6th Annual Holiday Market includes one-of-a-kind arts, crafts, and seasonal gifts. Sixty vendors will be selling jewelry, fiber, glass, ceramics, paper, painting, mixed-media, home décor, holiday gifts, and gourmet food vendors. Many of the artist's work can be seen in galleries around the U.S. Holiday Market is considered the top Holiday Market in the Chicagoland area.

I'll be at cherry Creek (denver) for the first time. Need help set up and take down. I can pay 25/hr. Not really heavy, but help is nice. July 1 9am, and July 4 about 6pm. total maybe 4-6 hours. email kr@kathyross3d.com.

Lots of us have been waiting to hear this. Who will (or possibly even can) replace Terry Adams as the CEO of the Cherry Creek Arts Festival in Denver? When Terry took over 14 years ago the organization was in very rough financial shape. An event of this scope needs a strong fiscally smart and responsible manager.

We were wondering if the job would go to Tara Brickell, the Associate Director, who has been acting CEO since Terry left a few months ago, but the new CEO, Chris Stevens seems to fit the bill very well for the event.

He has been a banker, a juror for the show, owned an art gallery, managed the arts and culture program at the Denver airport (I've seen some pretty great stuff there). He has lived in the community for two years which is probably important in order to continue the well-developed relationships between the festival and the community.

He joins the staff just a few weeks before the festival - a big job looms ahead for him.   

Welcome to Art Fair World, Chris! 

Even if you don't do "top tier" events the art festival business needs blockbuster events like Cherry Creek to keep the level of art on the streets high. A high tide raises all boats.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28374949/chris-stevens-lands-ceo-job-at-cherry-creek

After retiring from teaching art for 32 years i have had the chance to get back into the studio. Last year I did three shows. Two were inside and the one outdoor show provided a tent for "emerging artists". So this June will be the first outdoor show on my own.  I purchased an eze up 10x10 tent last fall when eCanopy had some great sales. Used it Winterfair Columbus, an indoor show, worked great.  But I have not yet purchased/made weights that I will need for the June show.  This show is on parking lot surface so the tent can not be staked, just weights. I need some advice on weights to secure the tent. How many pounds? How to best tie to the tent? do I purchase the weights? Do I make something of my own? Would appreciate any advice.

September 13 & 14
Deer Park, Illinois
Deer Park Town Center
Sat. 10am-5pm; Sun. 11pm-5pm
80 Exhibitors maximum
Deadline: June 1

This juried fine art festival takes place in the thriving Deer Park Town Center.  The festival is held around a charming gazebo in the center of everything.  The average home value in Deer Park and the surrounding areas is $850,000!  There are, on average, 40,000 visitors to this lifestyle center every weekend.

The Village of Deer Park and DDR Corp are thrilled to host this 3rd year, artist focused festival and are committed to its success. Deer Park Town Center is a high end lifestyle center. In addition to the amazing shopping experience, the center offers a spa, book store, restaurants, high end retailers and electronics store. 

Our commitment to artists includes:

• Aggressive marketing campaigns-print, radio, posters and internet
• Shows located in areas of high income and traffic
• Best of Show and First Place Awards
• Professional jury and judging with enforcement of all Standards and Rules
• Overnight Security-contracted through a professional security company
• End of show feedback survey to help us continually improve the artist experience
• Discounted hotel options
• Drive to spaces for easy load in and out
• Free day and overnight parking, booth sitters, cold bottled water delivered to your booth, indoor restroom facilities
• Continental breakfast both days plus afternoon snacks

• Jury fee: $35, Booth fee: $300 (10x10) 
  
  

Learn more: DWEvents.org

Apply on line:  www.Zapplication.org

or: paper application

Our Tradition continues...The Art League of Lincoln has renamed the former clay art show and competition held annually at the Gladding McBean Clay company as “AMERICA’S CLAYFEST at Gladding McBean”  This show is celebrating 25 years of clay competition at the historic Gladding McBean Clay Manufacturing Company in Lincoln, California. Our juror, world renowned ceramic artist, Richard Shaw, will be selecting the works that will be shown on site at the Gladding McBean property, inside one of the historic beehive kilns and in the historic architectural design studio. This prestigious show has traditionally had entries from all over the United States, Canada, Mexico and Asia. All clay artists are invited to submit entries. Deadline is February 4th 2013...See our web page www.all4art.net for a Prospectus and Entry

