Art Festival Virgin No More

Last weekend was my first ever experience participating in an outdoor art festival. Once I decided to show my art at the Open Studios Spring Art Festival I realized I had to come up with a way of displaying my art and after pricing professional display panels I decided that I needed to come up with a home brewed version. My most wonderful brother in law came up with the idea of using hollow core doors, painted black and covered with industrial dark gray carpet and hinged together for the display panels. Not only were they functional and easy to set up and break down they looked REALLY good!

And here is what I learned about participating in outdoor art festivals (at least on the basis of this one!). Despite the fact that there is a lot of work involved and I worried about what the weather would do it was an immensely gratifying experience. It is so satisfying to me to be able to indulge my passion to make art in my studio...but it IS an isolated activity. There is a large part of me that thrives on the focus that isolation allows me, but to complete the whole cycle of the creative process it's so important and validating for me to experience people connecting with my art. So I was able to be part of that direct interaction and aside from show openings that doesn't happen by showing and selling my art at galleries.