Booth shot at ACC

Here is a shot of my booth from the American Craft Show St. Paul. My booth was more like a gallery booth at a SOFA show than a fine craft store booth. I think I was the only white booth in the entire show. The white walls came from Art in Motion in Vermont. I was able to hang my pieces and the shelves. Josh, Paul, and Amy made sure my booth was set up when I arrived. All I needed to do was to put up the shelves, arrange the art and put up the lights. What a relief for me. Paul Jeremias from Asheville, NC, the official ACC photographer, took the booth shot.

ACC Craft Fair This Weekend in St. Paul

The American Craft Show in St. Paul will feature more than 240 craft artists. I will be booth 807. My work is featured in a new category called GREEN CRAFT. Artists who use eco-friendly materials or recycled materials are included in this new category. The show expects to draw a crowd of 10,000 visitors. I will be Booth #807 - pretty much in the center of the fair.

LOCATION
St. Paul RiverCentre
175 West Kellogg Blvd.

DATES AND SHOW HOURS
Friday, April 18 (10 am - 6 pm)
Saturday, April 19 (10 am - 6 pm)
Sunday, April 20 (10 am - 5 pm)

Preparing for my first major craft show with this line of work is a major undertaking. I think I am starting to feel ready, although there are many little details left and much packing to do. I have been given a "buddy" to help me prepare for the show. Mainly I have been able to ask questions about lighting. Other friends have lead me to resources for walls and carpets. A circle of friends is so important.

Vertebrae (above) will be featured in my booth along with a new large vessel. I will have many other new smaller and medium sized works.

Zapp

Undercover. Clay, fibers, wax. 39"x9"x9"

Yesterday I decided to apply to one upscale craft show, the ACC St. Paul Show for April 18-20, 2008. The deadline was midnight. After teaching in the morning, I set out to conquer the Zapplication online application process. I was met with a huge hurdle. They require all images to be 1920 x 1920 pixels with the extra space black (at the top and bottom if horizontal or the sides if vertical). None of my image management programs could produce this black background. The local library did not have Photoshop on their computers. Finally, I found that I could download a 30 day trial of Photoshop. After much fussing with the download, I was off and running. I met the deadline by two hours Central Time. One hour to spare if they were counting Eastern DST. Many of the artists who exhibit at the Grand Hand had booths at this year’s St. Paul show. They all displayed colorful Grand Hand signs. I can have a good show together by April if accepted.

Flickr

I created some sets in Flickr and added the link on my web page. This takes me out of the Flickr voyeur category and into an active Flickrite. I regularly look at the Flickr site of a young Italian man because he writes in both English and Italian. Slowly picking up ways to talk about images in Italian. Mainly I know when he goes on vacation and when he returns. "Sono tornato!" And most useful- "Che bella!!"

Fun with digital colors

If you want to match or find just the right color for your blog, web page, or digital graphics, try Kuler. Warning--It can become addictive.

Web Site

Although I hope to have my web professionally designed, I have been using a stock template to get going. I tried to learn HTML with some simple web lessons. Still I did not get a page that looked the way I imagined it. Then I found out about CSS, Cascading Style Sheets, I tried some online tutorials. I never figured out how to make it work together. So, back to the template. I have been tweaking and adding pages. I just need some more images on my gallery page and a few other tweaks.