Sausalito Report

Sausalito is over and I am back home, now.  This was my best year to date, even given the worst economy.  I had to work twice as hard, and "show up to market," which means I had to have the right mix of works to offer.


I will be returning to the Bay Area in early November to teach a workshop.  More on that soon.


One popular event in my booth was a "Flat File Sale."  That is, I sold loose and unframed artworks, both pastels and drawings, at set prices and at make-a-bid prices.  Would you like to participate in that here at The Colorist?  Maybe I can film the file drawers and contents and the bidding can begin.  Just an idea for now, but you could own a Casey Klahn for less if you don't mind doing the framing later.

Illumination at Sausalito

Orchard Illumination

25" x 39.5"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Some of the rewards of exhibiting are unexpected and very dear.


Here is one of the notes I received on Facebook, today:  

Hi Casey, my friend and I just got back from the Sausalito show. We agreed that your work was some of the most beautiful/interesting/professional work there. I'm so glad I got to see these stunning pastels in person, thanks so much!

A City by the Bay. Sausalito.

Sausalito Art Festival 2011.

Sausalito Art Festival

Fluid Corner

19.5" x 13.75"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Booth # 302

Sausalito

Sausalito!!

My friend, Seattle artist Teresa Saia, did the artwork for this year's Sausalito Art Festival Commemorative poster.  It is the best one I've seen.


Sausalito Art Festival.
Commemorative Posters.
Sausalito Art Festival app.


If you don't happen to get the app., you can find me in Booth 302.  The art will be real, not virtual, like here on the blog.


59th Sausalito Art Festival
September 3-5, 2011
Marinship Park, Sausalito, CA

School Days Are Approaching

 August In Spokane.

...and I will be back in the studio full time.  Summer is a slow time online, isn't it?  Thanks for tuning in here at The Colorist for your "art fix."  I have been working on some computer projects, plus I did complete a large work at 25" x 39.5," which is photographed and waiting to be posted later in the week.  The computer projects are a secret, but you may know about them soon enough.




This weekend I sat in my booth at the Arbor Crest fair high above the Spokane Valley.  It is a beautiful venue, and I had a nice time.  Next: Sausalito.

Spokane ArtFest 2011

Press Release - Exhibition Schedule

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2011 Art Fairs.

Press Room.

Sausalito - A Photo Report

A special welcome to my new readers from the Sausalito and Bay areas. The past four days at the famous Sausalito Art Festival have been both fun and rewarding for me. Thanks to the artist awards committee, the event staff and volunteers, and the patrons who come from far and wide to see this premier event. Fifteen original pastels are in new homes, and not a few new readers (my highest stats ever were reported for today) have found The Colorist.

Sausalito Picture Update

Casey Klahn, Goin' Uptown
Friday Gala Opening Sausalito Art Festival




Sunday, Klahn Receives First Place Award in the Drawing Category, Sausalito

Red Sub-Text

Sub Text Red

6.25" x 8.25"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

This image has been updated, which means that it is the formal, high quality photo of this original pastel. I go into this detail, because there are, believe it or not, people who don't discriminate between photos and paintings. Example: the lady who walked into my art fair booth this summer and declared, "you've been hitting the Photoshop pretty hard on these!"

No, steam did not come from my ears, but I did laugh to myself. As long as we persevere with painting, we will have to continue educating the public on what we are doing.

I Have a New Card

My Card

Over the horizon, I am planning for a set of exhibits, in my coastal hometown of Hoquiam, Washington. Mayor Jack Durney wants me to hurry up and exhibit, and has named it "The Return of the Native." To sweeten the deal, he has offered me a Get Out of Jail Free Card. There's a first time for everything - thanks, Mr. Mayor!

Hoquiam River Bright

10" x 14.75"

Pastel & Charcoal

Casey Klahn

On the near horizon, I am exhibiting in a new show in Kirkland, Kirkland Uncorked. The hours are as follows: Kirkland Uncorked Promenade (Free Festival) WA, July 16 - 18. Hours: Friday 2pm-8pm • Saturday 11am-8pm • Sunday 11am-6pm

This coming Labor Day, I will be exhibiting in Sausalito. September 3 - 6. Last year, I received the First Place Award in Drawing at the Sausalito Art Festival. That was for my whole collection, rather than a single image. The pressure is on to be that good again, but if my wife is a fair critic, she has deemed this year's art as better. I hope that's true.

