Sheila M. Evans

Art in the High Desert starts Friday! I’m so looking forward to this small, beautiful, and beautifully-juried show. If you’re in the Bend, Oregon area, please stop by!

Art in the High Desert

When: August 27 – 29, 2010
Where: The Shops at the Old Mill, 661 Powerhouse Drive, Bend, OR
Hours: Friday – Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m, Sunday, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
What I’m bringing: Pastels and Oils
Booth #14-15

 Art and Glass Fest at Arbor Crest is this weekend. I’ll be in my usual spot right by the entrance, with some new work in both oil and pastel, plus a few “classics” for a change of scenery (I spend a lot of time looking at my paintings all summer!)

Arbor Crest is a beautiful winery, and the weekend promises to be beautiful as well. I hope to see you there!

Art & Glass Fest at Arbor Crest
When: August 21-22, 2010
Where: Arbor Crest Wine Cellars, 4705 N Fruit Hill Rd, Spokane, WA
Hours: Saturday – Sunday, 11:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.
What I’m bringing: Pastels and Oils

So that’s it for Sun Valley. As always it was beautiful, fun and a bit sleepy.

Luckily it was a bit better for me than last year, when I bought a double booth space and seriously regretted it. This year I decided to minimize costs and make the most of a single space by going up. I extended the tent, and finally put to use the extension walls I bought from another artist at this very show.

Problem was, I bought the walls so long ago I didn’t remember exactly what came with them. More to the point, I forgot. I quickly realized as I went to put up the first extension that a crucial piece of hardware was missing. We looked in the box, and found a single item rolling around the bottom—a steel pin with a ridge around the middle. Unfortunately, I needed eight. At that moment I could picture them, in their little case on a shelf in our basement, ten hours northwest.

There was NO WAY I was going to have gone to all the trouble to raise the tent and not use those walls, so we set off to find a replacement in a town without a hardware store. My husband Paul was less than thrilled about this. It turned out to be with good reason.

After a frustrating time looking through densely crowded aisles, he finally spotted some turnbuckles at the local drug/hardware/variety store that appeared to be about the circumference of our pin, except with a hexagonal profile. Thinking the ridges might make the turnbuckles a bit too big, he picked up a file to take off any extra material. I thought they would fit just fine as-is but bought the file, just in case. TWO HOURS of “just in case” later Paul finally finished filing the ridges off of seven, much-tougher-than-they-looked aluminum tubes. The walls went up.

And after that very long, hot and trying setup, Paul had the grace to tell me the booth looked “awesome.” Thank you, Paul. Your patience is epic.

p.s.

Later that day we learned that as much as our setup sucked, it could have been worse. Our friend Jody, a jeweler, realized halfway through setup that she had forgotten a crucial part of her display. She actually drove home to get it before the show opened the next morning—four hours each direction. What a life.

Friday the 13th kicks off the 2010 Sun Valley Center Arts and Crafts Festival! This is one of my longest-running art fair traditions: it will be my fifth consecutive year in the show. I am so excited!

I have to admit last year was a little rough to say the least. The area appeared to be hit hard by the economy, and between that and the unusual stormy weather, attendance was way down. As were my sales. Upon leaving I swore I would skip this year. But, as the jury deadline drew near, suddenly I could only remember how much fun the show is and how much I love the scenery, and the KB burritos, and the people running the show, and the other artist regulars. So much for that!

(OK, I’m having a major deja vu right now. I must be repeating myself from an earlier post. But hey. This is my Sun Valley story at the moment.)

So beyond all the drama previously mentioned, I’ll be showing pastels and oils again, including some new work such as Raintree Study No.3, above. I’ll also be debuting a taller tent, since I can’t stop messing with my display. My original set of Pro Panels included some wall extensions and I realized that with my latest redesign I can actually use them, so I’ll be giving that a spin. My long-suffering booth and I hope to see you there!

If you plan to go, here’s the pertinent info:

Sun Valley Center Arts and Crafts Festival
When: August 13- 15, 2010
Where: Atkinson Park, 900 3rd Ave., Ketchum, ID
Hours: Friday – Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 6:30 p.m., Sunday 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
What I’m bringing: Pastels and Oils
Booth #G-5