April 20-May 27
Lincoln, California
"A clay art show and competition"
Presented by the Art League of Lincoln, CA, a non-profit corporation

Gladding McBean Clay Manufacturing Company
601 7th Street, Lincoln, California
Deadline: Feb. 4, 2013

Finally got there. I was like getting to the grand buffet and finding only a few slivers of beat up melon.  

For example: 

Ann Arbor State Street.  

Tuesday night an artists' dinner is held, we had the "privilege" of sitting with the Mayor and the show organizer. Tom, the show organizer, boosted that his was the only show that would allow stores to have street booths and that Urban Outfitters would do more than $250,000 during the four days of the show. That is $1/4 million that wasn't spent on art. That was only one vendor.

Consideration should be given to renaming the event the Ann Arbor Flea and Art Market.

Sunday took us to Appleton, WI's Art at the Park. A couple of years ago, they moved the show from being on the park grass, to being on the street around the park. This was done because of wet grounds from a lot of rain that year. They have continued to keep the exhibitors on the street, which works out very well. For some strange reason, last year was a rough year in sales at this show for many artists. I am glad to report that this year, our sales were up 300% over last years sales. The crowd is very engaged in art. And this year, they were back to buying art. In addition, the Trout Museum has a new Director. She has only been "on the job" for 10 weeks. She personally came into our booth and thanked us for providing an item in the auction. That was very nice. We love the Appleton Show and look forward to returning next year for our seventh year.

All of you who love the Ann Arbor Art Fair, here is your last chance to visit with and collect the photography of stalwart original Guild members Ruth and Walter Pinkus at this month's Ann Arbor Art Fair. They've been in the business longer than many of us and as the Ann Arbor media roll out their stories about the fairs they've included a wonderful article about Ruth and Walter in the Ann Arbor Journal.

Couple to sell their photography for last year at Ann Arbor Art Fairs

This is an excellent capsule of the art fair life. Walt, who was employed at the University's Physics Lab, and loved photography, grabbed a booth in those early days and he and Ruth (both active in the Ann Arbor Camera Club) became fixtures at the show, as well as instrumental in the development of The Guild of Artists (formerly the Michigan Guild.)

Read the article and experience some of the adventures they've had as they battled weather, the economy, credit card fraud, vehicle breakdowns, belly dancers, famous politicians and so much more. A great summation for their career: "We'll miss the stimulation, but not the crises."

See you on the road Ruth and Walt. It's been a great trip!

Congratulations to John Costin**, winner of the $10,000 Best of Show Prize at the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival. Best of show is awarded for the artist's whole body of work. Here is a representative Big Bird Drawing by John Costin.

Also to John and Shirl Parmentier for the Morse Museum Award for a Distinguished Work of Art, $2500.

At Winter Park the judges make the rounds of the booths and choose pieces to be removed from the booth to be judged altogether in a gallery space.

Winter Park is generous with awards and there are lots of winners. Here are the rest:

10 AWARDS OF EXCELLENCE ($2000)
Painting - Matthew Cornell, Orlando, FL
Jewelry - Lauran Sundin, Concord, NH
Wood - Thomas Dumke**, Oconomowoc, WI
Fiber - Amos Amit** Los Angeles, CA
Clay - Becky Lloyd & Steve Lloyd Clyde, NC
Wood - Matthew Hatala** Danielsville, GA
Glass - Scott Amrhein** Sherwood, WI
Photography - Mark Mackinnon** Millbrook, NY
Fiber - Sandy D'Andrade Red Hook, NY
Fiber -  Xiao Xia Zhang Minich & Patrick Minich, Cleveland, OH

