Sheila M. Evans

Join me and twenty-three other professional artists at five studios this weekend at the Little Spokane River Artist Studio Tour. This wonderful event just keeps getting better!

Little Spokane River Artist Studio Tour

ONE DAY ONLY:
Saturday, September 25, 10 – 5

Studio tour map

Google map to Hulda’s studio

It’s hard to believe the season is almost done! Sausalito Art Festival is the last of four shows in four weekends, and my final festival of 2010. We’re at our hotel, digesting the first of probably several dinners from Lotus Indian Cuisine in San Rafael, and waiting to set up the booth in the morning. This is a fun and busy show and I’m excited to sell some paintings and meet my fellow traveling artist friends one last time this summer. Of course I just ran into half of them in the parking lot after retrieving a missing bra from the car, but that’s pretty much how it goes, isn’t it?

Anyway, here’s the pertinent info:

Sausalito Art Festival
When: September 3 – 6, 2010
Where: Marinship Park, 2400 Bridgeway, Sausalito, CA
Hours: Friday (Opening Gala), 6:15 p.m. – ?, Saturday – Sunday 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m, Monday 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
What I’m bringing: Pastels and Oils
Booth #310

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

The Bellevue Artsfair starts this Friday and I couldn’t be happier. It’s been a long break between shows for summer, so I’m anxious to get back. And Bellevue is one of the best!

This year I’m thrilled to be showing my oil paintings along with my pastels for the first time in Bellevue. And I will have a lot of them after I take down the Metamorphosis show from the Kress Gallery on Wednesday. Show weeks are always busy, but this is especially crazy… after spending today framing and delivering my Alice in Wonderland piece to the Tinman Gallery, I have to take down shows at Pacific Garden Design tomorrow and the Kress on Wednesday before loading the car for the show. Plus the usual million little pre-show details like price tags and artwork lists. And covering my entire studio in plastic so my upstairs neighbor can sand his floors.

SO. Anyway. If you’re in the Seattle/Bellevue area this Friday-Saturday-Sunday, come by the Artsfair! It’s an amazing show and I will have more new and different work than ever before. The details:

Bellevue Arts Museum ArtsFair
When: July 23 – 25, 2010
Where: Bellevue Square parking garage, 510 Bellevue Way NE, Bellevue, WA
Hours: Friday – Saturday, 9:30 a.m. – 9:30 p.m., Sunday 9:30 a.m. – 6 p.m.
What I’m bringing: Pastels and Oils
Booth # J-08

Despite more than the normal amount of the Traditional Artfest Rain, Artfest was a great weekend. Friday (the rainiest day) gave artists a chance to catch up with one another. At length. But Saturday and Sunday brought sun and crowds! Thanks to all my customers and friends who support my art habit. Also a big thanks to the Artfest jurors, who honored me with the Tinman Gallery 2-D Merit Award. So nice to know I will be returning to a show that is clearly on the upswing. Which brings me to my last big thank you, again to the jurors, who picked a high-quality, even show.

But, Artfest is over and it’s great to get back to the studio! I’ve missed it lately, since some soundproofing has been going on with the ceiling and everything has been piled up under plastic sheets. But with almost two months until my next show, it was time to put the construction on hold and make the studio back into a studio again.

Art fair season can really mess with creative energy, as getting outside and fiddling with the booth plays perfectly into spring fever. On the flip side, getting to the shows and actually selling some art is the best motivator I know to go paint. This week I played with an idea I’ve had for a while now, resulting in the two “Raintree” pastels pictured above. They will serve as studies for oil paintings which will, hopefully, be ready in time for Sun Valley.

And, the idea of stopping at twenty-four Teacup Oils is out the window. The Teacup Oils have been to exactly one show and I am already down NINE! So six more mini-canvases are stretched, gessoed and waiting for paint and tea-licious titles. Barely back in the studio and there’s more on my plate than I can probably finish before Bellevue. All or nothing… that’s the art life.

p.s. Many of the paintings from my booth at Artfest plus a few more are on display at Pacific Garden Design through mid-July. PGD is open to the public, but if you plan to go, give them a call first to be sure someone is there! It’s a beautiful space with amazing pots for sale (and garden design, of course).