7/6/10

Chapter 10, Between shows...

The Roycroft Summer festival (June 25 & 26) was a great success! For the first time in recent memory, it was not unbearably hot, and there was no epic rainstorm on Sunday afternoon. The booths of my fellow Roycroft Renaissance Artisans were stunning as always.

My booth was consistently crammed with people. In fact, at one point, a mysterious Mad Shopping Disease spread through my booth, and I sold 5 or 6 American Bungalow Summer prints in about 7 minutes. Freaky.

A rare quiet moment in the booth

The only blot on an otherwise great weekend was on Sunday morning when I had a hair emergency, owing to the fact that our fleabag motel provided no hair dryer. I was saved by Karen Lehning, wife of fellow RR Master Artisan Howard Lehning, who allowed me to make a quick detour to their house, sprint into her bathroom and use her hair dryer just before the show started. Thank you, Karen!





Yikes

ahhh. y

Which brings me to the next thing I must tell you about: my great business support network. Here’s a “behind the scenes” look at the biz…

First, for those of you remember my wonderful office manager Becka, I should mention that last year dear Becka moved on to persue a career as a brilliant art writer. She writes for our city’s arty alternative newspaper, on a quest not to criticize art so much as to inspire us to go out and experience it.

See some of her articles here:
Rochester CITY Newspaper

Here is her art news blog:
http://artfrontblog.com

In addition, Becka is the Program Coordinator for the Susan B. Anthony Center for Women's Leadership at the University of Rochester. She is also a painter, and in case all that isn’t enough, she is running my booth this weekend at the Corn Hill Arts Festival, while I’m at another festival.

To fill in where Becka left off, I have the Bobs. You know about Road Crew Bob; I also have Webmaster Bob, Business Advisor Bob, and Bubble Wrap Bob, who does all the packing and shipping… 

Next, there’s Michael Hager of Museum Photographics.

**Modern Technology Alert! Luddites and Ye Olde-Fashioned Print Purists, skip on down! This means you, Ron**

Michael creates my giclee (jhee-CLAY) prints. Giclees are not Roycroftie. They are not block prints. They are exquisite quality inkjet, near-perfect archival reproductions of my original paintings.

After a painting is scanned, Michael and I work together to get the color just right. Unlike with offset commercial printing, you can fall asleep waiting for a giclee print to be born. (This makes the color-testing process really tedious.) For most of my giclees, Michael uses heavy art paper made of bamboo, a highly renewable resource.

Here’s one of my signed, limited edition giclee prints, “Shakespeare.” On the print you can actually see the slightly uneven texture of the paint where my tiny brush navigated around those little letters.

Here’s Mike pulling an elegant print from one of his many printers. JayJay, the most well-behaved shop dog ever, looks on. Mike creates fabulous fine art prints for clients nationwide, yet is ever cheerful and accommodating, even when I send him scary-huge orders at the last minute.

Mike’s email: museumphotographics@frontiernet.net  


Thomas Pafk, a Roycroft Renaissance Master Artisan in wood, makes my gorgeous mission-style quarter-sawn oak frames. He crams my orders in between his world-class furniture commissions.

Here’s Thomas in his shop with a recently completed commissioned piece and Tigger, the Roycroft Renaissance woodshop cat.

See more here: http://www.thomaspafkdesign.com/

Howard Lehning, another Roycroft Renaissance Master Artisan in wood, creates the beautiful handmade Roycroft Renaissance frames for my breed prints. Like his friend Thomas, Howard is a flaming perfectionist.

Here at his immaculate workshop, Howard visits with Misty the Keeshond, while an elegant Arts & Crafts style jewelry box waits to be finished. The grandfather clock in the Roycroft Inn is another example of his breathtaking work.

Contact Howard at hrlehning@verizon.net.

Then there’s Cindy Bailey the wonder woman. Cindy is my framing company. She single-handedly cuts all my mats and glass, assembles the art into the RR frames, often turns orders around in a day or two, and heroically compensates for my chicken-headed mistakes and last-minute surprises.

Here’s Cindy in her shop with John, one of her many shop cats. Currently Cindy is blazing through a monster order for me, to create a double inventory of matted and framed things for the two simultaneous shows coming up. By way of apology, I got her a bag of hazelnut coffee and a bottle of Pinot Noir to help her through it. Without Cindy, Laura Wilder Artwork would be toast.

Rochester area folks can contact Cindy at 585-436-1201.

I cannot finish without mentioning Listener Bob, who facilitates the daily Fretting Chicken Brain Dump, which soothes, refreshes, and sometimes even leads to art-making.

The next blog will follow my progress on the new block print, working title: “Golden Arch.” With much smaller detail than I’ve ever attempted to cut, here’s how the block looks so far (check out my new terrifying professional carving tools):

And there’s our studio/housecat Sunny, whose insidious hairs we discovered inside two framed prints during the Roycroft festival. Well....back I go to Cindy the framer....Sunny is skating on thin ice.