Elephant Head - and My First Award!

 Elephant Head

Oil on canvas, 10x10

The show is over, and though I don't have many sales during those five days, I manage to have fun, I meet a lot of nice people who enjoy seeing my art, and I win an award - my first ever.


I'm taking a couple days to recover, to meet with people who are contemplating commissions, and to repack the van and get set for the next phase of this trip, the funnest phase! Painting!

It's always difficult for me to find a comfortable balance between making art and selling art. The selling part is necessary, and I'm working hard to improve at it. The first and truest joy of the process is making the art - but sometimes, I admit, I get wrapped up in the success or lack of success of the sales part.

This is a five-day show, and three paintings sell. None is big. The booth fee is $600, and finally, on the last day of the show, I earn enough to pay for my booth, and make $100 or so profit. Three sales in a five-day period means lots of long stretches of time with no sales, and my mind plays bad games with me during those periods. But it is just that kind of show, at least for painters. Three painters near me have fewer sales than I have, and two painters I meet, who have done this show for 15 years or more, say this is the slowest one they've ever seen.

On the upside, the folks who buy my paintings love them, and I have a few good commission possibilities. And my first award. It is a sort of general, we-like-your-art award from the Chamber of Commerce, which puts on the show. It s an invitation award, meaning I am automatically in the 2016 show.

On one of the days when I have zero sales, I set out after the show to paint. I know it will help me get my perspective back, and it does.

Here's my painting in the landscape

Elephant Head is a particular formation, at the north end of the Santa Ritas behind Tubac and the next town up, Amado. Until a couple days ago, I've never really been able to see anything in it that resembles an elephant, but on that day, I do see it!

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Scenes from the Show

Here's the line of people waiting to register, before the show started. 

My booth, early one morning. 

Ted Albrecht is a character whom I met a few years ago at the Fourth Avenue Street Fair in Tucson. Believe it or not, he was even more glittered-up at that show. 

(You can see a photo of him at that show by clicking here). 

These horses pulled visitors all over town during the festival. I was worried about them at first, that they were working too hard, and not being treated well. But when it got too hot, a tractor was brought in to pull the people. And it was pretty clear that the driver and the guy riding on the back (the pooper scooper!) really loved these horses. 

I won my first award! The Chamber of Commerce runs this show, and they liked my art so much that I was their choice to be invited back for the 2016 show. So that's pretty darn exciting! 

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Dog of the Day

These Irish wolfhounds were gentle and quiet, and really cool dogs! The older one, who's taking a breather on the pavement, weighs 140. The younger one has yet to fill out, and might end up weighing even more, the owners told me.