Sauk Prairie Cow Chip – Art Show Recap

Sauk Prairie Rules!

The Good:

• There are people. Lots of people. People who apparently are unphased by the federal deficit, the blips in the stock market, recent back to school shopping or rain. The calendar turned to September and it’s a new month with new money to spend. And they spent it. On tye dye. Go me. This means I can pay for my husbands 50th birthday thingy (another entry for another time, promise).

• Pork Chop on a stick. $5 for 12 ounces of bone-in pork-a-licious pig on a stick. Oink! Pork Chop on a stick is not for dainty. Sit down at picnic table, rolls up the sleeves and Fred Flintstone that pork chop down to the bone. It’s a good idea to bring some floss. Worth every single smoked pork-chop-a-licious calorie. Yummy!

• Lots of first time grammas. Cool, hip grammas that think nothing of whipping out the Visa to buy cute little dresses, hoodies and rompers for their grandbabies. I’m putting all Grandmas on a big pedestal. They rule.

• The Square. My new fangled real-time gizmo that authorizes and captures credit card transactions via my smart phone. I received my “free” Square (really, it's free)  in time for Sauk which make credit cards transactions easy, peasy, lemon squeezy. Seriously – slicker then sh*t through a goose. No lie. Major snaps on the cool factor.

The bad

• The weather. This year is was rainy and drippy and overall moist. Not that it mattered. Cow Chip is a one day gig and the people come out in droves. The bummer part was all my stuff was just a tad moist which meant unpacking everything at home to dry out proper.

• Normal hassles with loading in and loading out, but let’s face it I’m seeing dollar signs. Dollar signs are like exercise endorphins. They make me happy.

Woot!

On the list for next year. Check!

I can hear you

This is an honest to god true story from the Good Neighbor Festival Art Show. You can read recap about that show here.

Me: Sitting in my booth watching and listening to a couple outside my booth discussing one of my tye dye one-piece rompers (you know, onesies, except I can’t call them onesies because it honks off the legal team at Gerber).

The guy: (Loudly with disgust and finger wagging): “$14.50 for a onesie! It’s not like there is that much material. $14.50! Ridiculous.” (Guys continued to rant for another 30 seconds)

Me: “I can hear you”.

Guy: Hearing me, hearing him, moves along to taunt some other poor artist.

Me: Hopping up on soapbox inside my head.

Dude. It’s a novelty item. You aren’t going to dress your baby in 20 tye dyes. But if you want to I’m your gal. And hey, the price of cotton went up like, 60-80% for wholesalers in the last year. And it’s hand-dyed. Which means one color at a time. One piece at time.

Me: Hopping off the soapbox inside my head.

Buy unique. Buy handmade. You might pay a bit more but isn’t it refreshing to know you’d be buying something that isn’t all “made in China homogenized sameness?”

Middleton Good Neightbor Fest - Recap

MiddlMiddleton is my hometown, which means the Good Neighbor Fest (GNF) is my hometown fair, which also means there is a lot of GNF sentimentality attached to the festival.

When I think of Middleton Good Neighbor I think of the food first.

Mini donuts, kettle corn, funnel cakes and cheese curds; (although the cheese curds weren’t as good this year as they have been in past years – sorry Kiwanis).   After a weekend at the GNF, one needs a full body cavity flush and a green salad.

I think many other people think of the food first and art & craft show second.

And therein lies the problem.

It’s also the last fair of the season, smack dab at “back to school time”.  Another problem.

So let’s get down to brass tacks and dissect the goodness and lack of goodness of this particular art fair, keeping in mind that it pains me to say anything other than great things about the GNF.

