one house, two house

The crazy has finally settled a bit. The past few weeks I've been busy with a few projects, and haven't had much time to write here. Not even any photos. Well, that's not only due to busyness, but my camera is actually off at Nikon getting a little tune up. Fingers crossed that it's back in my hands sometime soon. I still have my old one, thank goodness, because this weekend was a blast! Art Hop 2010 was a success on so many levels.

Art Hop is a two day art festival that takes place in the South End of Burlington (where we live) and transforms all the business and store fronts into one big art gallery. Thousands of pieces are on display, there is food and events and all sorts of exhibitions. Friday night is the party night...the kick off. Lots of people, lots of crazy, lots of fun.

Friday night I was lucky enough to be at Great Harvest showing some of my work.

It's the first time I've ever hung anything I've done anywhere but at my house. And I actually sold something! Just one something, but hey, it's a start. I also learned a lot about what I think I'll do different next year.

For instance, if your selected juried peice is BIG, there is a greater chance it won't get hung in a hallway...next to a fire extinguisher.

The lead up to this is one of the reasons I've been so busy. There was framing, the selecting, the printing and hanging. But there was another project making it's debut at Art Hop.

My friend, Carin Lilly, and I have joined forces as photographers to provide our services under one umbrella. I would like to present two house photo! As a team, we are concentrating on weddings, but we both love doing child portraiture and family photos, so we are marketing those individual services as well. So this week we've been tweaking that website and trying to get everything lined up so we have a professional looking web presence and something to direct potential customer to. We still have a little work (next: search engine optimization!) but I'm pretty proud of what we managed to pull together considering we are both mamas to two small boys with limited time resources.  I'm sure all of our boys enjoyed a spike in TV consumption these last few weeks.

The Saturday of Art Hop is really the time to see the art work.  It's a little calmer, a little more family friendly.  Better light, and more time to just meander and gaze.

The sculptures scattered all over the city are more visible and accessible.

The juror selections have been made, so you can go to the show and see the best of the best. Oh, so inspiring.

Also, a major highlight this year was Kid Hop. A big white tent full of art projects, crafts and messy fun for kids of all ages. I have to give credit to Teresa Davis and the rest of the folks that put that together, because it was welcoming and fun, without lines or stress of any kind. It's obvious that Teresa Davis knows how to work with kids, and I really hope she does it again next year.

Sam drew a self portrait and constructed a jingle stick, but by far, his favorite activity was painting the houses.

They had big cardboard boxes set up with cups of paint and you could just have at it. There was a coffee shop, a pizza place, and a victorian mansion. There was probably 8 of them slathered with paint and tissue paper.

And 8 lucky kids got to take one home as winners of the raffle.

And woo hoo! Sam was one of them.