Dogwood Arts Festival | April is for art. And wind. And rain.

This year marks my seventh year participating in the Dogwood Arts Festival Market Square Art Fair. The event runs over the weekend of April 25 through 27 and takes place in Downtown Knoxville. There is a wide variety of art as well great food, think funnels cakes and corndogs, as well as lots of entertainment. Preceding the Art Fair is the Dogwood Art DeTour which is a self-guided tour of Knoxville area artist studios open to the public on April 12 and 13. This is a great opportunity for you to come and watch me work. Or just chat. I usually do a lot more talking than working during the DeTour. Don't miss either event!

April is for art. And wind. And rain.
What's most interesting about this being my seventh year is that my first year was almost my last. The weather was crazy and my tent exploded in a downdraft. I refer to the explosion as the 'tent incident' and share the tale with other artists setting up for the Dogwood Arts Festival Art Fair for the first time. I don't do it to scare, just to educate on the dangers of wind. An article appropriately titled, 'Festival faces twists and turns', appeared in the Knoxville News Sentinel on Saturday, April 12 2008 in which I said "Yeah, the weather's bad, but we've been able to work with it." and as if in spite of this comment my tent incident occurred late Saturday afternoon. The tent incident prompted my husband, Allan, to go into research mode to find out what sort of tent would withstand the crazy weather in East Tennessee. This research resulted in us obtaining what I now refer to as the "mondo artist tent" shown below. We asked the guys picking up the trash if they would take the busted up tent away and they did! We did; however, keep the broom sticks we used to hold the busted tent together.

It's certainly a sturdy tent. And it is pretty too. And it is very good at keeping the rain out. Like in 2011 when it rained really hard and everyone left early, except for me and Allan. Because we were the only ones who stuck around, we got on the WATE news that night. You wouldn't believe how many friends saw the report and texted me that evening. And the next day people searched me out just to say they saw me on the news. The moral here is to never leave early. Unless there is a hurricane warning and then it is probably a good idea to vacate.

Back to the wind. There was another year when the wind was a problem for Sassy Glass Studio. Take a peek at this fantastic post from Moxley-Carmichael's 'The Blue Streak' back in 2010 about how the Dogwood Arts Festival has improved and has real art. {A side note: it really was bad for a few years. Shew!} Anyway, shortly after Cynthia Moxley photographed the gorgeous blue art panel in the photo above, it blew over onto the ground and broke. Crazy wind strikes again!

This is the last wind story I promise. The first few years I exhibited at the Dogwood Festival Art Fair people would ask why I didn't have anything with dogwoods. So after years of being asked, I finally made some fused glass vases, plates and pendants. I should have known there was trouble brewing when I created these pieces. First of all it was difficult to figure out how to make a realistic looking dogwood from glass and second, I wondered if they would actually sell. Well, they didn't sell. But only because they never had a chance. I had a great display right at the front of my booth so everyone would see the pieces. This was also the perfect place for the wind to catch the table, lift it off the ground and slam it down. Yes, the glass broke. I lost most of the dogwood pieces. And that was the end of creating fused glass dogwood art for me.

 

So, as you can see, April is a month filled with art and wind and rain. But don't let the weather keep you from coming out to the Dogwood Art Festival events this year and checking out all of the fabulous art. We artists are a hardy bunch and we'll be there rain or shine. Or wind.

ON A SIDE NOTE:
There are still a few more days to celebrate!
March is National Craft Month and there are three ways you can celebrate in Sassy Style! Find our more in this post. This is the only opportunity this year to save on fused glass classes!

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March is National Craft Month | My crafting journey

March is National Craft Month and I thought it would be a perfect time to share about my love of crafting. Plus I want to know what kinds of crafts you like to do. And don't think that you aren't crafty, because I know you are. Everyone loves to create something whether it is what I call 'big art' or just something small, like a little pencil sketch or doodle.

Ah, doodling. Doodling is what led me to quit my corporate job over 7 years ago and jump full-time into the photography business I operate along with my husband, Allan. I used to sit in long meetings and on conference calls and doodle. And one day I realized I wasn't cut out for the boring corporate world, but for bigger things, like doodling. And photography. But you are probably wondering what in the world photography has to do with my Sassy Glass Studio blog. Well, nothing and everything.