How about it, Sausalito? Will you offer me a Get Out of Jail free card, too?

Orange Field and News

Orange Field

8" x 17.5"

Soft Pastel & Charcoal

Casey Klahn

point&shoot

The Prairie Series (soon to be renamed "Edge of the Prairie") continues.  I hope that this series will be my main exhibition at my art fairs this summer.  I am working on three series' at once right now.   

Hoquiam River, Boulders and Prairie. 

Kirkland Uncorked is July 16-18, 2010.  I'll be there and hope to see you. 

Sausalito is September 4-6, 2010.  See you there! I am cooking up a new blog project, which should be ready to go live by the end of the week. Stay tuned.

Kirkland Uncorked

Now my friends in the Seattle area can see my recent work at the upcoming Kirkland Uncorked.  This beautiful event is held by the shores of Lake Washington, and is adjacent to downtown Kirkland. It will be held July 16th through 18th - see the hours listed here.


See you there!

Kirkland Uncorked
Kirkland Uncorked Facebook

New Series Thoughts

Last Year at the Festival

Thanks to the following kind comment givers who wrote on my last post:

Sam Hannaway
Carole Buschmann
Alison Straite
Irina Rekhviashvili
Katherine A. Cartwright
Katherine van Schoonhoven
Trevor Lingard
Jala Pfaff
Mary Anne Cary

Also, a big thank you to Katherine at Making a Mark, where my roll-out of the Prairie Series was noted.

I am just as interested as everyone else to see which direction the new series will take. The reason not even I know the answer is that I started the series with a few works late last year, and have just recently started back on this series. Of course, things look different, now, and so I'll have to make a few and see which elements are speaking to me. When I get it all figured out, I'll post about it. Meanwhile, if you want some wisdom on the artistic process, I refer you to the Katherine A. Cartwright blog where she and her gang of readers are looking at the creative process loop.

For my part, I still await that axe man who comes to cull out my worst paintings. Seems I remember his name was "Johnny."





See a collection of pastels about snow scenes at the Pastel News. Some of us have had way too much snow, and others, like myself, have had way too little. No fair.

Like a Mouse in a Maze

Among artists there is much interest in how to set-up at art fairs. I offer this post that I originally published elsewhere, with updates.

Don't be like the artist I once saw at a noted national venue. He set up his dark booth with paintings on the walls, and cut a 6 inch by 1 foot hole in the back, and peered out at hapless patrons who stepped into his space.

lost

If he can't see a way out, that guy won't enter your art fair booth.

That's one of the curiosities of setting up your booth's walls. Make a critical error, and kiss many of your potential viewers goodbye. Of course, your display walls can be re-arranged to suit your given site, can't they? While some do choose a static display set-up, which changeth not from show to show, I highly recommend a movable structure. The main reason is each fair offers you a different set of opportunities and challenges for your little "gallery-away-from-home".

Think like a customer at the art fair. By now you should already have shopped a number of different art fairs yourself, and focused like an army missile on your target category. For me, that's the visual art category, or 2-D.

In addition to the rule given above about the exit strategy for each customer's comfort, think about the following:

• The average person needs fully 6 feet to walk through at the entrance to your booth. Think about your outstretched arm span as an absolute minimum entrance width. That's a big challenge when you may only have a 10 foot front. Even less if you expect rain, and have set your side walls in @ 6" -1' to protect yourself from drippage. "But I need that socko painting in front to entice people in!" you may say. Balderdash! Didn't you take your applied military sciences in school? You don't have to occupy that spot to succeed. You simply need to overwatch it! Put that bigger painting where it can entice inside of the booth. That's a better way to bring 'em in. I can still fit a 3.3' Pro Panel in the front of my booth and allow that ever-needed 6+ feet of entre for Nervous Nellie to fit through.
• How many possible entries do you have? Some spaces provided have a potential two, three and maybe even four sides of customer access. It never ceases to amaze me that some artists resist giving full access to their potential buyers. The key reason for blocking may be to deny access to a non-retail area, such as a small alley way that boothers are using for administrative reasons, such as storage. Some admin alleyways may be quite large, and it doesn't help to channel patrons back there. The same thinking goes for passage between neighboring booths, too.

