Move In Day!

Move in day is stressful and anticlimactic.  My scheduled time is 2:30 in the afternoon and since I am a morning person and it will be close to 90 degrees, I am not looking forward to it.  More hours to stress before "The Show".  My truck is loaded and a friend will drop by at noon and we will load his truck, go out to lunch and to the Garden Show for unloading.  I have done hundreds of these in my life and have a check list, but each time is like the very first time.  I really shouldn't worry because the Maude Kerns art people are truly professionals and this is their 30th time they have put on this show.  I know from my experience last year that I can pretty much dump off my stuff and come back a couple hours later and it will be perfectly choreographed and decorated with hundreds of flowers.  They call it "garden art" for a reason and they are professionals.
   The entire "Art in the Vineyard" is huge encompassing the entire City Park and covering many acres.
It will draw over 75,000 paying visitors and hundreds of Artists from all over the Northwest.  You can rent your own booth and man it and keep the proceeds of your sales or you can do what some of us do,
display your wares in a communal setting.  The "Art People" do the sales, decorate and make everything look like a wonderland and the artist does not have to be there for all the hours of the show.
We pay a commission for this but it is like hiring a team of professionals and a whole theater cast crew for a pittance.  My art looks better surrounded by other's art and the entire couple acres, the "Art in the Garden" section is a walkable wonderland.  I really have nothing to worry about, just the hours between now and then.
   I keep saying that this is my last show.  I have said that for over five years now, yet I keep coming back.  I really like them, like my stuff and me on display, the anticipation and stage fright.  I like watching the audience, people as they move about this theater and I wonder whether they realize how much work from all of the Artists and Production Crew went into this event?  Some people will look at every piece and other's will walk right past not giving it a glance.  I think that is why I like making one of a kind art, pieces and concepts not seen before.  Still some will walk right past and not even see it.
Interesting.

Ultimately

Ultimately, the Market decides.  I have never met an artist who could not have done a little more.
One more painting, another sculpture, another book written.  There is a fear that stops us and it is not always our own limits.  Some metal artists have a product, dragons or fairies and they can build up inventory.  They will sell at this market or the next one.  Almost everything I make is one of a kind, from found objects or just a fantasy shape I wish to create and most of my pieces are useful: a seat, a trellis, a planter, a gate.  Sometimes a client might wish for a pair and purchase the first for $135 and inquire about the cost for a matching set, maybe even anticipating a discount for the second piece.  They are shocked to find the matching piece could be three times the cost of the original and often unavailable at any price.  I can't just find a matching integral piece and the process of duplication becomes a job.  I make things on whimsy with a song in my heart, paying no attention to time and little attention to the cost of production.  I make things I like around my own garden and studio.
   Oh, if I were absolutely sure that something would sell I might make a complementary piece or another if I were able.  But I do not know and eventually my garden and studio become full.  I find it interesting that customers want what other's have found acceptable.  The plastic lawn chairs are all over the world!  and in every landfill.

 I will bring a Steel Easel, some acrylic paints and brushes and encourage
a "mass paint in", each person who passes to add a stroke or two!

   I have two pick up truck loads of metal and stone creations for this Art Show and that is enough.  You can never have enough product and satisfy every customer's demands but it is enough to introduce potential clients to what I do, how I see art and how I create it.  Ultimately, this is a fishing trip and what I bring is bait.  I am after future clients.

 Painted Stainless Steel Table.  It turns!

A Place to sit

 My slate planter is coming along, I still have to grout it.

I have done dozens and dozens of Home Shows and summer art shows over the years and consider myself an expert at their presentation.  There is always a price of some kind to get in them, a fee or a commission or both. Home Shows are the most expensive and you quickly learn to utilize the space, the decoration and display.  If you are beginning in this process my strongest advice would be don't have anything in your booth that is not for sale and absolutely don't bring one of those plastic lawn chairs.
I am never sitting down if there is a chance that a potential client could be within 30 feet. That is a horrible presentation of indifference.  That said, the shows are long and difficult and there are opportunities to relax and sit and sometimes a potential customer would like to sit as well.  This year I have my 10' tall "sprinkler chair/trellis" and I made a small 2 person bench from a nice scrap piece of oak.  I like the floating, cantilevered oak and the base has heavy ornamental iron castings.  I will put a $135 price tag on it and if it doesn't sell it will be a great addition to my own studio!
                                                                                    Yesterday was pretty productive. I made three
                                                                                     tripod pedestals that will accept any size flower                      
                                                                                     pot.  These are easy to make and over the years I
                                                                                     have made hundreds of them.  They are
                                                                                     inexpensive too, just $30 and another way to
                                                                                     support the arts and take something home!


