Fractal Cupcakes

A friend of mine turned me on to this cool site, check it out if you're into fractals.

Fractal Snowflake Cupcakes

My next big adventure

Well it's nearly time to say goodbye to the animals, kiss my wife one last time (for a month anyway) and hitch up my trailer for what will be the longest road trip of my art career. I leave this coming Sunday for shows in AZ. and the great state of Texas. That's at least what my history teacher in high school called it with his Texan accent revealing just what part of the country he came from.

If I don't make too many wrong turns, Google maps tell me I'm about to drive 4847 miles and about 72 hours behind the wheel of my truck. That total time of course doesn't take into consideration pit stops, over nights in highway rest stops and time at the festivals themselves. Just 72 hours of nose to the wheel, hard core driving.

I'm bummed and excited all at once over my show itinerary. Because I was excepted into the Bayou City Art Festival in Houston TX this year, I had to turn down an invitation to one of my favorite shows in Tempe AZ. Unfortunately they land on the same weekend so I'll be casting my luck towards TX. for a change. Good luck to my fellow traveling artist at The Festival of the Arts in Tempe.

First show on this trip is the 4th Ave Merchants Association show in Tucson. Can't wait for this one, it's a blast. Then it 1084 miles straight through the middle of Texas to the east side of the state. This leg should take 2 days. I'll be setting up for Bayou on Thursday, doing the show Friday, Saturday and Sunday then heading about 50 miles north to Woodlands TX for the Waterway Arts Festival the following weekend. This is a 2 day affair then I'll be heading home. I can't decide if I want to drive north through Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana then Idaho (which is the fastest way home) or circle back through Mesa AZ and Salt Lake City UT. to visit the grand kids.

That will add a week to my trip but I get to play grandpa for a few days. Just writing that helped me make up my mind. Kids, here I come. I'll try and find WiFi point along the trip to keep my updates fresh.

Show report- Custer's in Spokane, WA 2009

Well, it's over. It's in the books. My first show for the 2009 season is done. A glowing success I might add. It never fails, even after doing shows for nearly a decade full time, I still tend to get a tad nervous before a show, especially the first one of the season. I think this year's nerves were brought on more from the "doom & gloomers" spouting the end of the financial world as we know it had more to do with my uneasiness than if my booth looked right.

If normal people would just turn off the talking heads on CNN and stop reading the "pull your money out of the banks and stick it in a can buried in your back yard" BS we would all be a lot better off.

Let me be the first one to say this. ARTISTS, don't worry about the financial meltdown. Worry about how to make your art better and how to market it more efficiently than you ever did before. Sit in the back of your booth reading a book and waiting for someone to come in and hand you a pile of money for your art and you deserve to fail. Get out there and engage your customers. Tell them a story about yourself and your art. Explain how you made it and what inspired you. People but you and your story equally as much as they buy your art. Sit back and chill and you'll fail in this market. Step up and engage and you'll prosper.

Art buyers are still out there if your art is worth buying.

Usual crowd, lower end craft buyers mostly but those looking for something different in the way of 2D art found me.

Here are a few photos of my new print display system I'm using. Setting myself apart from the typical 2D artists was my goal this year. (if being maybe the only fractal artist on the circuit isn't enough to be different) I didn't want to use my old plastic bins any longer but I didn't want the cookie cutter look of Pro Panels print bins either. I've tried rolling bins before but can't fit enough of them in my cargo trailer. So I used copper and mahogany wood displays that I made over my winter break. I received many complements on how nice the booth looked.

Working couple amass stupendous art collection, circulate it across the US

Found this inspiring piece on BoingBoing today.

There's hope in rock n' roll

With the meltdown in the economy and the doom and gloomers saying no one has any money to spend on the arts, there is a museum in Maine that that is proving that rock n' roll is here to save the day. You can read about it here or visit the website of the venue below.

Portland Museum of Art

Revised 2009 Show Schedule

I just revised and added to my 2009 show schedule which can be found in the right hand column.