20 AWARDS OF DISTINCTION ($1000)
Sculpture - John Whipple Winter Park, FL
Photography - Cali Hobgood** Urbana, IL
Jewelry - Patricia Karnes** Winter Park, FL
Painting - Charles Gatewood** Phenix City, AL
Jewelry - Kim Koch Oshkosh, WI
Clay - William Kidd Miramar, FL
Jewelry - Pam Fox** Sarasota , FL
Mixed Media - Rasa Pranckunaite & Algis Keburys Astoria, NY
Glass - Mark Sudduth Cleveland Hts., OH
Wood - Don Carter Longwood, FL
Drawings & Graphics - Jody Depew Mcleane Eagle River, WI
Fiber - Jill Wagoner Fuquay-Varina, NC
Fiber - Candiss Cole**-Footitt & Rodger Footitt Sedona, AZ
Clay - Brian Beam Fulton, MI
Jewelry - Sana Doumet & Munir Doumet Clearwater, FL
Glass - Chris McCarthy St. Louis, MO
Wood - Donald Boudreau Hollywood, FL Ebony
Clay - Michael Kahn & Mieko Kahn Greenbush, MI
Mixed Media - Paul Andrews Charlotte, NC
Clay - Shadow May Chattanooga, TN

Jim & Shirl Parmentier - Winners of the Morse Museum Award

AWARD OF MERIT LIST ($500)
Mixed Media - David McKirdy Tampa, FL
Mixed Media - Jeff League Winter Park, FL
Mixed Media - Joe Decamillis** Birmingham, AL
Wood - Larry Roofner Windermere, FL
Sculpture - Kostas Ulevicius St. Petersburg, FL
Drawings & Graphics - Helen Gotlib Ann Arbor, MI
Jewelry - Jonathon Stopper Sarasota, FL
Watercolor - Russell Yerkes** Tarboro, NC
Wood - John Mascoll Safety Harbor, FL
Glass - Duncan McClellan** St. Petersburg, FL
Photography - Emerson Matabele New Orleans, LA
Photography - Robert Clibbon New Smyrna Beach, FL
Sculpture - Bill Secunda Butler, PA
Fiber - Miriam Carter Dublin, NH
Jewelry - Christian Butera Apopka, FL
Clay - Mark Knott Suwanee, GA
Painting - Jon D Smith Naples, FL
Sculpture - Trent Manning Winter Haven, FL
Jewelry - Rick Austin Inverness, FL
Drawings & Graphics - Edson Campos Winter Park, FL
Leather - Horace Thomas** & Shawn Thomas Belton, TX
Jewelry - John Ruff & Carolyn Ruff Springfield, MO
Watercolor - Randy Eckard Blue Hill, ME
Painting - Bruce Peeso Monson, MA
Drawings & Graphics - Ron Hoyle Lees Summit, MO
Clay - Michael Schwegmann** Champaign, IL
Fiber - Mary Sly & Dan Wyatt Friday Harbor, WA
Clay - Marti Mocahbee Staunton, VA
Clay - Vadim Malkin Orlando, FL
Drawings & Graphics -Heinrich Toh Kansas City, MO 

**Members of AFI - including Best of Show! Woo hoo!

Welcome to the Cooper studio, where we've predetermined to talk again about the summer art fair. 

 Aaaah, sunny days, the green grass of the park scattered with cute little white tents, happy artists selling their fine art....

Oh wait.  How much of that line is fiction?  Imaginary?  Delusional? A sham?

I've spent quite a bit of research time lately on the topic of the "fine art fair".  Some of them have a heck of a history.

Every time I looked up one of the grandaddy art fairs, and was able to find their mission statement, they all seemed to have something in common.  Some examples for you to peruse:

---Wanting to create an event where local artists could showcase their work to the community, Womer established the first 57th Street Art Fair in 1948

---The Annual Edmonds Arts Festival began in 1957.  The mission then as now, was to celebrate and promote the arts with a lively and pleasurable presentation of local and national work.

