Nice Surprise, from a month ago...

I mentioned that I had a nice surprise at the Patriot News Artsfest show on Saturday morning. Here it is!!

My "Passionflowers" painting made the cover of The Patriot News' Go! section of May 27's paper (before the show).

You can click the image to see it full size.

A lady came up to my booth first thing Saturday morning and congratulated me... I had no clue what she meant. She pointed to the "Passionflowers" painting and said, "Your painting there was in the newspaper last week. On the cover!!" I laughed a little and said, "Oh... uh... no... I don't think that was me. They are using a picture of pottery to promote this year's show."

(Besides, why would they pick my random passionflowers picture to use on anything? Especially after my "Spring Lilies" had just been used in September to promote Kipona!)

No. Of course not!

She shrugged and said "Well....... maybe it was someone's photograph? But I'm pretty sure it was THAT picture. On the cover of Go!." I thanked her because it was still a compliment, and she left.

As the day went on, more and more people kept mentioning it... so of course my curiosity was getting the better of me. I hadn't looked at any papers all week since I was busy getting ready for the show. Finally one of my artist friends, Brownyn, showed up at my booth and confirmed that it was definitely, DEFINITELY my painting on the cover.

However, no one had a copy with them to show me, of course. It was driving me a little crazy that everyone had seen it but ME! Eventually a super, super, super nice friend of mine who I met at a show last year told me that her son would be at Artsfest the following day and she'd send her copy of it with him. And sure enough on Sunday he came in with it... lo and behold, there it was! (The pottery picture they used this year was inside, right on the official Artsfest Guide that people can take out of the Go! section and bring with them.)

I still found it pretty random that this bright colorful picture of a totally non-native plant was used to promote an art show all the way up here in PA... but I can't complain! :) I wonder who saw it and picked it?

I haz the warm fuzzies....

Let the games begin!

I'll be seeing you Memorial Day weekend at the Patriot News' Artfest in Harrisburg!! :)

http://www.harrisburgarts.org/artsfest/about.htm

I'll be sure to bring my new Sunflowers painting, and hopefully get some new bug drawings done in time as well!

Clyde Peeling's Reptiland part 3

Not yet the final post in my Reptiland series, but here are some photos of frogs that we saw there. It was such a cool little place, and like I said in another post- it was big enough to have a lot of variety, but small enough to not feel overwhelmed so that you could really take your time and study every little guy you could find!!

Next Art Show...

On Sunday, November 8th, I'll be at Harrisburg Area Comminity College with members of the Jewelry Goddesses for a high-end art show and sale. I'll have some originals, some framed prints, and unframed prints too. I also hope to have some bug-boxes and other new items there, so come have a look! :)

Here's my newest bug box:


Hope to see you on Sunday the 8th!

The Spiders from Mars!

"The Spiders from Mars"

Inspired by David Bowie (duh), I created this drawing for Gallerie 13's Halloween Group Art Show next month! The reception will be held on Friday, October 2nd, with all the usual First Friday wonderful things- free food and wine and live music!

Speaking of music, you can listen to the Spiders from Mars and Ziggy, too by clicking this link!
http://blip.fm/~d9r0r

Ziggy played guitar, jamming good with Weird and Gilly
The spiders from Mars. He played it left hand
But made it too far
Became the special man, then we were Ziggy's band

Ziggy really sang, screwed up eyes and screwed down hairdo
Like some cat from Japan, he could lick 'em by smiling
He could leave 'em to hang
Came on so loaded man, well hung and snow white tan.

So where were the spiders while the fly tried to break our balls
Just the beer light to guide us,
So we bitched about his fans and should we crush his sweet hands?

Ziggy played for time, jiving us that we were voodoo
The kids were just crass, he was the nazz
With God given ass
He took it all too far but boy could he play guitar

Making love with his ego Ziggy sucked up into his mind
Like a leper messiah
When the kids had killed the man I had to break up the band.

Oh yeah
Ooooooo
Ziggy played guitaarrrrrr

Dear Harrisburg: I'm not a snob. I promise.

I just got done reading this book, and... wow.
So I'll write a post about it, in case there is anyone else out there with these same symptoms who may also find it useful!

