Artsplosure 2009

As I mentioned, I spent the weekend in Raleigh for the 30th Artsplosure art festival. There were over 200 artists there and the quality of art was unbelievable! Artists came from all over the country including a few I spoke to from GA, VA, and OH.

I sold 3 paintings which is a good day for me. Shown above:

Lansford Road Farm 8x16, Red Dirt Road 8x10 & Farm Shed 5x7

It rained hard on and off for breif periods early Saturday morning which pretty much soaked everything and then the sun came out and steamed us all, thoroughly. Despite this, there were thousands of people walking about, shopping and enjoying the festival until 7pm. All in all, it was a good day.

Sunday was not so good. As a matter of fact, it was miserable. It rained non-stop, starting when I arrived at 9am. The temperature dropped from the 80's to the 60's. I had a sizeable river running swiftly through the back of my tent where the curb was and my tent did not stop any rain at all. I lost lots of notecards to water, a white jacket to water & ink stains, all of the title cards hanging from my tent, all of the cardboard boxes used to store my art and a few other things. The biggest lesson learned yesterday is that I'm going to have to shell out another $1000 for a new, water-proof tent. I told my husband about all of this. He was excited and proud that I had made some money this weekend and then I told him about the tent situation and his response was this, "why is it every time you make money, you turn right around and spend it?" Sorry, Honey, it just can't be helped this time.

So, most festivals will penalize an artists for leaving early by way of not accepting your application for the following year. After getting a promise not to penalize artists for leaving Raleigh because of the weather conditions, a lot of us packed up in the rain and the wind and left. This is not fun at all. Everything is wet, goes into your vehicle wet and stays wet until you can haul it all out into the driveway to dry. Here in Mooresville it looks like that may be tomorrow.

Well, I'm off to research canopies...