The Boneyard Arts Festival, a major annual art festival that happens all across Champaign County in April, took place the weekend of April 12-14. As part of the festival, the relatively new Boneyard Arts Market also took place that Saturday and Sunday, and I had the privilege of being part of it. This was BAM’s third year, and the first in a new location — the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Champaign (which, as you might guess from the name, is a former theatre that’s been turned into an event space, although it did serve as a children’s museum for a few years in between).
BAM is one of several annual markets hosted by Norden at Home, and let me tell you, they really know how to put together a market: they’re always well-organized, thoughtfully curated, and effectively promoted. Traffic and sales on Saturday especially made for a fantastic kickoff for the market season, and my Magical Bookshop painting found a new home, along with a few other originals, which is always a great feeling. I had a customer who planned out a gallery wall for her kitchen using a combination of about seven of my prints and 8×8″ originals, which was really cool too (although I do wish that I could see her finished wall!). I still find it really fun to think about all the different places that my creations are hanging now. I’ve been doing markets long enough too that I’m having customers come back and say, “oh, I have a print of this hanging in my living room!” or, “I bought one of your paintings at your last market!” or etc.
There are occasionally weird interactions as well; one customer (whom I’ve chatted with at a few shows but who’s never bought anything from me) basically told me that I should start painting surrealist scenes like this other artist he likes, since I have the technical skill to do it. I think he meant well, but in case it wasn’t obvious, most artists don’t want to hear that they should start painting like other artists!
In any case, it was a good weekend, and people seemed to like the new work I brought, which is always rewarding.
Speaking of new work, one of the things I promised in my last post was a new project that I’ve finally completed: Fairy Tree Studios now offers lined journals! Up to this point, the pages in all my sketchbooks and journals have all been completely blank. This winter, I used InDesign to lay out lined pages, testing out different line spacing, thickness, and opacity, and I put together a layout that I really like. Along with that, I created a new style of notebook with some of my art on the covers, essentially a larger version of my pocket journals. I had a handful ready for BAM and I’m excited to expand the line for my next market in May!
That’s the main news for Fairy Tree Studios for now — I did finally add the list of my next few markets to the FTS home page, along with links to find out more about each. In May, I’ll be in Holland, MI; in June and July, you can find me in Bloomington, and I’m hoping to add a few more IL dates later in the year. If you’re local to any of those places, I’ll hope to see you there!
Fairy Tree Studios 