls you were standing within were going to come down on top of you or how that lovely architectural antique might fall over and squash you.  I went to the show with wet hair and I must have had my back to the wind the entire time because when I happened to catch my reflection in an mirror a few hours later, my hair was standing straight up and I looked like I had been dragged backwards through a hedge!  But I had fun and even returned home with a bit of money in  my pocket!

A Weekend at the Bayou City Art Festival

So I finally have some time to sit down and post about the Bayou City Art Festival in Memorial Park in Houston!  It was a crazy time trying to prepare for it, then set up and participate in it!  We drove into Houston on Thursday and managed to get the tent up before the rain started.  I have to say that I had forgotten how muggy it can be in Houston as a storm system moves through.  The sweat has no where to evaporate to!  Ick!  Of course, the drizzle turned into a deluge as we left.  As I drove down Memorial, I saw something fly off the top of my car and sail off behind me.  I called Paul who was right behind me, but the rain was so heavy that he hadn't seen anything.  It wasn't until the next day that I wondered where my metal sign created from a beautiful antique ceiling tin had gotten to.  @#(*&$^#$(*&#!!!

Anyway, the weather was a bit iffy on Friday, but sales were good.  Saturday and Sunday dawned fairly chilly (temps in the 40's!) but were just beautiful and record numbers turned out to enjoy the festival.  I sold lots of new prints and a fair number of boxes and pixies.  My friend Karen stopped by to show me the two metal fish she had purchased from my friend Michael Gilbert. 

 Mike cuts fish from old 55 gallon drums and cars with a plasma cutter.  I have been buying fish from Mike for at least 8 or 9 years.  I have a whole school!  He has invited me down for a play day and I really need to follow up on that!  I love metal!  I had already purchased a trigger fish cut from a Nissan something or other to give to Paul because he had traded in his Nissan sports car for a Ford truck stating that a child's seat wouldn't fit in the back and I could haul stuff to shows a lot easier!  He just showed up with the truck one day, having made the decision all on his own...and this was BEFORE we married!!  What a guy!

Here are a few shots of my booth and the festival...

 

 

 

This is Douglas.  We met at the Bayou City Festival Downtown last October.  He makes these amazingly intricate layered cut-outs of his photography and houses them in hand-crafted boxes.  He brought some photos of some finished pieces to show me and I truly hopes he continues along the path he is on!

As you can see, Memorial Park is a lovely venue.  I wasn't able to get out much to take photos of the show, sorry.  I had a view of majestic pine trees from my booth and the scent took me back to childhood visits to Livingston in the Piney Woods of East Texas where my mother's family is from.   This show is so much fun for me because I get to visit with friends new and old and enjoy soaking up the atmosphere that is created by the sheer quantity of phenomenal artists all hanging out in one place!

Of course, I did a bit of shopping myself.  I found this little guy and had to have him because he looked like a funny little bird...

 

And I absolutely fell in love with this artist's work!  Anthony Hansen makes stylized hearts and other large wall hangings from old cars.  My picture doesn't do the piece justice so check out his incredible website!  I seriuosly want to hang out in scrapyards with Anthony and Mike!

 

Susan, the media coordinator for the event, called me Thursday morning to tell me that the newspaper story I had interviewed for had made the front page of the weekend Preview section and then there was a 2 page spread inside!  We stopped in Columbus for lunch on our way to Houston and I made sure to stop by a gas station to pick up a few copies!  You can read the online version here.  It was rather cool to hear people start to pass by the booth then say, "Hey, this is the woman/girl/gal/artist that was in the paper!"   I missed the TV interview on Channel 2, though not for lack of trying.  We watched the news at 4, 5 and 6 pm on Thursday, but evidently the bad weather preempted regular programming.  It just reminded me why I don't watch the news...do I really need to know about all of the auto accidents, robberies and all of the other horrible things people do to each other?  I much prefer NPR on the radio...  Oh, and the interview did play on Friday while I was at the festival...

 

 

Here are a few of the new prints...

 

 

 

 

Young Ida Seriously Hoped It Wasn't Genetic...one of the few pieces I genuinely regret selling... 

 

 

Ok, enough lollygagging for me...back to cranking out some pixies to take to the Woodlands Waterways Art Festival this coming weekend.  I am hoping to get all of my work finished off tonight so I can sneak off to a huge antique fair that is taking place near Round Top this week!  If I do manage to make it there, I will post my finds and and a bit about the Woodlands festival next week!