Art Shows Gone Wild - Boston Mills Artfest 2005

This is the first in what I hope is a series of artist submitted weather stories from outdoor art festivals in the past few years. Barbara Kline, wrote about Boston Mills Art Fest 2005 in Ohio after she read about this past weekend's early end to the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival Sunday due to weather.

"For extreme weather stories, I'll always have Boston Mills. As I headed to the Gala Event at 3:00 PM, scattered storms were reported on the radio. Once I reached the show the large parking lot was flooded with water and I had to park at the far end on higher ground. The show takes place at a ski resort in Boston Mills, OH, outside of Akron. I managed to get to the lobby of the building only to find people watching the water rise outside the locked doors flooding the tents of the art show.

The show was set up in three tents at the foot of the ski mountain and next to a small, mostly dry creek. Lightning struck a tree which blocked the creek and sent the water rushing through the art show tents. The only way out to my booth was to go upstairs in the ski building and down the outside stairs to the show. When I stepped off the bottom step into the water it was nearly waist deep. Pushing through water and past floating garbage such as oil drums, branches, and wet critters with beady eyes which washed up from the creek. Car alarms were going off from new cars that were on display for the gala evening. Wine bottles and food were floating by. Potted plants and yes, art. Many art vans in the parking lot had water over their wheel wells and more alarms were beeping and then failing when the water covered the system.

I finally made it to the North Tent which was a shambles. Booths were knocked over by the torrent of water. Mud and branches were everywhere. I went into my booth and tried to pick art off the walls and put it on top of a table that had not fallen over yet. Walls were trying to fall in from the crush of water and art floating in the current. Other artists were in the tent attempting to rescue their art. A beautiful inlaid wooden jewelry booth across the aisle was in shambles. The big tent over head was bulging with water pools and the poles were wavering. Tubs of art were spilled into the muddy torrent. Credit card machines and just about anything you can think of floated by. A group of artists rescued a case of wine, brought some of the shrimp plate out to the tent and were making the best of a bad situation. Borrowing glasses from glass and clay booths provided holders for the wine.

Eventually the rain slowed and the water began to subside leaving the mud caked carnage visible. Noticing the mud building up, I began sweeping the water as it subsided out of my booth in hopes of finding the rug on the ground. It worked. I was able to have a somewhat dry spot in an otherwise mud filled mess. I emptied the water from the bins of art and sorted through my art and other art which floated into my booth.The show did open without me the next day at noon with a few booths remaining and the North tent emptied to other locations. My next show was Cherry Creek and I had some work to do cleaning the booth, etc., if I were going to salvage the next show.

Okay, Steve, that is my one story. I also have the Storm of the Century in New Smyrna Beach, FL, several years ago. Artist tents floating in the intercoastal waterway with weights attached. My booth and four others survived that mess. And on and on it goes.

Your Call is Important to Us

My photographer friend Barbara called today from her pickup truck. Barbara is one of the artists I have gotten to know in my travels doing art fairs. My artist friend Chris and I were in Sun Valley ID in 2003 for the Sun Valley Art Center's festival. Barbara invited us to her place nearby for a dinner party. As we got a short tour of her house, I caught sight of a piece of pottery on a table that was created by my wife Susan.
"Where did you get the pottery? My wife made this!"
It's a small world after all, or so the song goes. Barbara had once worked for an attorney in Orlando who had bought the piece and given it as a gift. Barbara comes to Florida a couple of times a year to participate in the spring and fall art festivals. In between those and other shows in the west and midwest, she returns to the Idaho mountains for gardening, horseback riding and making her art. Not a totally bad existence.


She was on her way today to the Main Street Art Festival in Fort Worth, day two of three alone in the truck. She said she was going down her cell phone directory looking for someone to talk to since, while the landscape of northeast New Mexico was interesting, she didn't recall it being so long lasting. Bach, being only a B name, left plenty of contacts for the vast stretches of prairie ahead of her. You can only drink so much coffee.


I can identify with her road weariness. My daughter and I took that road home in 2007 from the Cherry Creek Art Festival in Denver. Northern New Mexico and the Texas panhandle were beautiful and well, forever. Though somehow, when you're not in the experience of road boredom, you can't wait to be out there again. It's mind clearing and for an artist inspirational.

For me, it's observation I hope will show up later as paint on a brush. I mentally file away what color the shadows on the mountains were as the sun set. I know that color will reside there somewhere in my brain though I will only recognize it when it appears by accident on the canvas.

Barbara may cycle through her phone directory to the B's again before Ft Worth appears in the windshield. Your call is important to us, Barbara. Stay awake and good luck at Fort Worth.

Economic blues

So far I have avoided writing on the economic downturn. Its a tricky subject. Everyone in the artist community wants others to think their sales are impervious to the slowdown. But our art sales are only strong as our collectors' bank accounts. Most artists will admit, at least to other artists, their sales have been affected for a few years now. I began the business of selling paintings around the year 2000, marketing my work in outdoor art shows or fairs. Two years ago there were strong signs that sales were tailing off. Like the economy in general, that trend is more pronounced in the last year or so. At this point show organizers are feeling the effect in the reduced number of artists applying to shows and some accepted artists are no longer able to come up with the hundreds of dollars in show fees months in advance. We are also having to think carefully before committing to a show a thousand miles away.

Artists are hurting but we need to hang on and hope for better times soon. Meanwhile we must promote the work, diversify price points, seek commission work and most of all, produce the very best work we can do to weather the storm.