                                                                                   

 Tripod Pedestal

 This can be freestanding or mounted to the deck

I am not sure what I will make today!  Something for sure, I have exactly one more week before move in day and I have ONE truckload already. It would be nice to have two!

Art and the Vineyard

I wasn't going to do this Art Show this year.  It is Maude Kerns, perhaps our biggest local gallery and community art center, annual fund raiser and it is their 30th consecutive event.  It is a big deal in my city.   They rent the entire park by the river and charge over 75,000 people $7.50 to get in.  There are over 130 artists from all over the Northwest exhibiting at the show.  It will be a three day event, July 4th, 5th and 6th.  I did well at the show last year, my first year there but it is a lot of work and I am not sure I like the way they represent artists.  What I mean by this is probably a whole philosophical discussion about art galleries and artists.   We are a fickle bunch and really, need more than sales to keep us happy.  I was disappointed that in the entire year they never visited my studio!  Yes, it comes down to ego.  I was one of their top ten selling artists and they couldn't bother to stroke me!  Artists need galleries because we do not know what we are doing.  If sales were easy there would be no point to the galleries.  So I am left to my own devices when it comes to taking a truckload of metal pieces to their show.  That's OK, I am pretty good at that; however, a walk about through my garden, my shop, my studio and a discussion of the trade with a gallery representative would be meaningful.  I don't think it is enough for a gallery to just acquire pieces and sell them on a commission.  Most businesses do not operate that way.
   At any rate they called yesterday and talked me into it at the last minute.  Still no plan, no visit, just those words that I can never resist:  "Jerry, we need you".
So the painting of my house is on hold.  I have the side, one third of the house to finish and it can wait. I have ten days to create 15 pieces and it will be a trial for my neuroprothetic hands!  What I have learned over the years in my art is to make things I like, that way, if for some reason they do not sell then I am happy to own them.
I like garden tables, not tables for people but for

Garden Table

the garden, a place to put that morning coffee,
a place to put the clippers, or that fresh picked produce
while you continue the walk of the garden.  I have
several of these in my garden and plant cucumbers

On its side during construction

around their base and they use these as a trellis!

Yesterday I also began a steel framed and slate covered container raised bed. I love these and already have several around my shop/studio/garden.  I wouldn't mind a few more!
The tops of these are 24 to 30" off the ground and early in the season I use them for lettuce and spinach or even snap peas. Later in the season they become flower pots although I did just yesterday
plant three rows of carrots in one.
I will attempt to post here 10 days in a row and show you everything I make for this art show!
I will make an easel for sure! I made three for this show last year and they all sold. "Art in the Garden", right?  You need an easel!

Steel framed and covered in slate: flower pots

The Secret

The "Art in the Garden" show was a terrific success, I think for everyone.  I have discovered that this was their 29th year so next  will be huge!  They have had years to practice, problems to resolve and seemed to run this show effortlessly but a lot of work went into it.  I think there were about 30 artists in this garden section and we all did well.  The pieces that were there, mine and other's do not display well in a booth and we need this garden setting, an environment that encourages walking through a magical garden and finding treasures that can be purchased.  There were no ten by ten plastic tents, no carnival or food court atmosphere.  Just fun and open space and about a million flowers!  Seriously, they transformed an open field into a beautiful garden over night.  Elves working around the clock.
   I have been invited to other summer garden exhibitions already, but different ones.  With booths and the plastic canopies where I should be selling cotton candy. One booth indistinguishable from the next.
My hat is off and fair organizers should be flocking to Maude Kerns Art Gallery to discover their secrets.

A Thousand Dollar Easel

One more day of Art in the Vineyard, this art show I am participating in.  I am amazed that I have not done this show before.  I have been invited many times but it is always in July, my busy season, and I just didn't have the time.  Now it is different.  I am retired and have all the time in the world but I don't have the strength that I used to have.  I am not after the big jobs, nothing too heavy.  I could have sold a lot of benches at this exhibition, there were none there.  My benches are serpentine, curvy and heavy.  I seldom make them any more because of the effort at moving them.  I can make butterflies and saw some great ones there, made from spoons and forks and drill bits and stuff of imagination but I leave that to others.  If I make three of one thing that is a lot to me and I am on to something else.
    I brought three truckloads of stuff to this garden show and will probably bring about a half truck back to my shop, not bad by any measure.  My main attraction were the easels.  Easels.  Art.  "Art for the garden", get it?  I brought a total of five and one real one, the very nice bench model that, at Sherry's direction, lays flat for horizontal painting.  They all sold and two went to California, one to a local winery and I am not sure who bought the other two.  The "painting stations" were popular too with their steel palettes and cup holders and places to put brushes.
   When I introduced my arbors years ago everyone told me that arbors didn't sell well.  Too much competition from imports and they were pretty inexpensive.  So I studied arbors.  The first home show I introduced them and had one as my entrance to my booth.  A $550. dollar price tag, pretty pricey for an arbor.  I sold it twelve times before I quit taking orders!  Each year I would make the arbor bigger and better until the last year I did the home shows and had a model, pretty extravagant with a price of $3,500.
I sold it twice!
   You can find easels on the internet, e-bay has over a thousand of them.  I studied them all and most are pretty cheap.  Why would I want to compete in that market?  I think there must be people out there who would like a really nice easel.  It is just a challenge and I have the time.  I am not there yet but one sold for $200 at the show and the Gallery itself wants my $500 dollar model, the one I thought too good to bring to a garden show.  I wonder what a thousand dollar easel would look like?  I wonder if I could make one?

