Festival Stratford 2013 Part 3

Here are photos of the art/craft vendors set up. I did not take pictures of the individual booths.

Bob at my booth

Crowd who came to hear the 6 p.m. jazz performance.

 Midsummer Night's Dream stage. No photos were allowed to be taken during the performance.

Traffic control

 Note: Photos on Summer Photography Scavenger Hunt 2013 list in this post:
#1 Open air market
#2 Theater of Performing Arts
#15 Police car

Festival Stratford 2013 Part 1
Festival Stratford 2013 Part 2

Festival Stratford 2013 Part 2

Continuing from my previous post, here are a few more views on and from the American Shakespeare Festival Theatre property:

Housatonic River

 

 

 

artwork by John Tarka

 Note: Photos on Summer Photography Scavenger Hunt 2013 list in this post:
#4 An airplane (in the first photo)
#12 A cloud in the shape of something (specify) In the second photo, the thin, horizontal cloud reminds my of Michelangelo's painting of the finger of God touching the finger of Adam on the Sistine Chapel. Though it doesn't look like that, it is what it reminds me of.

Festival Stratford 2013 Part 1
Festival Stratford 2013 Part 3

What's Been Going On

Whew! I feel like I'm finally getting my head above water. Or should I say above the piles of stuff. Since returning home from vacation two and a half weeks ago it seems that all my husband and I have been doing is moving furniture and stuff. My sister in law decided it was time to tag and remove desired items from my in-laws house. It is wonderful to have these household items from my husband's past in our home, but the timing has been less than ideal. Anyway, it is done enough for now and I won't bore you with the details of all we still need to do.

Last week I did get to squeeze in a watercolor workshop with Linda Anderson Miller. That was offered by the CT Natural Science Illustrators. It was wonderful! Linda held the workshop even though I was the only one enrolled. We got to know each other pretty well as a result and I am very thankful for that.

The weather has finally cooled down too. Ahhh. (That is a sigh of relief.)

Tomorrow I plan to work outside cleaning up the gardens. We are hosting a garden party on Saturday evening which should be fun!

Next week I will be preparing for the weekend Arts Marketplace to be held during the Festival Stratford 2013 Midsummer Night's Dream Presentation. This will be my first outdoor show. I am very excited! We have invested in a tent, walls for hanging my work, tables for displaying my handmade papers and journals. On Monday, which is when my mobile phone contract is eligible for an upgrade, I am going to get a "smart phone" so that I can accept credit card payments! Time to go all-in with this.

The week after that I plan to start making some paper. And I need to get back to my 52 Flower Drawings Project!!

Stratford Arts Guild

Last evening I attended the monthly meeting of the Stratford Arts Guild. One of my New Year goals was to get involved with this group. I was a little apprehensive, as one often is when entering a new situation and meeting new people. I wasn't sure how I would be received. Their website encourages artists and others from the community to attend the meetings, so I wasn't too worried. Artists can be an intimidating group of people if they choose to be. Not so with this group, thankfully! I was immediately welcomed, introduced to everyone and had several good conversations.

Roger, the president of the Guild, told me that for many years Stratford had a yearly nationally recognized juried art show. The event was canceled about twenty five years ago. The Guild is hoping to revive it. Now is a good time as plans are moving forward with the re-opening of the Stratford Festival Theater and the huge success of the newly opened Two Roads Brewing Co. Stratford is poised to be a tourist destination once again. I plan to do my best to help the Stratford Arts Guild achieve their goals.

Researching Shakespeare's Flowers

I enjoyed creating the Foxgloves mixed media paintings and would like to create a series of different flowers with a common theme. At first I was thinking that foxgloves fit into a cottage garden theme. Thinking about it further, I wondered if foxgloves were mentioned by William Shakespeare in any of his writings. A theme of plants mentioned in the works of Shakespeare would be timely as my town of Stratford, CT will be hosting the Stratford Sister Cities 2014 Reunion. Work is ongoing to renovate the Shakespeare  Festival Theater.

Doing some research I found that foxgloves are among the over 150 plants mentioned by Shakespeare, though I could not find the literary reference. I will continue to look through available sources for listings of both plants and where they are quoted. If I give myself a timeline of creating one painting a month until August 2014, which is when the reunion will occur I believe, I will have 20 works. That will be a nice body of work to have and display.