The Good

1. The food. In addition to wide variety of grease laden items already mentioned, you can also get cream puffs, chicken and/or steak sammys, burgers, brats, pulled pork, pizza, pretzel, pie, ice cream, fries, fish, chicken dinners , cotton candy, caramel apples, soda and beer. Whew. I mean for small town fair, the spread is pretty good.
2. It’s close to home. Bonus.
3. The weather! GORGEOUS! Picture perfect 78 degrees blue skies and sunshine. A far cry from the Mt Horeb Steam Bath in mid July.
4. Firemans Park. It’s a park...not a parking lot. There are trees. There is grass. There are also an enormous amount of daddy long-leg spiders,  but we seemed to co-exist peacefully,  although I do feel really bad about unknowingly smushing one under my sales book. Live and learn.

The Not so Good

1. Firemans Park. Park = good. Hauling your crap into the park = not good. There is no easy load-in/load out. Basically, it’s a free for all. Technically artists are not supposed to park on North Ave, the very small block of road that butts up against the park… but no one pays attention to that rule, including me. I got lucky and parked on North Ave Sunday morning,  so load out was slightly less horrible. It’s every man for himself when it comes to packing up and heading out. And I’m all about me when it comes to getting the hell outta there and home as much as the next guy.
2. Communication with the Show Coordinators. I think art show coordination is a hazing ritutal. Some young eager beaver blindly accepts responsibility and then falls down the rabbit hole. In my experience manning the GNF artshow gmail account was pretty low on someone’s priority list.
3. The buyers. There were lots of people but not lots of buyers. I think this stems from two things:

• The general stock market rollercoaster of late doesn’t actually inspire confidence. Lack of confidence = lack of spending. Economics 101.
• Back to School. Most families are tapped out from back to school supplies, book fees, tuition and otherwise being nickel and dimed to death by their local school district. Factor in August being a big vacation month and people are tapped out.

At the end of the day I did respectable but not great. Not great is hard to parlay into excitement about doing this show next year. I’m on the fence. On the plus side I made a few contacts about other shows and got a hot tip on a better way to process credit cards. (I’m currently using a knuckle buster. That name is no lie.)

I figure the sour taste of this years GNF art show will fade and by May of 2012 I’ll be full of fresh hope and optimism. Time will tell.

Stuff I like - Warm Glass

Important disclaimer.

Art is subjective. Some local handmade stuff is tripe. Really. It’s truly awful stuff. The ceramic painted figurines spring to mind. So do dried floral arrangements. Or the wishing wells made out of logs. I’m sure some people like ceramic painted figurines, dried floral wreaths and log wishing wells… but I am not one of them. More often than not if someone is making crap I’ll probably be a bit snarky and poke some fun. I’m an equal opportunist that way.

The cool thing about the local handmade market is I get to meet other artists and check out the cool stuff people make and sell. I met this artist at a show last year. I really like her fused glass magnets and coasters. I own some magnets and have given a set as gifts. I plan on giving more sets as gifts. Everyone likes magnets and coasters. And they are cool looking. I mean you could buy a set of coasters from Crate and Barrel (don’t get me wrong I love Crate and Barrel) or you could buy something unique and handmade. A one of a kind original. And the magnets are strong. Not that I don’t appreciate my “Middleton Vet” magnets complete with phone number, but these magnets are pretty and actually hold up a few things. Sa-weet!

As a tangent to this subject, I know there are other bloggers who endorse a lot of artists and their hand-made wares in exchange based on a review of their product. I know this because I receive emails on a regular basis from bloggers who find my online etsy shop and want me to send them a “free” sample of my work so they can review and blog about it.

It’s a good gig if you can get it; American resourcefulness at its finest. And I will admit I’ve fallen for it a few times. And then I grew a brain and realized all I was doing was giving away free baby bodysuits with no hope of repeat business. I don’t do that anymore. If you want a tye dye t-shirt, buy it like everyone else.

My philosophy is more straight-forward and less loosey-goosey. If I like your product. I’ll buy it. And if I really like it I’ll probably mention it here because I’m all about sharing the good stuff. And I believe that handmade can be truly awesome and maybe we can rescue ourselves from a houseful of items with “made in china” stamped on the back.

Go for unique. Go for handmade.