What is Hot?

I am so tired, I had forgotten how much work these shows can be.  To top it all off I lost a filling and had a toothache from hell.  Over the weekend of course.  Why doesn't Anbesol come with a little paint brush applicator?  Luckily I have a lot of paint brushes!  The first day of this show is over and I made it until about five o'clock before I collapsed and went home.  Nice to be in the "Garden Section", a fenced in section with other artists and not a booth that needs attending.
   The area was transformed overnight and magically decorated with potted flowers and shrubbery.  Seriously, maybe a semi truck load of them, creating wandering paths and encouraging people to investigate what treasures they could find.  I think this is the twenty-fourth year of this event and they know what they are doing.  This garden section has quite a reputation and as people enter the main grounds they head straight for it, knowing if they don't get there soon the treasures will be gone.  I think there were 30 artists in this section and most of us did pretty well.  About a third of the inventory was sold at five o'clock when I was just too tired to continue.  There was an artist there who made globes for candles on a steel frame, all pretty simple and clever.  The globe was from 2 glass light fixtures, one on top of the other with the candle inside.  He had, at the beginning of this show a triple row of these, maybe thirty of them and they were gone by 4 o'clock!
   There was a steady influx of people and it seemed as though everyone was buying something.  The dragon flies and butterflies on a stake went flying out of there and all of the clever creations made from spoons and forks and knives went as well.  Anything at $30 or less disappeared pretty fast.  My little pieces of slate on a steel stake, a place to put your morning coffee all sold also.
    Before the show opened the Art Gallery people walk through the exhibit checking things out for themselves.  When they found my lady holding an easel they stopped and we had quite a conversation about easels!  She is now a permanent fixture at Maude Kerns Art Gallery!  And they are interested in seeing my very best easel which I didn't even bring to this show!
   Someone from California came to the show with a truck.  Seriously.  Apparently they do this every year, combining a vacation to Oregon with a tour of this garden show and they know from experience that they will want to take home some of the bigger stuff.  They bought my bench model easel and it is on its way to California now.  That is such an honor.
    I sold some other bigger pieces too and still have some left.  The glass topped table with vines is gone and the wooden garden table on its steel frame is also.  Maybe I sold about a third of what I brought and for having a tooth I would like to rip out that was not a bad first day!
    It is a different world at these shows.  You would never know that these are difficult economic times.  Thousands of people paid $7 to get in and some bought three day passes for $15.  There must be over a hundred food vendors there and lunch at all of them is about $10.  Nine really but you always put the buck in the tip jar.  I do anyway.  It is hot and nasty in those kitchens.
   I am ready for day two!

Cool Stuff!

I have not displayed in a garden show for over five years and that was seldom how I displayed what I do. I consider myself a "Home Show Expert" having done them twice a year for twenty-five years.  In these shows I displayed my creativity but I was always after the bigger jobs and just brought the little things to show what I could do.  Sometimes I would get $50,000 worth of work from a single show.  I am retired from that now, no longer have a crew and am not after these bigger jobs.  I'll leave them for the younger people.
    Now what I bring to a show is what I am trying to sell and there isn't much more.  Oh, it is a lure a little bit; I would like to be commissioned to build a custom gate or something really cool, but basically what I am bringing is what I have to sell.

   I moved in yesterday and on the spot sold three pieces to other vendors and that is a good omen for this show.  I got the opportunity to look at their work also and I have to admit that I was impressed!  Their art is different from mine and that is good.  We are not really in competition with each other.  It is apples and oranges and they have worked hard.  I see a winters gathering of gleamings out of their work and they have turned common tableware into magical dragonflies.  Whimsical, fluttering, with the strength of steel. Clever!
   I haven't got a photo yet, perhaps today, but there is an artist there who makes creatures.  A life sized giant sea turtle, a dragon that must be 15' tall, butterflies, of course and other animals.  They are incredible, perfect workmanship, amazing details.  They will bring the crowds.