Let's stop now with these basics understood, and walk out in front of our gallery (booth). You may have already done your map reconnaissance, and considered the approaches to and lines of sight to your booth. You have, as a bare minimum, checked to see which aspect your booth faces-North (the golden direction), South (the scourge), or maybe even Southwest (sun in the hot afternoon perhaps).

Now that you're on the ground walk down the aisles and check for the direction of travel that people will likely use, and check for long sight lines. Will the neighbor have a wall there? Is there a tree in the path? Worse yet, is there a Starship Flagship Booth that will suck up all possible humanity from your aisle? Don't laugh - I just moved my location at a key fair because the aisle I have been on had one.

Orient your whole wall set-up based on direction of travel and lines of sight.

Unfortunately, you may have to react to major obstructions, like trees, columns, and even sculptures occupying the aisles. Other bothersome things include extreme sunlight, or even too much shade, lack of traffic on a backside location, food vendors, loud music venues, dusty pathways, and the ultimate bad thing: uneven ground. Is there a pathway that creates a deep rut?

Back to our bullet list of arranging our display walls.

• Where will your one knock-'em-dead painting be? Probably on the deep wall that presents the best long distance line of sight.
  
• Consider your administrative needs at an early stage, since they may be impossible to fulfill after you get your walls set. I organize a small "hootch" area behind some walls for administrative clutter. Some artists create a small box out of panels, and open the back with a hinged wall (door). Some want a podium style table that breaks down, and stores primarily cash box or check-out supplies. The main question you have to ask is what you may need to store. The worst case scenario is that you may not be able to return to your van to store the boxes that your art was stored in. (Note to fair organizers: DUH!) That can happen when your van is blocks away, you are solo and your set-up is the morning of opening. Will you have something that takes a large footprint, such as a table or cash stand?
  
• Now pull out a pencil, take a sip of that coffee (if you don't drink coffee, START! You'll need the crutch as an art fair artist) and find a cardboard box lid to rough out your wall plan. Again, you may have a static look at every fair. I envy your efficiency, but I want to be reactive to any potential need. My best advice is avoid too much of the mouse maze effect. Sure, you want to maximize wall space, and want some interior walls that create interest and allow front and back displays. Be conservative, Che. Customers don't want to feel trapped in your creative vortex.
• Sometimes it is possible to design your booth based on the fair map before you pack for the fair. I drew one up for Sausalito 2009 and executed it when I got there.
  
• Think now about the engineering aspects of your wall structure. If it helps, turn your ball cap around backwards, and bite your tongue. I use the stiffeners and top bars that tie my Pro-Panels together into a cohesive and stronger arrangement. Also, tie-in the ends that intersect with the legs of your booth (even the scissor struts overhead!). I use these short bungee cords with balls (not the deadly and condemnable hooked kind).
  

Early in my art fair career I had the opportunity to observe the foundational set-ups that one can choose. We liked to set-up with basic exterior walls and a few interior walls. At that fair (Leavenworth, WA) we had the great opportunity to allow 360 degree customer access. The basic idea was to have entries on every side, and the usual thing was to put "L" shaped displays at the legs, but have one wall a complete 10', for the effect of a unified hanging. I remember one kind artist who saw my booth from the highway (raised above the venue a bit) and stopped to make a beeline to my booth. Talk about your good sight lines!

At that fair, one young artist decided to experiment with the counter-intuitive, and placed her tables or walls in the middle of the booth , for complete 360 access and views. It was interesting to see, and out-of-the-box behavior. The conclusion I reached was that the exterior wall design is more of an "event" or a known space that says: "I have an art show in here". People want to come into the artist's lair and get the art directly from you.

Goal!

Now let that patron out of your booth, but hopefully with a framed original under the arm.