If you have been around me or my blog for a while you know that I inherited the fused glass business from my sister-in-law and that I agreed to take over the kilns and glass because I was already thrashing around in the land of the self-employed and figured I would have time to 'mess around' with the glass a bit. Ha! I no sooner took possession of all the equipment and glass than had a website and blog and an Etsy shop set up. But that's not what I really want to share during National Craft Month. What I want to share is how I have always loved to craft, to create something from nearly nothing and want to keep learning.

Since as far back as I can remember, you know like a hundred years, I have loved to draw. I am not very good at it, but I have a huge collection of crayons and colored pencils so that when I get the urge, I can sit and draw something. Anything. I think I just love all the colors more than anything. Which would explain why I love make-up but don't wear it. The colors overwhelm me, I think. Anyway, I digress. Art class through my grammar school years was the best part of every week and I learned how to create some many cool things. To this day I still think about papiermache. And paste. And construction paper. And right-handed scissors. And I smile.

During this time I experimented with creating really cool works of art with every type of wood I could lay my hands on. My dad was a home builder and architectural woodworker so there was never a shortage of wood. Give me a hammer and a nail and I would make a cool piece of art. I learned how to be very abstract during this period. Nothing ever looked like it was supposed to and I was pretty cool with that. I also designed my own greeting cards. A holiday wasn't complete unless you got a specially designed card from me. I had my own tag line on the back...Sign of the ____. Sometimes it was whale, sometimes it was owl, sometimes it might have been dog. I could have been Hallmark!

When I was in high school I took every art class possible. I learned about fine art and tried all the techniques only to find that as much as I loved creating, I was never particularly awesome at any one medium. For instance, to this day I love, love, love to get out my watercolors and paint. But I am not very good. I paint the koi in my fish pond and they end up looking like limp orange noodles. I give it my best shot, but I would starve as a watercolor artist. High school art classes definitely helped give me confidence to try art and experience some success. It also showed me that teaching art was pretty cool too.

So years go by and I don't really do any art. Not formally at least. I try out graphic design. Before it was done with computers, mind you. And I liked that. But it didn't really click. Fast-forward to the early 2000's and there I am with a camera in my hand. It's not the first time I held a camera, but this was different. This was exhilarating. And then, of course, came the fused glass. And now I combine the two, fusing full-color images by way of a specially created decal to fused glass. Pretty cool. And that knowledge I gained in high school that teaching art was cool, has led me to teaching fused glass classes. Teaching is so much fun and I learn something in every class. Amazing!

So there you have a round about, rather long story relating my love of crafting. But there is more than just the art. There's the love of writing, of attempting to stitch two or more pieces of fabric together and of renovating old homes. It's all crafting. And it's all me.

I want to know about you! What are your favorite arts and crafts? What craft or art would you do if time and money were of no concern? What would you like to learn? What craft or art would you want to teach?

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My 'Aha Moment' :: Teaching Fused Glass Classes

A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by Megan who works for the company that is producing Mutual of Omaha’s “proud sponsor of life’s aha moments” campaign. She asked me to share my 'aha moment' in a short videotaped segment that will eventually be posted on their website. I didn't realize participating could potentially lead to being chosen to appear in a commercial, I just thought it would be fun and a good excuse to go downtown to Market Square and enjoy a Mochachino from Rita's Italian Ice.

Deciding on my 'aha moment' was not difficult. I knew I wanted to talk about how much I love teaching people to create their own fused glass art. Teaching has become a really important part of my life and it was a true 'aha moment'. My appointment for taping coincided with the arrival of writer Nicholas Hunt and photographer Michael Patrick of the Knoxville News Sentinel so I was fortunate to be part of the article that appeared the next day in the newspaper and on-line. Here is the photograph from the article. See the link below to read the entire article.

Read more about my 'aha moment' and others in this Knoxville News Sentinel article.

Here are some of the photographs of the 'aha moment'-mobile and the film "clapper" I received as a momento of my experience.

It was really flattering to be asked to participate and I will be sure to share the videotape of my 'aha moment' when it is available. And you can bet that is my 'moment' makes it to the finals I will counting on your vote!

Find out more about Sassy Glass Studio on our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter and check out our one-of-a-kind fused glass art on Etsy.