Pitfalls of Outdoor Art Shows

I awoke yesterday morning and finished loading my car up with my inventory to take into Santa Cruz and set up for the May Day show. It was raining here in the mountains and from what I could tell from weather reports it was probably raining down the hill too, but it's not always the case so I took off. I got to Nancy's house where the show was being held and it was raining there too. Not a hard rain, not windy, but a steady rain. The space I was to set up on was a wooden deck with a hot tub I was going to use as a table top and there were small trees extending into the space. With the rain I could not set up without a canopy and I couldn't put a canopy into that space. I ended up having a canopy on the front lawn, After hauling my stuff from the car to the space my felt hat was saturated, my hair was dripping and my boots were soggy. I set things up but I had to keep everything away from the edges of the canopy so they wouldn't get dripped on which made the garment racks and table all smooshed together. The mist from the rain drifted in and covered the silk flower pins I was displaying and the rain dripping from the canopy sloshed off the ground and back up to the hems of vintage slip dresses and on the hanging silk and velvet ruanas. After an hour of this I decided it wasn't going to stop anytime soon and I was a miserable, dripping mess and I gathered my items back into the garment bags and packed my stuff up to leave. I drove home, hung my garments up in the studio, removed my wet clothing and climbed into bed with a heating pad and took a nap. The steady rain was perfect to stay inside and be lazy. I watched the Giants game and then read for a while and finally got up to fix a snack and see what I'd fix for dinner when my girlfriends Diane and Devra returned from their day out. We had roasted chicken, artichokes, brown rice with asparagus and watermelon and then we watched "Young Frankenstein" and still laughed as hard as the first time we saw it.

Nancy's house is the only place I do outdoor shows because her yard is so lovely and inviting and we have the same ideas about the shows. However, the wind usually comes up and it is not my friend. My silk scarves and garments look lovely blowing in the wind but not when they land on the ground and get snagged on branches. I have decided it stresses me too much to deal with this anymore and I will probably decline doing the outdoor show again. And then again next year Nancy's contagious enthusiasm might sway me to sign up.

Here are photos of a previous May Day show at Nancy's on a nice warm, sunshiny day, but the wind did come up in the afternoon and ........... sigh.