Morristown, NJ

Just across the road from the National Guard Armory, where we participated in our second craft show of our trip to the East, the sugar maples were blazing. Living in Idaho, we don't see the flaming oranges and reds the wonderful maple trees show off with on the East Coast, and we miss them. Our aspens are certainly beautiful in their gorgeous golds, but to us who grew up in New York, maples are the kings of the fall foliage show.

With the stock market in apparent free fall, we were skeptical about the potential for having a successful show so close to the epicenter of financial calamity, and we did find people who loved our coats, but who just couldn't dare to spend the money this year. But, unbelievably, we had some customers who bought two coats! Wonders never cease. Despite a modest turn out for the show, we ended up very pleased with our trip to New Jersey. We made new friends, were treated to awesome fall colors and had dinner with one of Rita's cousins who we hadn't seen in almost twenty years.

I've never gone to a high school or college class reunion, but returning to the New York area to do a show after an almost twenty year's absence produced what I imagine is a similar "getting old" fast feeling. There were probably about a dozen or so artists exhibiting there I remember from years ago. I was glad to see they had grown as artists and were producing even more wonderful works than they had before. I was glad they were still doing what they love. I wasn't so glad to see them aging though.

On a brighter note, we also saw lots of artists who appear to be in their twenties or thirties! At times at these shows, we feel like there isn't a new crop of artists coming along to replace our generation, but the Morristown show made us optimistic that this nomadic lifestyle of traveling artists continues to have appeal emerging artists. Yea!

Paradise City Northampton Massachusetts

Well, that was a long drive! All the way from Driggs, ID to Davenport , NY in three long days. Twenty-five hundred miles. Thank goodness for books on tape to make the long hours looking at the vast farmlands of center of the US pass quickly. After arriving in Davenport late Wednesday night, we enjoyed a day of rest and visiting with Rita's dad, before driving the last 3-1/2 hours to Northampton and setting up for the show there.


Here's Rita working with some early Saturday morning customers. We haven't appeared in a show on the East coast since the early 1990's so we weren't sure how what we are making these days would be received by the show visitors. Happily, the long trip proved worthwhile with many people liking and buying our work. For some reason, people at this event were especially drawn to our feathery soft Tibetan Lamb scarves. They are a perennial favorite everywhere we go, but in Northampton we found homes for a record number of them. Warm shearling coats were very much in demand as well.



The show was held on Columbus Day Weekend and Northampton was packed with people from New York and Boston enjoying the peak fall foliage as well as this terrific show. The Paradise City shows were developed after we moved to Idaho so we had never participated in any of them. Even though the tough economy has reduced sales by exhibitors at arts and crafts shows, Paradise City's excellent marketing efforts certainly brought out the public, whether they were coming to buy or just enjoy looking at all the high quality offerings. We felt this show had the over all highest quality of exhibits and wares of any show we have been at in many years.

Finding a not too crowded place to eat dinner after the show each night was something of a challenge, but Northampton had dozens of eateries, so we just looked for the shortest wait times. A highlight was the discovery of an incredibly reasonably priced bakery that had delicious deserts for us chocoholics. And, we saw our first ever piano playing busker playing an upright piano on a sidewalk under a streetlight.

Sorry Sedona and Wall Street fall out

Today we were supposed to be in Sedona, AZ. participating in its fine art show. An attention lapse while stepping off some scaffolding last week cost Fred a trip to the doctor and some pretty strong drugs making the trip to Sedona unrealistic. We find Sedona a beautiful spot and an interesting place to visit, so it is sad to not be there.

Checking the Sedona weather forecast for the weekend and seeing rain and wind as highly probable, maybe we should not lament not being in the art show there too much, doing art shows in storms are just so much fun!

Our weekend will not be a weekend off. We have too much still to sew up before leaving on Monday for our cross country drive to Northampton, MA for the Paradise City show there next weekend.

We have to admit that the nation's economic woes are a real concern. Will attendance at art shows be lower than normal. Will attendees be cutting back on their purchasing, especially shows located closer to New York City, the epicenter of the financial problems? It is a long drive to Massachusetts to find out. Fortunately this trip also gives us the opportunity to visit Rita's dad in Upstate New York, and we are scheduled for another show in Morristown, NJ the following weekend, so between the two shows we are hopeful that our trip will prove worthwhile.

On a related note, the Jackson Hole Film Institute, the sponsor of the Jackson Hole Film Festival has closed its doors, a victum of the withdrawl of funding by people who formerly made a good living on Wall Street. Wall Street's demise even reaches deep into artistic life of the Rocky Mountains.