Open Studios San Francisco 2007 Report

It's Monday morning after a weekend of Open Studios. What an experience. I think, foot traffic wise, it was the worst of any of the 5 years I've shown down at Fort Mason. Every year, it seems to get worse and worse - because I don't think Fort Mason really cares if Open Studios is held down there or not and they don't promote it or make it visible. Every year I tell myself I am not going to do it again next year there, but then I do. Fort Mason keeps raising the prices by large leaps every year and provides less and less service for it. It really is time to find another alternative place but the choices are very few and far between in the city and in a group large enough to attract visitors to come to it.

Saturday was just bizarre down at Fort Mason. In a larger pavilion building there, they were also hosting the Oktoberfest. And different than other years of the Oktoberfest, this year there were tons of twenty-something kids who were *way* too drunk, and while they didn't come into our building where all the artists were holding Open Studios, they were loud and yelling in the parking lot, peeing against the other buildings, being generally scary, and twice during the day we saw 6 police cars, 3 ambulances and a fire engine, and sirens over at that building (we could see the entrance from our windows). As I was driving out of the Fort Mason parking lot at the end of Saturday, it was almost dangerous, with drunk kids leaping out in front of cars and yelling at the drivers and knocking into one another and streaming out of the parking lot on to the city streets nearby. It was just bizarre.

Sunday was also Oktoberfest but it seemed a lot calmer and more family-oriented. And more people (who did not seem drunk like the day before) did come into our building to view the art and artists did make more sales on Sunday than Saturday. I did horribly - only selling 5 miniature paintings the whole weekend and not even making the cost to rent the room (but fortunately had sold a bunch before the show in Indiana so in the end it was fine for me). On the good side, some friends did stop by to visit, and some people I had not seen in awhile which was fun, and other visitors who were very interested in my encaustics and wanted to know all about the process, so it was enjoyable educating more people on what makes encaustic beeswax so interesting to work with.

My legs are quite sore this morning from standing for two days and I'm feeling my back ache from the setup and take-down, but another Open Studios has come and gone and now its on to the next thing. I have a juried exhibition to get ready to enter on October 28th.





This is a shot of my setup. It does not include all of my setup - as there are some oil paintings off to the left and a larger encaustic painting off to the right... but it shows most of it.





Here are a couple of "roommates" (five artists shared our room), with Peggie MacDonald talking back at Sandra Riker's table. The very last hour of Sunday, Sandra had a customer buy the $800 bronze sculpture you can see in the upper right part of her table in the photo. In total she sold 7 sculptures so she did very well in the end.

Now I get to go visit my artist friends who are holding their Open Studios on the remaining weekends of October (in other parts of the city) and the Hunter's Point artist collective (which still remains the largest collection of artist studios in the city) has theirs the first weekend of November.





Technorati tags: art , oil painting , miniature painting , Open Studios

San Francisco Open Studios Oct 13-14, 2007

I'm all set for my busy weekend for Open Studios Oct 13-14th. I'll be at Fort Mason in San Francisco, Building C, Room 210. 11-5pm.

I didn't expect to pre-sell some of my miniatures (which I never show on my website) and a $1500 painting when I was in Indiana, just showing people what I had prepared for Open Studios. So I enter this weekend totally relaxed - I have already made back the money on the room rental cost and much much more so everything I sell this weekend is just "gravy", at least in my perception.

So I'll feel more relaxed to just meet and enjoy people who are coming to look at art... and something tells me that will probably help my sales even more, but I guess time will tell.

Now I'm just doing the last-minute stuff, preparing my table coverings, getting candy to have in a basket, and this year I'm going to actually make my lunch beforehand. Every year I tell myself I'll leave briefly to go buy a salad or sandwich, but I never do. So this year, I'll make sure I have something healthy in the room.

I'll post the results of my weekend experience on Monday.




4x4" miniature


Technorati tags: art , oil painting , miniature painting , Open Studios

Miniature Landscape Oil Paintings

This summer has been an intense time for some serious health issues of a couple of family members (one relative being diagnosed with a terminal illness in June which had all my attention that month [and more], and July my mother fell ill and almost died from a drug-resistant staph infection).

After all the recent intensity, August has been a quiet time for me to paint and continue making more paintings for my Open Studios, which will be held, for me, October 13-14 at Fort Mason in San Francisco. I'll be showing a smattering of the different types of works I've been doing over the past year - my larger traditional landscape oil paintings, my larger oil abstract paintings, and my encaustic wax paintings (which most of them are 12x12").

I always make some 4x4" miniature oil landscape paintings, which visitors seem to love and I usually make about 25 of them and typically sell around 20. This year I'm goaling myself to make 50 and I'm up to 44 of them so far so I'm close to my goal. I have been finding customers buying these more in sets than previous years so I'm trying to have enough of what they typically ask for (northern california trees/open space, chicken barns [classic to the northern california area], cows, and some coastals). I'm also doing some stylized ones of trees that mix abstract elements and the trees.

I never keep track of which ones sell, so this year I'm going to better document them beforehand and then I can go back and see which ones sold.

Here's just one photo with just a sampling of some I've completed so far.



I've submitted the first fully wax sculpture I've ever attempted to a juried competition. It's a little bizarre looking but I'm hoping different enough that the juror will like it. And it really fits the theme of the show, which is called "Renewal".

I'm heading to Evansville Indiana at the end of August, to spend all of September there. I'll be helping with my youngest brother's family and I have a 3x4 foot commission painting to start and complete in that month. What did the client want? Cows, of course. Can't get away from them! I have a nice scene planned of cows grazing with the Pacific Ocean in the background - sweeping looking. I may also try to kick out some more miniatures while I'm there and ship them back to myself before Open Studios. Maybe. Oils can be funky sometimes in how long it takes them to dry to the touch. I'll have to see how it feels when I get there and get into an Indiana frame of mind.

Technorati tags: art , miniature paintings , oil landscape paintings , Open Studios , miniature paintings , oil landscape paintings , Fort Mason