It's the Begining of a New Year - Sort of - OR - Looking for Art Shows

Like many folks, I always have the idea that I'm going to share more information and write more every year, and as always, something gets in the way and I'll miss a day or six months. There are so many things pulling at us that it's tough to break old habits and start new ones. In my case, I always seem to question what to write about because somedays the shop appears to be routine, but hey, I'm thinking that people would like to hear more about my daily doings, because that's part of the magic of creating art, searching for shows, and in general just getting things done.

Many people have read about me creating art, or seen some videos while working in the shop, or visited Mackie and I at one of the many shows we do each year. But what does it take to even get to the shows? Good question.

Searching for The Gold
It's one thing to create art, but it's a whole other challenge in not becoming the greatest collector of your own work.  I didn't come up with that but I love it.  I recall when a store owner mentioned to me around 1995 when I was at a show displaying Mackie's pottery.

Searching for shows takes up almost as much time as creating, loading the vehicle, and actually doing the show.  It's not like I load up the truck and trailer, show up, and say, "here I am, where do I set up".  It takes finding as much information about the show, applying for it, paying a jury fee, and hopefully hearing something positive back.  Then it's sending them some more money and so on.

I mentioned the fees.  They've really gone up over past few years.  The average jury fee we pay is around $30.  That doesn't guarantee us a spot - only the chance to be considered.  Each year, we donate about $500 in jury fees for shows we don't get into.  The average booth is running about $350 for a 10' x 10' space.

 More Logistics
Now that we got into the show, what else could there be.  On yeah.  There's materials in both the recycled metals we use and consumables.  Each show at least a dozen people ask me, don't you just drive around and find things by the road.  Hmm.  Try doing 28-30 shows a year and driving around to look for things.  Fortunately, I have my wife that reminds me how uncommon "common sense" is.  I figure that about 20% of my selling price is tied up in materials and consumables.  Consumables are things like welding gloves, welding gases, welding wire, you get the picture.  I go through one pair of gloves a week at $10 per pair.  That's $520 per year in just gloves!

How about travel costs?  We drive a one ton dual wheel truck and pull a trailer.  Fortunately, we get around 11 miles per gallon.  That's real good for a rig this size and hauling all the steel we do.  I'm going to round this to 10 miles per gallon to make the math easy on me.  If we drive 300 miles to do a show, that's six hundred miles round trip, we'll use about 60 gallons of diesel.  I'm anticipating spending about $4 per gallon this summer.  That comes out to $240 for fuel for that show.  How about some place to stay.  Let's say we're gone for two nights and lucky enough to find a room that runs $50 for a total of another $100.

Now we'll add it all up.  Booth fee and jury fee come to $380, fuel is $240, and room is $100 for a grand total of $720 to do an average show.  That means we need to make about $1,000 to break even.

That's my post for day one.  Tomorrow, I'm heading to Mariner High School in Cape Coral where I'm mentoring some high school students on building a robot for the First Robotics competition.  More on this later.

Heading Home

It's been a great summer season for the shows and visiting with my old friends, but I'm really looking forward to getting back home. I came out and did seven shows, and picked up a new friend. She's a beautiful five pound miniature Schnauzer we named Sofie. I think Sherman is going to be pissed when I bring her home, but he'll get over it quickly.

I'm in Phoenix tonight, and it's a balmy 108. I'm thinking it's hot!!!!! We drove down through Los Angeles and dropped off the sculpture above to MK and his wife in the bay area. They have wonderful art gallery and needed an anchor point for the room's center. Fabulous is an understatement.

Tomorrow morning, Sofie and I have an appointment in Glendale to begin work on several large sculptures for a home owner - it's good to be busy. We'll take photos, make a few stick drawings, and most like chase Sofie around the yard. Hopefully, we'll make it close to San Antonio tomorrow night.

Packing Steel

Follow me on Twitter. Click to my new Twitter Feed on the left.

It never occurred to me that it would be difficult to find recycled metal when we decided to move to Florida several months back. I thought it would be like, "hey, I'm coming here to save all of you", and it would be coming out of the woodwork. Hmm. Metal...Woodwork. Oh well. It took some time to find two resources but life is good for those who are persistent. The challenge is that the best place is in Tampa, and that makes it a full day to hit the yard and get back home.

