East Woodstock Congregational Church Spring Craft Fair

With the fourth show in four weeks coming up this last Saturday my brain tried to do me in! Thursday morning I woke up in a rather depressed state. No, I can’t tell you what triggered it or why I’m depressed. I’m working on that, but for now it just is.

That being said, Saturday morning setup in Woodstock was a BIG challenge for me. I hadn’t really cleaned everything up from the week before and it felt like everything wanted to go against me. It was little things for the most part, of which I am thankful. I felt like a klutz dropping things constantly and struggling to find what I was looking for. The entire time I was sure everyone around me was watching and laughing at how disorganized I was.

The day was beautiful and the location was serene! No significant wind and not a drop of rain and for the second show in a row I managed to grab a spot underneath the trees for some additional shade. The weather was so calm that I was able to put up my booth without the walls (normally the wind keeps the paintings fluttering around if I don’t have the walls up.

Once I got everything set up I was in decent shape. I changed up the layout a bit since I was on the end and was happy with the setup. The crowds were fairly light, but I managed to sneak in working on a couple of new paintings (painting almost always lifts my spirits when I’m depressed.)

Both are still works in progress that I intend to finish up later this week.

As I mentioned before, the crowds never really built up and in the end we ended up breaking down just a bit early. Even so, I still had a great time! I sold a single painting from my desktop series to a young lady I would guess was in junior high. She and her friend spent a lot of time looking at my paintings and we had some good conversations about what they liked about art as well! The funniest and most uplifting comments was when her friend asked something along the lines of “Will you still come out to shows like this when you are famous?”

Mini Mountains which sold this weekend

Other uplifting comments of note included two different people that asked me if I offered classes. In both instances we had been talking about my approach and it got into the subject of finding your voice in painting. I’ve always felt that technique isn’t so important in getting started as it is that you find passion for what you are doing.

I’ve on and off thought about what my approach for a class would be and likely I’ll be looking for a few guinea pigs in the future as I try those ideas out. I’m not one to teach technique as I’ve never had any real formal training. My idea would be to find your voice by practice being messy and making mistakes. I think that it’s in those moments that you find the things you didn’t expect and are able to relax enough to find yourself in your work.

I also have to admit that I really enjoy the pace of the smaller shows even if it isn’t as good for visibility. The local shows are fun to be able to be out meeting folks in the area and I especially appreciate that there are always a few people I know from the art guild or some of the other shows.

I also forgot to mention that they did a raffle as everyone donated something from their booth as part of the booth fees. I donated one of my 8x10s, but sadly didn’t get to meet whoever won it. On the flip side they also gave us raffle tickets and I ended up winning a stone necklace that apparently my wife already had matching earrings for which she bought from the same vendor (Champagnerowes) at an earlier festival!

So now I have a couple of free weekends to work on all of my other projects before the next show!

2nd ANNUAL PUTNAM FINE ARTS & CRAFTS FESTIVAL

June 22nd & 23rd, 2024

10am-4pm

Putnam, CT

https://www.putnamctartscouncil.com/art-festival