Carla M Fox Metalsmith

I’m currently getting ready for a rare February show. Rare because short of traveling to Florida there are few to none shows in the Pacific NW in the winter. But the Bellevue, Washington Art Museum folks (who also put on the Bellevue Museum Art Fair) have started a new show, just for jewelry: Indulge. Held a week before Valentine’s Day it promises to be great fun. Plus the dot, Sarah is also one of the participating artists.

I’ve known about this show for months. I’ve known I need to get my inventory up after a very successful last show. So why am I now in the last few weeks working like crazy to build up my inventory when I could have done it at my leisure for several months? This seems to be a common thing for artists. While I beat myself up for not doing all things earlier, I wonder about this. And I’ve come up with a reason…that satisfies me for now.

For me, it takes a while to get into the groove of creating. Its a state of mind and will, and frankly once there its all-consuming. The rest of the world must wait while I create. It is not something I can switch on and off; I’m more like the little engine that could. It takes me a some time to get rolling.

I know Dave-the-hub, as well as myself would be much more relaxed if I did not approach work this way. But after years of trying to break out of this habit, I’m still in it. This seems to be an artist thing. Many friends complain of the same syndrome.

Our house is now adrift in the flotsam and jetsam of a show. We’ve pulled out the display pieces to sort and repair. Our old boxes have cracked and Dave purchased new purple ones to carry our traveling retail store from place to place.

Dave & the display pieces & the dining room table.

New purple boxes

The dog wanders amongst the piles. She’s seen it all before. Her favorite thing is that she gets to sleep in the clean laundry that is not getting folded and put away.

Marley in the clean towels

And so it goes. I don’t know whether I should be worried that I can’t compartmentalize better so I can jump from task to task. Or I should thank my lucky stars that I can focus like a laser when I need to.

Arghhh.

Time’s short and I too busy. Two or so years ago some artists and art advocates in Bend decided that the West Coast in general and Bend in particular needed a really wonderful show. What’s more we realized we had all the skills to put one on. And so it started.

In 2 weeks the 2nd annual Art in the High Desert will come to Bend. Its a lotta work. We are an all-volunteer group.  Which makes it a bit crazy to work this hard. But we all agree that it is worth it. But today, for now, Arggghhh. Why do I have the good ideas I do? I’m way too busy. Our whole team is working hard, on their own art, and each of their show jobs.

Last year was our first year. We could have picked a more auspicious economy during which to start a show…but we like challenges. More important, the city of Bend, and central Oregon love fine art. They came out and bought last year, and they tell us they will be back again this year.

So while my life is filled with little details, final advertising pushes, (I even get to be interviewed on a local TV staiton) here are some images from last years show, taken by our photog Tom Hassler, aerial photograph by Matt Verdieck.  Enjoy the view, come and visit us this year. We have great artists coming again, don’t miss them.

Carla

Before a show I am focused, on task, getting things done. Today after the show I am bumping around trying to figure out what jobs I put down before I left I need to pick up first. They all seem to be important now.

I’m still halfway at the show, thinking about all that happened, seeing happy customers, reviewing things to change for the next show.

One thing I must say:

I must take back all the snarky remarks I have ever made about the parking lot structure that the Bellevue Museum art festival is in.  I LOVE IT! Its been whitewashed so it looks good, the funky lights have been replaced, but BEST OF ALL, when it got dreadfully hot outside it was quite tolerably cool inside. Since every one of my last 4 shows have had some sort of weather issue, I was delighted to be out of the elements. The Bellevue parking garage is the BEST!

Carla

Cool with no wind or rain

We’re getting ready for our “July” show. Itsa biggie and a favorite. We’ve tried to catch up on things left undone before the last show, arrange for house sitters, weed a bit, enjoy a glorious summer, and keep at work. But it is hard condensing life into time slots between shows.