   I think artists always compare themselves to other artists, steal ideas a bit, incorporate concepts.  My art is different because it is all designed to be used.  I make tables and pedestals and places to perch a cup of coffee, cucumber trellis's and structures for bigger climbers.  Used by people or used by plants. Functional Art.
    There are lots of vendors at this show, some in the "Garden Section" where I am and others in booths packed together along a serpentine walkway with over a hundred vendors.  Artists from all over the Pacific Northwest.  The show is a big to do and is supposed to attract over 25,000 visitors.  I wonder if the public realizes all the work that goes into such a production, renting the park for an entire week for a three day show.  Lots of security, just lots of people working to make this a success.

   Some artists have been here for 15 years in a row.   Months of labor for a three day event.  I am a little embarrassed.  I churned my stuff out in a three week frenzy.  Next year I will do a better job.  I am already thinking about it.

I am Ready!

I am ready for the outdoor art show.  I have 47 pieces made, ranging from $15. to $325, mostly things people have never seen before.  It will be interesting to see what happens.
These photos are of a painter's table/palette that I just completed.  I splashed some paint on it so that people can get the idea that this is to be used.  It is a tool.
I have two truck loads and a friend to help me move.  that is a good thing, I am tired!  couple days of rest and then the show begins!

Dust to Dust

I am often asked, "Will it rust?"  or sometimes even, will I guarantee it "not to rust?"  I always laugh and quote from the "Sermon on the Mount".  "I will guarantee that it WILL RUST" I say, it is the only quote from the Bible I know (and "don't build your house on shifting sands!").  Rust is not a good thing for the steel girders supporting our bridges but it garden art and entry gates it is part of the charm.  The patina of rust is often the color I am after.  I can hasten this process with muriatic acid (used to adjust the PH  in a swimming pool), or any salad vinegar, balsamic is nice!
   Wrought iron is traditionally black because in the "olden days", or yesterday if I get my forge out, a blacksmith ("black because we get very dirty, it is not a racial thing) would apply beeswax to the hot iron which would turn it black and provide some protection from the elements.  Black is a great hider of rust and it is easy to "touch up" when rust does appear.  A part of the charm of really old metal work is that is has several layers of paint.  I have seen it a half an inch thick in my European traveling days.
    I have learned over the years that for a show, a presentation of my work, I cannot have plain unprotected rust on display.  Although I have never actually seen someone in white kid gloves examine my pieces, some people appear as though that is what they are doing.  So before the main event I apply a thin layer of whatever I may have of something clear to cover the rust.  This could be a "Rustoleum" product, a clear protective enamel, some kind of exterior lacquer or a linseed oil wipe down. There are lots of products available and all will give a temporary clean cover to the steel.  The rust turns every shade of golden and I get that depth, color and contrast that I am after.  Will it last?  of course not.  It is a clean shininess offered to aid in impulse buying.  You could reapply the finish every Spring or before major events or you could just let it be and accept that it is pretty and maintains itself just fine.

   I still have a couple of weeks before this Art show opens but I think I am done with the big projects for now.  I have two small truck loads!  An arbor, of course, a gate, some trellis's, some tables, some pedestals, and just some weird stuff.  Now I am polishing and purposefully rusting what I have made and then I will seal it.  I am making "small stuff" now, the dragons and butterfly kind of things that one expects to see in a garden show.

A Truck Load

When I am on a roll I can churn this art stuff out.  I am making one piece a day for this upcoming event:
Art in the Vineyard Show.  I will be in a particular section called "Art in the Garden", about an acre roped off and tended by volunteers.  I don't have to be there during the whole show.
   It is funny, being a welder-painter!  When I thought of "Art in the Garden" my mind just immediately thought of easels and painting!  I am also an avid gardener so it was no great leap for me to create an easel that the plants would like, that could also be a trellis.  I have a lot of iron work in my garden, big stuff and arches for the Trumpet Vine Entry, three gates to enter the garden at differing points, trellis's for the peas and beans and my tomato cages are all steel and creatures of their own.  I also have a lot of pedestals and little tables in my garden.  I grow my cucumbers up and around them, have a place to put my morning coffee and a place to chop off the heads of the carrots!  I don't have a flat garden that is all there is to it.
   So that is what I am making:  Easel/Trellis's, little pedestals and tables and a couple small benches for just one person.  There is a simple reason I won't make bigger benches even though I know they would sell.  I have lost my helper.  He is a wildland fire fighter and is off to New Mexico fighting the "Bear Mountain Fire",
already bigger than last year's fire which was the largest ever!  It is going to be a long hot summer!
   Except in Western Oregon!  We are about as mild as we have ever been with June being one of the wettest after a dry and promising May.  Crazy, almost coastal weather, low 60's and a bit of rain every day.

My garden is hating it.