My First Craft Fair

After years of painting things...bird houses, then trays and boxes, and even taking up oil painting, I finally got up the nerve to show my things in person at a craft fair. Sure, I have an ETSY.com store, now a year old, but as I discovered yesterday, it is something to put your stuff online, write cute descriptions about those items you have slaved over, and trust me, any artist in one way or another has slaved in some way to create, and another to put what you do in front of a live, and sometimes critical, audience.

This was a fair hosted where I live, Rosemead, CA, to help save an old cemetery that has been here since 1850...very old by California standards. I wavered for days not sure how I would be able to do this and attend the funeral of a dear friend - both on the same day.

A friend offered to help me so it was settled. I spent a week trying to decide what to bring, made a kind of manifest and we sat down the day before deciding about pricing.

As we loaded up the provided table, I was stunned to realize that I had created all this. I mean there was Christmas stuff, and Halloween, then the craft items and bunches of bird houses. Even more amazing, when I actually looked at it, there were also a variety of styles...Pennsylvania Dutch, Eskimo, Rosemailing, cutsy, serious, and almost without exception color. For a second, it looked like a booth on Oliviera Street in Los Angeles, the birthplace of that city! I have always loved color and standing there and seeing it all together for the very first time, I realized just how MUCH color there was and what it meant to me.

As a show, it was a very small craft show. I am not sure if it was publicized much, but there were about 14 booths, and people wandered in and out all day. I was asked to comment on a high school students amazing East Indian drawing (though I am hardly an expert), checked out by and checked other crafters and even managed to sell a few items. It cost $25 for the booth and we took in $58. 

In some ways it is affirming to finally meet the public and expose myself to comment. This was amazing to me. When people stopped by I made sure to let them know that with each of these items, the painting part WAS an original, one of a kind item painted by me while the original unpainted object was bought in a craft store or recycled from a yard sale. 

The surprise was that other than a smaller birdhouse, wildly colored I might add and one of my favorites, it was the Halloween items that sold. So, you never know!

Would I do it again? Absolutely. However, the lesson learned was that presentation is everything. I certainly had the items, but too many were placed in one spot. It was hard to tell one from another. A larger space is required. Another lesson was the booth needed a bit more decor. A larger sign maybe, something to make the space stand out, make the customer feel that the asking price was worth cost. Also, the venue probably helps as well. 

On a week long trip this past summer, I stopped in several craft shops asking about how they got the items they sold (all on consignment I might add) and how they got their start. All of them said that they and many of their vendors got their start this very way - initially showing at craft fairs.Just like I did yesterday!

Amazingly many were against using the Internet fearing that their ideas and products would be copied. And while they may have been considered Luddites, I think that this might well be the opening for another discussion.

Yard Sale Treasures

I don't know about you, but I have never really been a very good hunter for treasures at yard sales. As my wife puts it, your junk has become my junk. I have a friend who can literally find the gold from the chaff. I never do.

However, there are treasures out there and I have started to look for old frames that can be refurbished for my paintings and items that I might be able to decorate and give a new lease on life.

Such an item is this handmade note holder. It uses a roll of adding machine tape on a spindle, there's a space to write and once the note is made, you pull it through at the bottom. Clever. There are even holes to put a pencil or pen through the holder.

It was a nifty idea I thought with lots of possibilities. In fact, I wish I had the pattern to make more!

Using my "Crazy Quilt" concept, I decided that it would look spiffed up decorated in muted colors. It would be the perfect kitchen, telephone or even exit by the front door reminder of things to do. Here it is as I got it, and as I started to decorate. There are some of you that might think I should have left it alone but what's the fun of that? Using only pastel colors, it will be interesting to see where this goes. 

Be sure to check out KrugsStudio.etsy.com for more interesting ideas.

Taking A Different Tact

For an artist, the canvas can be anything in a wide variety of surfaces. Sometimes, you come across an unexpected item that you have seen for years and never given any thought to.

Wandering Michael's recently I came across some sale items. One of the items that struck me were some wooden bird houses. They were round and seemed to have a smooth, relatively large surface that had many possibilities.

However, it is one thing to buy them and another to actually do something with them. I looked at them for awhile and finally decided that I would do one in the Pennsylvania Dutch design with lots of hearts I had been using on a wide variety of surfaces and another in the First American motif that I saw and liked in Alaska. 

As detailed as the heart birdhouse was to do, with its layers of color as a base and design, it was the Indian motif that was the hardest to create. It needed to be sketched, then outlined in pen (I used one of those fine point Sharpie's), then finally could be painted with acrylic paints. Each and every line should be precise and that demands very good light and a very steady hand.

This example is to show you that if we can think out of the box, that same blank canvas can be used in a wide variety of styles in an endless number of designs. 

Get out there and see what you can do!