We will head north this time to Bellevue, Washington for the Bellevue Museum Art Festival-or BAM-or the Garage Sale. It’s held in one of the more unfortunate venues, a shopping mall’s concrete parking structure. But it is shady and cool, and we are protected from rain and wind. The audience is an art-savvy interested group of buyers and are there to see and buy art. The artists are always first rate.

At Bellevue we will be showing with our dot,  Sarah, in the next booth. This will be a first, fun, endlessly entertaining, and a challenge. Sarah is our favorite daughter, our only one in fact, and came equipped with everything one wants in a daughter; other then that she’s younger, taller, thinner, and has the most outrageous hair. Her jewelry is very different from mine, reflecting her youthful and unique outlook on life.

Our son also lives in the area so it will be a family silly time, to bug each other, laugh, eat, help out, talk, listen….but I digress.

As Dave repeatedly has to tell me I will be there to sell jewelry. And in order to sell it I must first make it. I love being a jeweler, it’s home for me. But right now I wanna ride my bike, sit in my hammock chair, kayak, go for an early morn walk with our dog,  or write in my blog. Of course, if  I was told to ride my bike all day, I’d rather be walking the dog. If I was told to walk the dog I’d want to write in the blog all day. And if told to do nothing but write, I’d want to be making jewelry. I call it my “Grass is Greener” syndrome. If I hafta do it, whether I love it or not, suddenly I want to do something else. It’s a leftover from a contrary childhood.

So back to work for me. I have some great new work on the bench that needs finishing, some oldie but goodies that also need their final patinas and placing on the cards. Bellevue is going to be fun. But I must first work to earn it .

(And oh yeah, to Johanna, from Des Moines, who reads my  blog – even tho’ she’s not related to me, and likes it! Hi. It was great talking with you.)

Carla

What’s worse for an art show artist-a raging wind storm or torrential rains? I’m not sure. But last weekend at the Cherry Creek Art Festival in Denver, we had the opportunity to deal with the rain.

Our daughter, Sarah, was in the Cherry Creek festival. So on the way home from Des Moines, we stopped in Denver to help her set up her booth, and I stayed on as her assistant while Dave flew home to the dogs and our other life.

Fortunately he hung around for Friday of the show. We needed all hands on deck. The Rockies are known for their afternoon thunder storms, so we weren’t too concerned as the dark clouds rolled in, nor even when show staff came to warn us that a rain and thunder storm would hit in 20 minutes. As per the show’s suggestion we had not set the tent in the gutter, the tent was a light dome and had weathered several storms with nary a leak, and we were Oregonians, we are the rain.

Be careful what you don’t worry about. Cherry Creek had a huge rainstorm on Friday. We were fortunate as the river/gutter we were by flowed on without overwhelming the booth. It came thorough the booth but we made an island of plastic boxes in the center, hiked up all the stuff we didn’t want wet and rode it out. Other artists were not so lucky. If their booth sat at the confluence of 2 drainage areas water rose a foot in their boothes. Some art was lost. One artist’s tool box floated 2 blocks away. It was eventually returned by another artist.

And so it goes. Life in a 10′ x 10′ retail space….

The Des Moines Art Festival is now in our rearview mirror. We came, we sweated, we sold, laughed, ate, slept, packed up and are now off to the next show. This one is our dot’s in Cherry Creek, Denver Colorado. I am her helper, while she sells her amazing sculptural felted jewelry. Check it out: sarahfoxdesign.com

Des Moines puts on a great festival. Set in downtown it has a backdrop of the most amazing sculpture garden. Even though the sculptures sit in a sea of mud in the unfinished site, festival visitors stood next to chain link fences and pointed at their favorites.

Des Moines Interactive mural project, circa 2008

My personal favorite part of the festival is the interactive mural project. Here is a photo from last year’s mural.

So now is time to move ahead, plan for the next show, pay a few bills, and get back to the studio. Adios Des Moines, we had a grand time.

Carla

A man stood studying our jewelry and displays. “Does the show provide you with all this?”

