While I wouldn’t refer to myself as a veteran art fair participant, I’ve entered a few over the past three years. My first fair was Corks and Canvas in Blue Springs, Missouri. At the time I was working on the illustrations for A Stone for the Journey, the coffee table companion to my historical trilogy. It had been suggested that I have some of those illustrations printed to market by themselves.

Click picture for more info on my published books. 😉 

The publisher asked for 200 full color illustrations. As it turned out, I had more than that and had to edit a few out. This started me on a journey of a different nature. From writing to painting. Once the book’s illustrations were complete, my itchy paintbrush begged for more. I found that I enjoy the challenge of painting glass. Thus, my wine glass paintings were born. The following year I had a series of wine glass notecards printed to market at Corks and Canvas.

From glass I went to seascapes. And, you guessed it, seascapes AND wine glasses.

Original Painting – 11 x 14 – framed – $450.00

Mind you, I’m still writing and my novel with working title “Last Dance with Annie” is represented by agent Diane Nine . And of course there’s always Friday Fictioneers.

When asked which I would rather do, write or paint, my reply is always the same. “Yes.”

Last year’s art fair challenges involved recalcitrant weather patterns. It was so windy in June I spent most of my time at the Corks and Canvas fair chasing cards and prints across the pavement. Then came the UNPlaza art fair that I had done very well at in 2018. Not so in the torrential rainstorm of 2019. Nonetheless, we sent our applications for these fairs again in 2020. Sigh.

I don’t need to go into detail about the pandammit (thank you, Dale) but one by one, the fairs were cancelled. What’s a person to do but paint more? Below are some paintings from the past month. Busy hands are happy hands. 😉 Soon available in print. And the originals are also for sale. 😉

Surely, by September things would open back up so I pinned my hopes on good weather and UNPlaza, renamed Peaceworks KC Art Fair. However, word went round that this one, too, would bite the dust. But the planners came up with the brilliant idea of making it a virtual fair through an upcoming platform called Booth Central.

David Bayard, photographer and poet extraordinaire, took it upon himself to work out the details. He rounded the troops via Zoom and helped each of us familiarize ourselves with Booth Central. Through the fair he kept things going with a streaming video for two days that you can still watch if you click the Booth Central link. Through this endeavor, I can safely say that David has become a good friend.

Click David’s photo to learn more about him and his art. 

While not the most lucrative endeavor, the fair turned out to be a lot of fun, so David decided to host another fair in October using Booth Central. This time one day and there were ten participants, including Yours Truly. Again he interviewed us throughout the day. The recording of the livestream from this past Saturday can be seen here. My segments are at 1:28 and 4:05 roughly. If you have the time, the other artists are fascinating.

Below are photos lifted from my interviews with David and the finished product of my Saturday labor.

We’re going to be doing another fair Saturday, November 21. Same time and place. 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM CST. No worry over weather or price of gas. I had customer drop by my booth to video chat from Maryland. I hope you’ll come visit us and stop by my booth.