---It all began one hot Chicago summer in the early 80's when four neighborhood artists (Bob Smeltzer, Joe Kotzman, Tony Cachapero and Rodney Patterson) decided to have an art fair--a picnic in the park.  Rodney suggested that it might be a good opportunity for local artists to show and share their work to each other and to their neighbors. 

Did you catch the commonality?  They are all working to showcase the art, to friends, neighbors, community.  To "celebrate and promote the arts".  So how did we get from that, to this:

---Art Fair has become both tired and tiresome.  It's held in the absolute hottest part of the summer.  The prices are ridiculous and most of the so-called art is schlock.  How many times can you mill through the crowds viewing the same old fare every year?

--Taken from a news article about parking garage revenue during the AnnArbor Art Fair, but certainly not a unique thought amongst art fair patrons.

What jumps out at you from that comment?   Maybe the SO-CALLED ART IS SCHLOCK?

Shortly before reading the comment, I read another--this one a discussion at ArtFairInsiders regarding (of course) lackluster art fair sales, and various artists comments about if they would be exhibiting at art fairs next year.  One artist said even with poor sales, she was not quitting.  She would "cobble together" something that would sell. 

What happened to celebrating the arts?  Showing our work to the community?  If the purpose of an art fair is to showcase our work to the community, shouldn't we be showing our best? 

(here comes the politically incorrect part)  Are you an artist, or not?  Are you being delusional in calling what you exhibit at an art fair ART? Ouch.  I suggest if you are cobbling something together that you think will sell, adding to the patron impression that the "so-called art is schlock", then maybe it's time to re-think your game plan. 

There's always a discussion out there somewhere about "what art is" and there are a bazillion different answers.  I suggest that "schlock" is not one of them.  I also suggest that if you are cobbling together something to coax a twenty dollar bill out of some art fair patron's pocket, that something is not art either.  The summer art fair is not dead, but it has been seriously injured.  Injured by artists who have put grabbing a buck, in front of creating their art.  Yes, we all have to make a living, but we'll do it best by keeping our priorities straight.  Art fairs were created to showcase and celebrate art, not schlock.

If you are an artist planning on exhibiting at an art fair next summer, I'm asking you to bring your art.  Bring your BEST art.

Later, Cooper

The past few months I've become more aware of a disturbing trend that seems to be on the rise-breaking into artists' booths at night.  I'm dwelling on this now by the cozy light of a campfire in nowhere, Rhode Island and a cold one in hand, and I'm...puzzled? vicariously violated? utterly astounded? all of the above? -by the fact that people are desperate enough to steal from the starving.  OK, most of us here debunk the myth of the starving artist (I hope) but, let's face it, society in general does not view us as the movers and shakers.  Our work doesn't command that much on the resale market, if you can call it that.  So what are these lowlives looking for when they invade booths at night?

I was in Setauket, Long Island last weekend- a nice little village on the North Shore of stately historical registry homes, estates- your typical upper middle class neighborhood.  This was a show in its 46th year, no fly-by-night venue.  Out of all the cities I've been in over the past 3 months, this was the last place I would have expected to encounter such an egregious violation of one's hard work.  Hell, when I grew up here, we didn't lock our doors at night.  Call me naive, but I never thought of artwork as inherently stealable unless it's a Thomas Crowne Affair.  Let me clarify, I know I'm walking a thin line here.  I know jewelers who have been stalked and robbed at gunpoint, but what I'm talking about is non-precious metal/jewel art that can't be melted down or resold to a pawn shop.  My paintings really don't have much value to the average scumbag, and I'm ok with that.  I'm really disturbed that this happened in an upscale village to the extent that it did.

Many artists arrived Saturday morning to find that, at the very least, their booths had been violated and work had been moved around.  The worst was a painter who had $4000 worth of work stolen.  What was appalling was the show's response to her, which was to brush her off and refuse her request to pack up and leave.  Show security?  I didn't give it much thought before this show, but Framer Dude (who missed his calling as a detective or bounty hunter) has always done a late night walk through to test security and deemed this patrol as lacking, along with several others we have done.  I realize that shows have only a certain amount of dollars to divide up, and perhaps they too are guilty of the same naivety and complacency that I am-that art shows are not big on the hit list.  But this show's layout was a prankster's or a thief's field day- one older gent for security, a dark street, and a row of booths that twisted around through the woods, with a bar in the middle.