I managed to score on about 2,400 pounds of metal. Contrary to popular belief, recycled metal is not always the cheapest way to go, but I believe that it's the best way for all of us - I'll talk about that later. Today's finds were around $1,500. I'm creating my own stimulus helping others while other folks are supporting my artwork.

A few years back I thought that I was going to start creating smaller pieces, but lately, I've been building a lot of pieces around six feet tall. What the heck, I break my own rules and give people what they want. There's nothing quite like when someone is kind to share their hard earned dollars to purchase a creation that I've poured my heart and soul into.

There's a lot going on over the next month with getting ready for the west coast art shows in June and July, restocking the store, and working on our Florida home. How did I ever have time to work at the power company?

You just can't make this stuff up!

Joe

Floridays Two

It's a little after 7:00 AM and I'm sitting in the back yard in my new wooden rocking chair my wife bought me last weekend. Mackie and I like to have coffee back here before we begin our day. It's a tradition that we started years ago and found that it's that moment in time that brings us close together. We talk about the previous day, things that bother us, or just to listen to the birds. Every morning there is a chorous of countless birds of different species chirpping away. I've seen numerous kinds, but the Cardinal is the only one I recognize.

The sky is a blue like I don't ever recall seeing. It's a brilliant blue that lacks a brown haze I was used to on the west coast. It's 65 degrees at 7 AM, and the weatherman predicted a high of 75 for this afternoon.It's been a real challenge finding supplies and materials here, but Mackie and I are finally starting to figure it out and can focus on creating art.

I've got my first show in less than two weeks, and I need to get crack-a-lack-in to get things ready.

San Francisco

One of the best things about being a traveling artist is being able to experience people and places that are just a little outside of everyday life. Today we took a short trip into Sausilito and San Francisco.

First, we finally figured out the two buses that from Novato to Sausilito. It seemed like it took forever. Fortunately, there was a Starbucks across the street. appropriately caffeinated, we boarded the 71 bus and headed to Marin City to make our transfer. We arrived in downtown Sausilito about an hour after we started our journey.

Downtown is very nice and every building has some sort of gallery, tourist shop, or restaurant. Shopping mostly consists of high-end gallery's with outstanding artwork. We purchased a bronze gecko for Mackie that is overlayed with enamel - no photos of it yet.

After shopping was complete and lunch, we decided to take the Blue and Gold ferry to Fisherman's Wharf. The ferry ride was about 30 minutes, and it was an absolutely gorgeous afternoon. The sun was out in full force and a light breeze covered the water. There was virtually no chop with the exception of full view of the Golden Gate Bridge. There's a spot where one can see from the bay out into the Pacific and a pretty good blow was coming across here.

We arrived at Fisherman's Wharf and began our hunt for squished penny's. Those are the machines that you can put a penny in along with a couple of quarters, and then the machine (either manual or electrically operated) rolls a pattern onto a penny after it squishes it flat. Mackie has been collecting these for years, and San Francisco had plenty of offers for her.

We ate supper at Boudin's Bakery (http://www.boudinbakery.com/) on the wharf. This is a real San Francisco institution that has been there for as long as I can remember. Many year's ago, my grandpa Joe would take me to San Francisco for our annual jaunt on the train from Sunnyvale. A clam chowder bread bowl and a special toy were always part of the trip. Oh what good memories!

Boudin has an incredible selection of breads, and my favorites are the ones shaped like turtles, crabs, lobsters, teddy bears, and alligators. The bakers are really talented and enjoy talking to people on the street through the glass wall. They have two way microphones installed so people can speak back and forth.

After all that, we headed to the Mission and 1st transit stop and caught the 80 back to Novato. It's been a full day of treats! Tomorrow were back on duty to get ready for the next show.

Clifton Mill

During our trip we stopped at Clifton Mill in beautiful Clifton, Ohio (http://www.cliftonmill.com/). Interesting that the town and mill is the same as our last name. Interesting indeed. This is a beautiful landmark that includes a restaurant and one of the largest Santa Claus collections in the area. There are over 3,000 Santas in a reproduction service station across the parking lot.

But, let's talk about the breakfast. It was soooo good! The biscuits and apple butter were incredible, and the hot cakes just melted in your mouth. The bacon, the sausage, it was all great!

Visit the website above to see more about Clifton Mill!