Nope, each artist brings their own full 10′ x 10′ retail store to each show. And what they bring is as individual as their art. Some fly in and ship their booth and inventory ahead. Their booths tend towards the minimalist. Others come in large sprinter vans, trucks, vans pulling trailers. What is unloaded from those would put many circuses to shame. I always think this is the most fascinating time of a show, watching the various booths be put together tinker-toy style, until VOILA! a retail spot.

The Des Moines Art Festival has a leisurely set-up day. This is good. It was in the 90’s with lots of humidity. It was brutal work. Everyone moved at half speed with lots of stops for brow wiping, drinking, and dirty glances at the sun. I got a little cranky, unloading the van,  putting up the canopy, setting up the display. The ever-cheerful and nothing-bothers-him hubby, kept at it saying it was fine, good for the soul and other such nonsense. Only after I threatened to kill him did he slow up his happy chatter. When one is miserable, one does not need happiness. We set-up the big stuff before I finally said “uncle” as we retreated to a cool hotel room. We went back to work some more after the sun had gone down & finished up the next morning.

The mother of invention being a weekend of intolerable heat, I came up with an idea for a swamp cooler in our booth. My brilliant idea?

So clever, so cool, but does it work.....?

A pan of ice sitting in front of a fan. Ignoring the fact that humidity renders a swamp cooler moot, it was sorta like spitting in the wind. But it made me feel like I had some control of my environment. Dave, the hubby, played along, “Yes, dear it DOES feel cooler in the tent.”

The transition between being a solitary studio artist to a meet-and-greet retail sales person, is always a little rocky for me. I’ve had my head down nose to the file in the studio making pieces…..now its time to show them. It usually takes 1/2 day for me to get my talker going. Some of the most amazing non-sequiturs come out of me in the early stages of each show. Its as if I have forgotten how to talk while working in the studio. Our daughter calls them my “spoonerisms.” I have told customers, “If I can ask any questions, let me know and I will ankwer them.” Huh?

I like doing shows, I like seeing peoples reaction to my work. I just wish I could be more suave about it. The Des Moinians were patient with my first attempts. And as the weekend proceeded the weather cooled (sorta) and my talker came on line.

The last few weeks have been non-stop work preparing for the Des Moines Art Festival. Its a great show, wonderfully-organized, one of the best in the country. It has to be for 2 people from Oregon to travel the 1700 miles to get here. The best part is seeing the wide-open country and antelope, the worst was being eaten by mosquitos at a campground in Rawlins, Wyoming, that sat on the edge of the freeway.

We had chosen to camp our way across the country to save  money. KOA’s seem a good idea as they are clean, have showers, readily available. The one in Rawlins meets all that criteria. But it was set between some apartment buildings and the freeway. Our fellow tent neighbors lost something around 10 pm and spent the next hour opening and closing every door in their car repeatedly. But it was the mosquitos that finally undid me. I started to think real hard about camping being a good idea. And I use to teach outdoors for a living.

Grand Island, Nebraska’s KOA sat in a grove of trees next to a corn field. Perfect, until the mosquitos came out again. Once we had eaten and been eaten, we plugged in the computer and a small fan and sat in our tent seeing a thunder and  lightening storm bear down on us, while watching Jon Stewart and drinking cheap wine. The silliness of the situation tickled us. Laying in a backpacking tent, watching a thunder storm fly at us, while viewing a TV program on our computer. Man has camping changed.

View from our “window.”

Thunder storm moving in

I don’t squeal. I don’t repeat myself. I carry myself with dignity and grace at all times.

So what was I doing squealing in a microphone at a city mayor and show director in front of hundreds of people. “ME? You really liked my work? Really?” The show director looked decidely puzzled at this remark and I plopped my mouth shut as I realized what I was saying. I tried again,”Thank you so much, I really appreciate this, I’m just surprised.” and with that I staggered back to my seat to the amused faces of my fellow artists and the husband.