My point here is not to lament the evils of the world.  I'm not that much of a rube or a whiner.

I want to pass on a tip that may thwart would-be thieves- who are probably low tech and seeking easy, unsecured targets.  Framer Dude and I take out stock in zipties, also known as cable ties at Home Depot, for setting up the booth.  These have a multitude of uses and we discovered a new one when we sat down and thought about how to make the booth less accessible at night.  When we close the zippers down, we now use a zipties in the four corners and four side zippers, through the holes in the zipper toggles, and attach them to the legs and bottom poles.  I think most thieves are counting on easy access, quick in and out and won't waste the extra time or thought (if they have any after letting off their crackpipes) to tackle a booth that requires a pair of wire cutters to get into.  

Not a fail-safe, but at least it makes it a bit more difficult, rather than just unzippering the tent.  Of course, if they're crackheads, they might carry razor blades and slash their way through the sides, but I haven't thought of a way around that.  Perhaps I should leave my huge German shepherd in the booth at night?

Who would ever have thought that with thirty years of promoting fine art and crafts shows, we would have a new weather experience: - nickel sized hail and over three inches of rain in less than two hours. Rain and wind, yes, many times, but a deluge that just didn’t move away - not when we were on site for set up. 



There we were at Brookdale Park in Bloomfield/Montclair, New Jersey. It was Friday afternoon with 90 out of 145 exhibitors checked in and set up.

By 3:30, as exhibitors arrived, we warned them of unstable weather in the area. The sun was still shining but there was constant thunder. Pretty spooky actually.

It was 4 pm when we ran for the truck when the lightening, thunder and wind kicked up; and saw on the radar that there was a large intense area of storms heading our way. We moved the truck behind the booth to help protect our Show Off canopy from the winds, but as we watched, one of the bars on the top moved and a dip in the roof occurred. A pool of water was created that kept growing and growing.



Howard braved the storm with an umbrella, hoping to push the pooling water over the side but it was too heavy. Ever the boy scout, he took out his knife and cringed as he cut a three inch slit in the roof, near a seam, to allow the water to drain. It was that or lose the legs of the canopy which were bowing inward.



Finally, some time after 6 pm, we were able to start inspecting the show site for damage. For the first time, I truly understood the term “flash flood” as we viewed one exhibitors booth isolated like an island in the middle of a lake with water rushing across the path creating another lake opposite the stranded booth. 

We spent the next two hours assessing the damage and were pleasantly surprised that by the time we got back to the first booths we checked, the water levels had receded remarkably and knew that by morning, all the booths would be fine.



We called the "island in the lake" exhibitor to tell her to be there early and that we would have employees on hand to help move her canopy and display. By morning though, all was fine except for a water line 12” up on the stranded exhibitor’s display cloths. Her new badge of survival from Friday’s deluge.



Mulch (thirty bags worth and three employees later) took care of tidying up the show site by the 10 am opening. We knew just how fortunate we were that Brookdale park drains amazingly quickly and well.



Two exhibitors lost their E-Z Up canopies due to the weight of the water on the roof. One important trick that many but not all E-Z up owners know about it using pool “noodles” or hula hoops in the corners of the canopy to create a more rounded roof thus fending off the water pooling that bends the frame. Fortunately, neither exhibitor had their work in the booth and the displays were unharmed. They were both appreciative of our 8 pm phone calls advising them of the damage so they could make arrangements to get alternate canopies for the morning.



The sun was out all weekend, with a warm and humid day on Saturday and a less humid day on Sunday. The crowds came in force and started to build by 10:30 on Saturday morning. 

Throughout the show, we kept reminding each other just how lucky we all were that the “deluge” came late Friday and not over the weekend.