No box show

We have returned home from Ann Arbor! the weather was absolutely horrific. In addition to two tornado warnings and one tornado sighting, there were severe thunderstorms and a lot of rain. In the many years that we have exhibited there, we have never, never had such bad conditions. It is very difficult to purchase art work when you are constantly checking your iphone or blackberry for weather updates. Out of the four days only Wednesday and Saturday were shopable.

Take a look:

Before the rain

and during...

Only with a little help from our friends, the Biglers, did we survive!

Get Ready, Set, Go... to Ann Arbor!

We have been glazing and firing trying to get ready for Ann Arbor.  A2 as they fondly call themselves is an amazing place. They have allowed artists from all over the country to absolutely take over their small city for a week in July for 51 years. What good sports! Of course when it all began it was only one small art show. Now that art show calls itself  Ann Arbor Street Art Fair, the original  because there are so many other shows that have established themselves adjacent to it. As a result you really have a major exhibition of all sorts of artwork including entertainment. I posted some setup photos last year at this time which you can still pull up from the archives. I'll try to do some this year again but here we are getting ready:

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see you there! We'll be in space #301 in the original Art Fair on the grass diag by the Chemistry Building! come see!
July 21-14, 2010
W-F 10am-9pm and Saturday 10am-6pm

We're having a heat wave.....

a tropical heat wave.......

Here are a few photos of what we are up to:

Return from a successful show

We have returned from the Des Moines show where we were very well received much to our surprise and delight. In our book, it was a four box show. That means we came back with four empty boxes!!!! (That's good.)
Here are the Cliff Notes:
The schedule was grueling; the weather unbearably hot. As we told many customers, we forgot what Iowa summers were like....super hot and humid.
When we arrived to setup on Friday, there was another artist set up in our space. (That was a first but she was able to relocate in her correct space.)
The Des Moines Register honored us with a short article in the Saturday edition which helped immensely. It focused on our Iowa connections: Steve's being raised in Winterset, Iowa not far from Des Moines, both of us attending Coe College in Cedar Rapids and our first studio being in Lone Tree close to Iowa City.
The funny thing was that so many people from Winterset came to greet Steve at the show.
It was so sweet! and then we had our fair share of college acquaintances show up as well. What a riot!
After the show, we drove up to Marshalltown, Iowa to stay a day with our friends Dennis and Liz. Steve grew up with Dennis. The next day we drove over to Iowa City and got to visit Russell, our woodworker friend, eat a dinner made by Doreen and stay over at Barb and Jane's. All were our friends when we had our studio there in 1975-83. Lots of socializing for two country potters like us.
We thoroughly enjoyed it all.

I didn't, however, take photos.... nor did we post an entry on this blog or Facebook. If I regret taking any photos it would be of the Big Sky of the Mid West. Once past Cleveland, the trees were reduced to a tenth of the image out of our windshield. Ah! we could breathe again........ beautiful.

and then when we returned home to the Catskills today, it was Ah! what lovely woods, streams and mountains!

We feel so grateful to live in such a beautiful and bountiful country. Happy fourth of July to you all!