Sunday, June 12, 2011

And they're off!

Yesterday was the grand re-opening of the Maverick Potter Gallery on F Street in Salida!
Bigger, brighter space! More work! (Spanky new floor installed by the Potter himself.)

Summer. It's insane.

I laughed mightily the other day over a message from a friend who has a business quite different from mine. In it she mentioned the natural tendency to play more than work in the summer, a tendency of the self-employed to go easier on themselves in the summer months.

I refrained from responding with a query about what chemical substance she might be ingesting.

I suppose a slow-down happens in some lines of work, but in this household we go into overdrive from May to October. My contract work ramps up for undetermined reasons. There are exhibitions and gallery events to supply and attend. The DM's gig calendar goes haywire. Last summer we had two (count 'em, TWO) weekends between mid-May and mid-September in which one or both of us did not have a show, a gig, a workshop.... something. It's a tad frustrating, actually, because I would rather be playing. Seventy (or eighty, depending on who you ask) percent of the county where I live is public land. People come from all over the country to play in the surrounding forests, climb the 14,000-foot peaks, and splash down the river that flows through town. But it's not for us. We get our slow time in February, when it's below zero.

But this week, at least, we get to run around like headless chickens near home. David's gigs are all local. My contract work has a little room to spread out, since I don't have to cram it in between the day after we get back from somewhere and the day before we leave again.

Thanks for talking me into a glass ceramic goblet of wine, Mark.
Even if it did mean I was half asleep by the time we got to David's gig.


Did I mention it's busy? The local farmers' market opens next weekend, and the FIBArk whitewater festival starts in three days. The following weekend is the Salida ArtWalk... I'll have work at the Maverick Potter and a few pieces at the Book Haven (both on F Street between 1st and 2nd) and the DM will play a couple of locations. The next weekend we have to go out of town again, but for now we're happy to be limiting our scurrying about to a 6-block radius of the house.

Especially since I've already emptied the walls of the house in order to supply all this summer bru ha ha. It's WAY past time to get started on a new print.

Must. Make. Prints.

6 comments:

  1. Congrats on the new space. Cannot wait to come see it.

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  2. Wow, lovely space.
    Oh, you poor Coloradans, having to suffer so much for living in such a state!....

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  3. It's all happening now! Excellent!

    I guess the advantage to holidays in Feb is that you can have the landscape to yourself. (Even if you can't move because all the layers of clothes have turned you into the Michelin Man.)

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  4. Yesterday, I tried explaining to a coworker, who's all-but brand new to the area, about the touristy madness that's fixin' to commence. She lives close enough to downtown that I told her to walk, next couple or three weeks. "You'll lose your parking space," I told her. "Oh, it's not that bad..." she insisted.

    *sigh* For all the promo our ski area gets, it's these in-coming weeks that makes and breaks us artists, food-servers, and pretty much everybody else.

    This time of the year is the price we pay for getting to stay here, year-round.

    It is worth it, isn't it?

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  5. Yeah, summer's here! I hope Art Walk is good to you. Remember to take some time for yourself to go for a walk, do some sketching and enjoy the sunshine!

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  6. Wow! The new space looks great! I'm glad I'm not the only one who has to pull art off the walls once in a while. LOL!

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