I had won much to my astonishment “Best of Jewelry” in the La Quinta Art Show last year. Its not that I don’t think my work is good, GREAT! and deserving of an award, but fabricated jewelers who don’t use a lot of gems, rarely win these awards. Or so I tell myself when I don’t win. Plus I don’t really like Best of….prizes as deep down I don’t feel art should be competitive. And I have too much admiration for my fellow jewelers to think I am the “Best of them” for any given time or show. But the little girl in me loved winning…..really-a-lots.

I received a chance to be more eloquent again this year when I won 2nd place in jewelry at Scottsdale Art Show, 2009. Oh, I do like winning. But again, I look at my very talented fellow jewelers and wonder, me?

The public seems to like to see the ribbons in one’s booth. Kids usually spot the ribbons first and nudge their parents into noticing. They congratulate them & I duck my head with proper humility and say “Thanks.” But the kindergartener in me is doing the Snoopy Dance and squealing.

Carla

The room sounded like it was full of pirates. Another booth photo had come up on the screen and jurors groaned…..arghhh.

Artists understand what I am about to talk about, for my non-artist readers, an explanation is due. When we artists want to be in a show we just can’t add our names to the list. We must apply and be juried in. The application process usually involves answering a few questions, sending images of one’s work, and a booth photo of how one’s booth looks. Once the applications are all in a jury will review and score them. The highest scoring artists are accepted in the show.

It sounds so simple, but continues to mystify us artists as we apply to shows with our great work and don’t get it. WHY!? is always the question. Part of the answer is Booth Photo!

Jurying circa 2008

I recently had the opportunity to sit through a jurying for a show. I was not a juror but an observer.

What struck me and everyone else in the room was the poor quality of many of the booth photos. Many artists booth photos were just plain awful. Why did they waste their application fee by using such a poor quality booth image?

Well, actually many of us know.

Booth photos are a pain to get. We artists realize we need one in the dead of winter, as we are starting to fill out applications. Our booths are packed away and we try to figure out if we even took a photo of our booth last summer. Or do we have a decent shot from a few years ago, hopefully after we changed to our new work or redesigned our booth. Yeah, I have one…I remembered to take one…now where is it?

This wasn’t a fussy jury. A simple shot of the booth as it would look at this show was all they wanted. It didn’t have to be professionally shot. For emerging artists or non-show artists images of their work as a grouping was acceptable.

Artists without a good booth image had handicapped themselves and their application. As artists we never want to give the jury a reason to say NO to our application. In many cases the artists had done just that with their poor booth image.

The Don’ts:
Images that did not show the artist’s work in situ. Booth images shot with camera phones, shot with the sun coming directly into the camera lens, out of focus, with a turned over coffee cup and other debris in the booth. Images of booths with art work totally unrelated to the work the artist was jurying. (What would they show up with if accepted or is that even their booth?) Booths with the side walls pulled back so only the blue porta potties show, not the artwork. A particular irritant to this group of jurors was the booth images with the names of the artists on the booth, despite the show’s prospectus asking that NO names be visible. Images with people in them, more often then not the artist, happily selling his/her work. Or so many people that one can’t see the booth. The jury saw one side of a booths, a partial corner, the grass and roof of the booth, while the artwork was hard to discern. Heavily photoshopped booth images, were commented on, and disparaged a bit for being too overworked. A screen capture of the home page of a website with an explanation to the jury why no booth photo, was not well-received. Neither were scanned images of photographs or slides, that looked dirty, dusty, and out of focus.

The Do’s:
The booth had been cleaned up of misc debris, people, signage, names. The shot was clear, in focus, correctly exposed, and showed the jury how the artist’s work would present at the show. The photos shot at a shows were just as well received as those shot in a photog studio. The jury saw no need to set-up a special shot in a studio setting. The best ones showed similar work in the booth as was being juried.

Moral of this story:
We artists need to be out there shooting our booths all summer long to get the best booth image we can for next year’s round of applications. It is must, so juries can say YES to our applications.

Click for more info on booth photos from Larry Berman…

Carla