I was recently in a Fed Ex store in Florida (and didn't even almost get arrested this time. Nice). They had a selection of business related books in there and I've been dying for something new to read. I picked up this book initially thinking, from the title, that it was about Fine Art! I thought it was a book about selling your own art... (can you tell I've been preoccupied lately?) I glanced at it again and realized that's not at all what the book was about, but figured it would be a perfect investment anyway. I just did the Kipona show last week and realized I need to have more things to say to people who come into my booth other than "How are you?", "Are you a fan of flowers or a fan of bugs?", or "Where are you from?"
Nothing is wrong with any of those things, but after the person answers, I don't want to bother them any more... so I quit talking. There are plenty of times when no more than a quick and friendly greeting is needed, but I hate being SO nervous around strangers. I completely clam up. I ask a question, they respond. Then what? It just doesn't come naturally to me most of the time. A lot of times people are just at art shows to look, not talk, and it comes across in their body language. I'm always a little relieved by those people- makes my job easy! :)
But for those who want to spend a few minutes looking at my paintings or being social... I've just not had much to offer unless they are the ones asking me the questions.

As soon as I started reading this book, I realized it described me perfectly. I had no idea that my social anxiety was so common. I just figured I sucked at making friends. I never had any problems with that before I moved, though, so thought maybe it had something to do with the area- or the fact that I haven't moved to a place where I knew NO one since college.
Do I dread going into functions where I may not know anyone, or only one person? YES.
Do I shut down in conversations with people because I'm sure they won't find me or what I have to say very intersting? DEFINITELY.
Do I have an easy time going up to complete strangers and starting a conversation? Oh, HELLLLLL NO.
Plus the germophobe in me hates shaking hands- at least if there is food at the event.

"The Fine Art of Small Talk" book enlightened me that often, when people tend to shy away from others or quickly exit conversations to go off and hide somewhere, it can come across as not being interested- or just being a snob.
Oops.
I always sort of figured that by leaving a conversation, I was doing the other person a favor! Sort of like, "I'm not that interesting. Really, I promise. Let me just skeedaddle before you figure that out for yourself, so you can go spend your time chatting with someone much more worthwhile, mmmkay?"

No wonder I've lived here for almost a year now and have no friends with whom I hang out on a regular basis- socially- on purpose.

Harrisburg, I'm so sorry.
I didn't mean to come across as a snob-
I like it here, and I like the people I've met.
Will you let me make it up to you?

xoxoxo,
Sammy

From now on, I'll do my share of work in a conversation. I will even make efforts to start conversations! I will answer questions with more than a one word answer, because maybe the person asking is actually interested in what I have to say. I won't run and hide if someone seems to want to talk to me for more than 2 minutes.
These are just some of the points I remember from the book, but it expands on how to do each one in a lot of detail- so I'm sure I'll be reading it at least a few more times.

Another good news surprise!

First of all: No, my car didn't break down in the ghetto.

Last night was the Hydrant Hysteria awards reception. I found out, much to my surprise, that I won first place in the Professional Artists category! I was so shocked, and honored... There are some GREAT hydrants out there in Downtown Harrisburg!

You can see a bunch of them in JasonTromm's photo set on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/trommetter/sets/72157621481748747/

And more great photos on Flickr from Hershey Harrisburg Regional Visitors Bureau:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hersheyharrisburg

I look at all these hydrants and still can't believe that mine was picked. This past Saturday night, I had a dream that one of the women who works for the Downtown Improvement District told me that mine had won. By the time I got to the awards reception last night, I had completely talked myself out of it, just because there really were so many great ones and I thought, "I just painted a bunch of bugs and flowers and things that I like..." I had no idea others would be fans of the bugs, too! :)

Thank you so much everyone who voted.

Guess who got into the local paper? :)

I was pretty excited when a photographer from The Patriot News stopped by on Sunday to ask me about the fire hydrant I was painting and snapped a few photos!

Well, "a few photos" might be an understatement- as any photographer knows, you have to get like 500 photos to ensure you have at least one or two presentable ones!

(Click on the newspaper to enlarge and focus it...)

It's too bad I didn't think to give him a dose of "Blue Steel"
while he was shooting me. Ha!

With all the photos being taken, I felt like I was a part-time model (but probably still had to keep my normal job).

What's funny about "Blue Steel" is that all the young kids do it in photos now... but they're not doing it to be funny. I'm not on MySpace, but I bet you wouldn't have to browse around on there very long before you'd find a healthy overdose of Blue Steel.