NO TRAVEL TIME FOR ME, BUT HOW ABOUT YOU?

 By now most of you probably know that Route 66 is turning 100 this year. Well, not to be left out, the Sawdust Art Festival is turning 60. So the score seems to be: USA 250, Route 66 100, Sawdust 60. 

We artists may be in last place on that list, but it definitely should be one of the first places you think to go spend some time this summer. June 26th we open for a run of 66 days.  Lots to see with great new all-out booth designs. Lots of good entertainment (of course along with great art), good food and drink.  

It would be great to see you so come for the day or the evening or...

DAWDLING ALONG...

A quail by any other color...

It's just that time of summer I guess....I am dawdling (sometimes it feels more like slogging :)) along through the heat and humidity, hoping to reach the end of festival season intact. 
Creating is my simple solution to keeping the joy in all this. A walk along our local beaches gets the juices flowing and ideas percolating. So...why not a quail of just any old color? Or how about a crow? a raven? a finch? a grackle? The list is endless. The magic words, "Why not?"

THE EXCITEMENT BUILDS!

Feeling a little crazed

May has gone by quickly. We are solidly into the month of June. All of this means that the excitement is mounting for the opening of the first of Laguna's summer festivals on June 29th. The Sawdust Art Festival will begin the 52nd year on that date.
Like many of the nearly 200 artists I find myself asking if I am ready. Going over what needs to be completed, what ordered, what accoutrements are needed for the finished booth...again and again and again to make sure all is right.
Tick-tock, tick-tock...The great summer days are going to be here sooner than possible to believe. Looking forward to it with a smile in my heart (and a bit of "crazy" in my head.)

AND THEN THERE'S LIFE

Left hand but still much used--normally

Went into the doctor with a painful pimple-sized growth I thought just might be yet another of the skin anomalies. Biopsy said I was correct--squamous cell. No messing around. Sawdust Art Festival or not it was coming off. This made the final week of the show a bit cumbersome, but no more so than the darned humidity and heat!
In so many ways this seemed like another long summer and yet it went by quickly too. It was a good summer all told and I am happy to be rid of the squamous cell dude--stitches out next week and I get to go back to the gym tomorrow and return to creative work next week along with a bit of PT.
Life just gets right in the path of our plans some days, but we adapt, eh?

MID-WEEK MIXED MEDIA FUN

Sawdust Art Class

While the Sawdust Art Festival continues through the summer I am unable to offer the usual weekend five-hour workshops. However, that does not mean that creativity has to stop for any of us.  Wednesday evenings I teach at the festival itself. The classes alternate: 
In Studio One from 7 to 8:30--$2 to make bookmarks/gift tags with Faith Fontan and me.
        August 2
        August 16
        August 30
In the Jewelry Classroom from 7 to 8:30--$45 gets an hour and a half of mixed media fun with a glass of wine or beer and you take home a finished piece, matted and ready to frame.
         August 9
         August 23
Why not come down to the festival and enjoy the cool breezes, entertainment, an appreciation of many kinds of art, AND a fun mixed media class?  Hope to see you soon!

HALF AND HALF?

Half way through May. Half way through Sawdust Art Festival booth building.Half way through many of summer's decisions. I am grateful for this dose of half full and am moving on completion of all (well, maybe May could slow down just a bit :)) 
Looking forward to the summer's art festival while still in the midst of springtime happenings. I am co-building with artist Laurel Meister and anticipate a joy-filled shared space. (This, too, half and half.) We are right near the entrance behind this year's "Selfie" bus.
I will be teaching my last Sunday Studio Workshop on June 4th and then all teaching for the summer looks to be at the Sawdust every Wednesday night (halfway through each week).
Sure hoping to sell more than half of the fun art I have created for this special summer festival and that more than half of you will come see me.

JUST ONE HOUR

Trial...

Teaching has come up yet again. Normally in the summer during the Sawdust Art Festival I teach a small, quick-off workshop on Wednesday nights. Faith Fickett helps me out and we have a lot of fun with it, making bookmarks and the like.  
Well, I thought the same would be the case this coming summer season until I got a call.  Would I instead teach an hour-long class on those nights? The offering would be that for $45 patrons could get admission to the Sawdust, a glass of beer or wine, and a one-hour class.  
The challenge: come up with a class that could be done in the allotted time...and have needed value.  I'm close, but not quite there yet.  Still, it will be something similar to the image above, yet not so much to it.  I would love to get your feedback on this one.