Sunday, August 2, 2009

In the Middle of Lake Erie Grows a Flower

Above is a photo called "Lake Erie Daisy" that I presented to the innkeeper of the House on Huntington Lane in gratitude for all her help with getting started in the art world.

A year ago today was the first time I ever participated in an art show. It happened kind of like the way things happened to Forrest Gump. You see, I had called up my friendly neighborhood innkeeper at the House on Huntington Lane Bed and Breakfast on Kelleys Island to ask whether she had a room available so I could stay overnight, take pictures, and look into selling some prints on the island. A link to the House on Huntington Lane appears below:

http://www.houseonhuntington.com/index.htm

Since I had stayed there before, the innkeeper knew me and suggested, “Why don’t you call up the Kelleys Island Historical Association? They’re having an art show. All you have to do is come set up a card table.” A link to the Kelleys Island Historical Association appears below:

http://www.kelleysislandhistorical.org/

Having absolutely no experience, I happily agreed. Long story short, I sold a decent amount of photos featuring Kelleys Island landscape and nature scenes last year. The most touching moment came when a six-year-old boy stepped forward and introduced himself to me because he wanted to meet a “real artist” and his mom had just bought him a picture I was selling of the glacial grooves so that he could hang up the famous Kelleys Island rock formation in his bedroom. A link to an earlier post on the glacial groove photo appears below:

http://countrydreaming-countrycorner.blogspot.com/2009/02/kelleys-island-photo-published-in.html

The event ended on a humorous note when my card table totally collapsed right at the end of the show. Some guy volunteered that he could fix up my table enough so that the Kelleys Island Historical Association might pay me $10 for it. At that point, I simply donated the table for free and was real happy they didn’t charge me anything to haul it away as junk that was messing up their beautiful island! You might say my art career began with a bang …

Anyway. This spring, the same innkeeper from the House on Huntington Lane gave me another good suggestion: The Lake Erie daisies were in bloom along the North Shore Loop trail. I was so grateful that I gave her a 5x7 copy of the daisy in an 8x10 mat as a gift at this year’s island art show.