You’d Better Enjoy It!

My July schedule reminds me of just how important it is to enjoy what you do in life. Doing shows is the hardest work I’ve ever done and I think most other artists and crafters would agree (although I know some exceptions). When I was younger, I did jobs that got me some pocket money. It didn’t matter too much what the job was and I worked for some pretty lousy bosses. After college I worked in the information sciences using my biology degree. I worked my way up to frontline management which came with it’s own set of challenges. After fifteen years of that, and because my wife and I felt we needed to make a change in our lives, I began a new career in photography.

Certainly there have been challenges in making such a big life move, but we have benefited as a family, and I have benefitted personally by engaging in the one activity I’ve been most passionate about. Without that passion, and a fire in me to create, I think shows would have burned me out. I’ve done shows part-time and full-time now for 12 years and still enjoy them. I like meeting the people who see my work and make it their own. I like being around creative people who are striving toward the same goals I have. I like being in control of the process of creating, marketing, and planning my own future. There are no guarentees of how long anything in life can continue, but for now, I am doing it.

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Whew! Ju-ly

After having 14 show days in July, I am ready for a re-grouping. While I set my sights on the Poconos Chapter of the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen show in August, I do have time to prepare. That is 4 weeks away. I will prepare both for it and the not so distant craziness that my October and November schedule will cause. I have a few special orders to complete and then I’ll begin printing for the Poconos show and beyond. I may even slip in time for some new work!

The first Pennsylvania Guild State Show of the year at Chase Center in Wilmington, DE was a success! Interest was high and mostly everyone was pleased. Most definitely pleased were the buyers who came to make special purchases for themselves or others.

Recently, I’ve added a seal to the back of finished matted or framed pieces. This seal is from the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen and available to State Juried members. It represents a statement by the Guild that the artist/craftsman has been determined to create work that is of high quality, originality, and design.

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Delaware is Friendly

I lived in Newark for a few years while my girlfriend (now wife) and I were in graduate school at U of D. We liked it well enough. After grad school we moved back to PA where we now live, but always look back on Delaware fondly and go back once and awhile. Being in Delaware these last couple days reminds me why I liked the state. It’s not too big, and people always seem welcoming. I got a real sense that the Delaware folk are happy to have a top calibre craft/art show in town. While several of my images were added to collections by Delaware residents, others went to Pennsylvania homes, Maryland and even Minnesota!

Tomorrow is the last day for the Guild Show and I am sure I like both the Delaware venue and the Chase Center as an exhibition space. The other thing I really like is not having to figure out sales tax!

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PA Guild of Craftsmen – Chase Center, DE

The first day at the Show suggests that the Chase Center may be a good location for the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen to hold our summer show. Walking through the exhibit halls is a pleasant experience with plenty of aisle space and attractive decor. It just feels like a comfortable show to attend. The lobby, where I am set up seems to be working well for me and I like being in a position for people to easily come back and look at my work on their way out. Folks who I have asked say they like the location, abundant parking, and the facility itself.

This image below (one I sold today) is part of a series of four that I made of a weathered train car. I was drawn to the texture, line, and color and worked to emphasize the abstract nature of the the sections I isolated. It represents the effect of nature on man-made structures.

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Hanging Together and Survival of the Fittest

I hung my work today at the Chase Center in Wilmington, DE where the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen is having our first State Show of the year. I’m set up in the lobby in a well lit location so you can easily find me on your way in and out.

I have a corner space which means I can hang a larger selection of work. I always have more work than I can hang and so decisions must be made as to which images make it onto the wall and which do not. The decision is based on a kind of survival of the fittest through a somewhat natural selection process.

The first work that goes on the wall is that which is most popular, i.e., most often selected by patrons for purchase. The work that is less popular (less fit?) gets hung when space allows. Ultimately, if a piece is not selected for too long, it may not even make it to a show – it goes extinct. I am not suggesting that there is anything wrong with these images that are not selected, they may just be in the wrong place to be selected for someone’s home or office. Maybe someone somewhere else would have selected the image, but not at the shows I’m currently doing. Geographically, where an image hangs on display is a selective force in determining if an image is added to someones home/office. Likewise, you won’t find a polar bear in a desert.

I am a pretty good judge of image quality, so I’m confident that non-selected images are good, they’re just not often purchased. I have several images for sale that are not the most popular but which when found by the right person, are taken with excitement. I will sometimes hang images that are not my most popular because I think they say something important about the breadth of work I do (these are often my more abstract pieces). There are also certain pieces that just turn me on and which will always find a place in my show display (artificial selection?).

I have about 20 pieces hanging at the Chase Center now, so make it to the show and put your natural selection to work. Over time you will see how my display evolves.

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Quick Pace

With the Audubon Festival in Hawley just finished, I have immediately begun working toward next weekend’s show in Wilmington, DE. The Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen State Show at the Chase Center starts this Friday, July 27 and continues all weekend (28th and 29th). This is a new venue for the show which had been held at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA.

The weather for the Audubon Festival this past weekend probably lowered attendance, but overall it was a fine show with some nationally-recognized artists. I was pleased to see several patrons from last year come back to acquire another piece or two, and to meet new collectors who will be bringing my work into their homes as far away as South Carolina and Florida.

