A Craft Show

Water was a defining part of most of the shows I did as a marine carver. Of course, I exhibited at boat shows. They were either on the water, or water was a required theme running through them. The shows placed me where my prime customers would be. That all crashed to a halt during the pandemic. I’m not a spring chicken and hauling a full 10X10 canopy, boxes, and boxes of stock and samples hours away got tired. You set up Thursday afternoon and sold Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday. Sunday, late, you packed it all up and drove home.

Aging, even gracefully, takes a toll on your energy levels. While you read this, I’ll be setting up for a fast one-day show. Not all the bells and whistles I’d take for a boat show – but at almost 79, it’s still getting to be a challenge.

I can still carve and create, and I am not ready to hang up the spurs. So, I am thinking of alternatives. Most of my thinking centers around having enough portraits of vessels that I might find a marine gallery interested in carrying my work. They are not models, flat art, or sculpting—but they have aspects of all three.
Yes, I know. The new and different is a challenge to business owners. I know the tradition I am derived from – nineteenth-century marine dioramas. My portraits are just a more recent development of an old tradition.

So, as you read this in the morning, I’ll be selling spoons, spatulas, small bowls, and the like as I cogitate my veritibilies and future as a carver. Online store, gallery representation, or fewer shorter shows. Or something that I have not thought of yet. After all, I may be bright, but there is a lot To learn when you venture into unknown waters.

See you Sunday!