Links:
Pro-Panels
Flourish Mesh Panels
Here's a good time to have a look at art fair photography and Zapplication guru Larry Berman's web site. I direct you to his page about Selling Photography at Art Shows. I have appreciated Larry's efforts at providing help to the art fair community when it comes to applying to juries that use the Zapplication process. His site is a must see when it comes to tackling that daunting and new jury process.
BermanGraphics
Wire Grids (If you have arms "like a Dude" to heft these bad boys). Every major city has a local resource for this kind of stuff. And, the world is replete with going-out-of-business surplus events for this kind of thing. Do yourself a favor and skip this burdensome option completely, if you can.
Karl Pace & the Utah Arts Council has prepared a nifty fair checklist that I'll include here, although we're off topic a bit. It does include a list of good Western fairs (I notice that the West is sort of left out of lists prepared by East coasties). What he doesn't include, I'm almost sure, is a Dixie cup for that pull of Whiskey that many of you vagabond artists opt for at take down. Can't say I blame you, partner. It's a hard (but fun) business!

First Place Award

I am pleased to announce that I was awarded a First Place in the Drawing category at the Sausalito Art Festival. It was a big surprise, and I am grateful to the festival and the patrons who visited the event.

Coincidentally, Sheila Evans also received the First Place Award. I say coincidence because we are both from the Spokane area. What are the chances of two artists from the same area winning this, given that the Sausalito draws artists from throughout the US and even from overseas?

I did have this prize in mind when I painted for the festival, but I never imagined actually winning. I'll give you the lowdown on how to paint for an award in a future post.

Sausalito!

Sayalessandra covers Otis Redding

Did you know that the dock of the bay that Otis Redding sat upon was in Sausalito, CA? And, coincidentally, so am I.

Sausalito Art Festival.

Festival Preview

Simple preview of my art booth

See a thin preview of my art for Sausalito at my blog, Pastel. Someone asked the other day about my current framing, which is shown in these photos. Of course, my work will not be hung so thin, as I have about forty or forty-five originals for this show. Add lighting, signage and a vase of flowers and you get the idea. Simple, but focused on the art.

Secret Knowledge just for readers of The Colorist: I intend to hang only the River Series on the first full day of the festival. Thereafter, my other works will be shown, too.

Sausalito Art Festival

Labor Day Weekend 2009
Friday September 4th · 6:00pm · Preview Party
Saturday September 5th · 9:00am - 6:00pm
Sunday September 6th · 9:00am - 6:00pm
Monday September 7th · 9:00am - 5:00pm

Colorist Studio Update - Bumpdated

Bumpdate! See below for updated items of interest.

Casey Klahn Mugging for the Camera
Photo: Lorie Klahn

Here are a few things for your weekend reading interest. I made the time yesterday to listen to contemporary master, Wolf Kahn, giving a speech at Wheaton College. It is occasioned around a show of his and Emily Mason's works, and he speaks for 50 minutes (fair warning for your Internet time!) on the "Six Reasons Not to Paint Landscapes." Find it here.

Two American artist bloggers are live blogging their European vacations, complete with museum reports. Jala Pfaff, of Colorado, is in London viewing John Singer Sargent, and Kelly Borsheim, an expat living in Florence, Italy, is giving us Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt in Vienna.

Back to Wolf Kahn for a moment. Kahn is known for painting barns, and fine artists realize that that isn't about sentiment if you can help it. I like the formal parts: the negative spaces, the position of the barn upon the land, the color planes, the leading of the eye, the bigness, etc. Bob Lafond has been doing barns at Mark and Remark, and has one here that I really love.

Time for a cup of coffee. I have been busy in the studio trying to finish the last few artworks for my upcoming Sausalito show. Other challenges I'm planning for are framing and making sure my booth is ready for the unusual set-up at Sausalito (they provide the artist's booth - I usually bring my own). Not to mention the long drive to the Bay Area.

Visitors to the Sausalito Art Festival will get to see all of my River Series pastels in one place for the first time. Probably the only time they will appear together, BTW.

The music stage schedule at the Sausalito Art Festival (Sept. 5-7, 2009) has been announced. Always top drawer, this year's Sausalito music venue is themed as a 40th. anniversary Woodstock tribute. Many San Fransisco Bay Area bands were there, and will be on tap for this special event. My faves? Country Joe McDonald, Johnny Winter, and the Jefferson Starship.

Sausalito Art Festival.
Marin County.