This is the one show all year that we make into a family trip. My wife Donna and daughter Hannah accompanied me for the second year now. Donna and Hannah get to walk the show and both picked out items to purchase. Hannah likes the dinners and breakfasts out and walking a bit around Lake Wallenpaupack. Friday night (set-up day) we took in a movie and Saturday night talked with some of the crafters outside our motel room. We’ve known some of the artists at this show for over 10 years and it’s always good to see them.

We’ll be back next year!

A new image – Where Birch Trees Stand – sold for the first time this show. It was framed to 18×24.

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Audubon Art and Craft Festival this Weekend

This coming weekend (July 21-22) I will be exhibiting and selling my work at the Audubon Art and Craft Festival in Hawley, PA near Lake Wallenpaupack. This is a diverse and high quality show with crafters and fine artists both offering wonderful items for home and office. The show is indoors and air-conditioned, a real advantage this time of year.

The show has a new website to explore - Audubon Festival. If you are looking for a nice day trip and a pleasant drive, this is a fine way to spend the day. Go to the web site and get your dollar off coupons for the show.

I’m working hard to prepare for the show after the 9 days at Kutztown. My days are filled with printing, matting, and framing. But, with a great selection of books on CD to listen to and the occasional lunch out with family or friend, the time is going quickly.

Last weekend I scoped out the new location for the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen show at the end of the month. The Chase Center in Wilmington looks like it will be a great venue for this show.

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Get Out!

I had lunch/coffee with a friend today. She has been a supporter of me and my photography since before I made it a full-time endeavor. Thanks Jen! Of course I don’t consider her a friend because she has supported me.  She’s a friend, so she supports me. And she happens to like my work. I don’t expect every friend or even family member to like my work, but it means a lot when they do.

It’s important for me to make lunch-dates with friends and family so that I can be in touch with people that care about me and so that I don’t become too isolated in my studio. After three plus years working alone in my home-studio it can too easily become a trap. I like working alone, listening to music or having a video playing as loud as I like, eating when I want, jumping onto the web when I want, hell, grabbing a 20 min. snooze if I want. I’m in no-body’s way, and nobody is in mine. That is a trap though and so I remain conscious of my need to have human contact outside of when my wife and daughter come home.

It’s also important to be in contact with other creative people. I do this through the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen, association with creative friends local and distant, in person and via email. A studio is not a cage, but it can be a bit of a trap from which I do need to get out.

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Harry Potter and the Magic of Photography

This past Friday (the 13th of course), my wife and I took my 10 yr. old daughter to see the latest Harry Potter film (Order of the Phoenix). OK, in reality we all wanted to see it. Truth is, I’m a big fan. I’m looking forward to the 7th book coming out next weekend. If I weren’t at a show in Hawley, PA next Saturday, we’d all probably be at our local Border’s for the midnight ball.

The Harry Potter series isn’t really about magic of course but relationships, life struggles, good and evil, heady stuff. The magic element is important though. While all the other themes can be found throughout the history of the visual arts, the magic is what I’m after.

Photography has always had an element of magic about it. After all, the idea that one can create a likeness of someone, something or someplace with a box and a piece of glass does seem like magic. But as magical as the process may seem, it is the result that must ultimately be magic. When I evaluate whether any particular image I make satifies me, it is the magic test that determines my success. To be magic, the image has to go beyond being purely representational and cross-over into showing the wonder and mystery of the thing. I don’t need to show a viewer what a cardinal, a deer, or a waterfalls looks like, what I need to do is instill in the image a sense of the magic that the bird, or place holds for me. Sometimes that sense of the magical that I try to portray goes beyond my own feelings and touches the viewer’s sense of the magic in a subject.

I don’t pretend to know exactly what it is that makes any particular image I make more compelling than another.  I’m creating in the moment, responding to my internal feelings about a subject, not any preconcieved notions of what makes an image magical. I do know this however, when I place a piece of work at a show and a viewer connects with it and makes it a part of their lives, that’s pretty magical.

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Having a Great Camera

One comment I sometimes hear at shows is “You must have a great camera”. This is a compliment in the sense that it implies that the images I’ve made are good enough to be praise-worthy (even if it is the camera that seems to be getting the praise). So what is it that my great cameras actually do? Fundamentally, a great camera, like any other really, does two primary things.

1. Every camera analyses the light reflecting off of a subject and suggests exposure parameters that correspond to 18% reflectance. This means that the camera wants to make every image medium toned.

2. Every camera also controls the size and duration of opening of the aperture ( the hole in the lens through which light passes to the film or digital sensor).

With digital cameras there are also all kinds of processing activities involved once the first two things above have taken place. These are equivalent in some respects to the developing of film. In a digital camera the developing takes place in part, right in the camera.

However, it is still the photographer, at least any serious photographer, who directs the camera to meter off of a specific element of the scene or the whole scene, whether to change the exposure from the 18% reflectance suggestion, what the actual aperture size will be and for how long it will remain open. And that is not even to touch on all the other creative decisions that need to be made.

So what does a great camera do? Mostly, mine allows me to take control of the process and is built to respond quickly and accurately to my decisions. It may also need to be built like a tank, but not always.

To me great cameras equate to great images the way a great typewriter equates to a great novel.

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