L.A County Fair ala 2012

As a 66 year old, I am no stranger to the county fair. The first one I remember was when I was around 5 or 6 in Oregon. I remember what seemed like miles of animals...cows and pigs, goats and sheep, chickens and rabbits and so much more. The highlight would be to milk a cow. There was a fun zone of course and rides but the emphasis was on farms and the produce that they produced for us city slickers. Like California, Oregon was and still is an important agricultural state.

I went to the L.A. County Fair yesterday and it was a very different experience. We noticed last year there was a paucity of animals and speaking to one of the stock hands was told the judging was done before the fair opened and what we were looking at hadn't been loaded yet. What we asked? I thought this was the county fair. What is a fair without animals?

The fair this year seems to be trying to reinvent itself and from I have seen and heard, its not going very well. Friends went on opening day and were told (online of course) that you could get in for $1 from 1 to 3 p.m. When they got there are 1 p.m. they were surprised the parking lot was empty. There were lots of buses bringing kids and seniors who were milling about in the sun. It turned out the fair didn't open until 3 p.m. My friend, being a cantankerous sort, went hunting down someone in charge asking for an explanation. He was given the runaround of course and in a manner that is all too popular today, they blamed someone else. It was the fault of marketing, the web people, anyone but who ran the show. Oh, and it turned out the $1 entrance fee was for the entire Labor Day weekend. I'd say a few heads should roll.

This year was the fair's 90th anniversary. Ninety years! You'd think they would have it down. Guess not. We bought tickets at the local super market for a discounted price and then had to stand in the same line as those just buying their tickets at the fair to get the "real" tickets. And, while they announced you can get the App at the Apple or Android store, it really didn't do much more than the printed map you were given at the entrance. And the map was definitely bigger and easier to read than trying to read a smart phones screen!

We came in through the Blue gate, right by the animal barn. Well, what can I say? There were three pigs and a bunch of piglets, a few cows, sheep and goats (what DO you do with goats?). The barn had an empty forlorn look. People milled around but there really wasn't much to see. Where there were animals, people gathered about. It was hot and muggy and the barn offered lots of empty open shade. Next year they may just have photos of animals. Would certainly be easier to manage. Less messy and dusty.

The big change we noticed was that the fair has become a shopping experience. There had to be twice the number of food stands, and a WHOLE lot more ways to lose your money in the fun zones. Actually, it might as well be called the L.A.County Fun Zone. Only its pretty garish and very loud. As you pass by, you can barely hear yourself think. Where there was once a fun zone midway, there were many midways scattered all over and fewer stalls of people selling things that you probably didn't really need but were fun to check out anyway. The fair now has not just one, but two ferris wheels. You have to fight your way through the fun zone to reach the Fine Arts building, The horticulture exhibit (incredibly sad this year) was hidden by acres of rides and easy to miss.

The one improvement though, was the Fine Arts building. Tracing the history of the fair (that alone should have been a clue of what a fair should be to this years organizers), was a sprinkling of artists you could watch, talk to and even purchase from. There were a variety of classes offered though not much was happening in the afternoon Saturday.

Another disappointment was the craft center under the grand stands of the track. There were the usual exhibits of quilts, knitting, decorations of tables and Christmas trees, but fewer, and compared to past years, of fewer and poorer quality.

What should a fair be in the 21st Century? We still have to eat. We still need to raise, slaughter and eat animals. There is an even greater emphasis on the eating of healthy fruit and vegetables. In fact, recent discussions on NPR talked about the difference of buying your fruit and vegetables from an organic vs. a regular producer of these items. The conclusion of a recent study was that you might well be throwing your money away. New laws that require fewer and less use of insecticides, mean that what you eat is probably safer and better for you than ever before. Farmers should be proud of what they do and we should be proud of what they are doing for us. A local street fair offers a better chance to see the local produce and they even give you samples. Not so at the fair.

One of the buildings had been converted to a celebration of technology. It included copies of many of the Apple patent applications, there was a recreation of a 1909 Edison sound stage, old cars, a replica of the first successful airplane of the Wright brothers and short bio's of many of the men and women who have advanced our knowledge in many fields during the past 90 years. You could even ask Benjamin Franklin a question. And maybe, with more interactive exhibits this is the direction of the County Fair. However, this was the Los Angeles County Fair, and not one exhibit featured the history of our county. Movie industry? You mean it happened in our county? Oil? Aircraft? Not one was even mentioned.

You have to wonder as an artist. When your own county fair celebrates history and ignores its own home, what does that bode for us? Its true the Fine Arts Building honors Millard Sheets but in one of the most important counties in California, possibly the United States and certainly the world, the achievements of its citizens and immigrants, barely rates mentioning.

We've lost the concept of what a county fair was, we struggle to understand what it should be and fail to honor those who live in the county and honor their achievements.