Salt Fork River Art Festival

It was indeed a beautiful weekend of wine, art, music, food and fun. A little foggy the first morning, with a nice sunny afternoon, by 4 a pretty decent rain had us shutting down an hour early. The next day was slightly breezy but gorgeous and again happily sunny, with occasional big, puffy clouds. Salt Fork was my first "Crafts Fair" in decades, done mostly as a favor to the folks at Sleepy Creek for the 2 1/2 month show they let me put up previously. I did paper making demos all day, both days. I think everyone was fascinated and entertained. It might be quite a bit of fun to do more shows simply for the comradery and excitement. I met so many interesting artists and other people just out having a nice day at the winery. It was very enjoyable sharing my love of art and excitement about creating with some of the artists that were there. Best of all, while discussing printing with another artist (who was not showing, just visiting) she mentioned that her grandfather was a letterpress printer and she had lots of old wooden type and many very old style cuts. I was interested in buying them but they meant too much to her to sell. However she loaned my the whole lot to use for my current project; A series of limited edition signed posters using "faces" as the background subject matter. The show I've just stumbled into will be going up November 14th at Amara Yoga here in Champaign. It will be called "DOGBOY-FACE2FACE". The "organic" way the poster/face idea was born, the way this show came about, and now the arrival of this gorgeous type to print the posters, makes the whole thing seem to be taking on a life of it's own. That's ALWAYS a good thing. For the moment the deck is clear of other obligations (a bit scary financially), and I'm very excited to get into the studio and work solely on my book, and my show...pure art, just for me. It ia a blessing to be sure.