rag and stone

Market season is here and summer is coming quick! Started off a little windy....but great to be back into the swing of things. I can't tell you how excited and hopeful I am for this market year, I have lots of great stuff that I didn't have last year, have acquired a few new pieces mostly from the spring semester at school, and most exciting of all........I have a S T U D I O!!!

This year I am trying out doing two different markets every week....one here in Whitefish and my favorite market, the one in Columbia Falls that I did the past two years. They are both such great places to hang in the early evenings, good music, great food, and usually I see at LEAST 10 people I know. The great part about Montana, and the reason I still live here, are the people. Montanans I swear are some of the friendliest and most humble people out there. The support for handmade crafts and art is part of people's livelihood for a lot of Montanans too, whether it's selling raffle tickets for the local soccer team, buying veggies from your neighbor farmer, trading venison for rhubarb pie, enjoying local honey.... There is this great respect for craft-work, and for independent work, and for eeking out a living in Montana doing just that....eeking out a living. I can't tell you how invigorating, as an artist, it is to be surrounded by people who all make or grow and sell their own products. Farmers markets are this great buzz of creative work, and it just fills me up...I love it.

I have the great pleasure of sitting and setting up next to a couple that do the "market circuit", they run a screenprinting tee-shirt business. They are awesome people, just the kind you want to sit next to when the wind starts whipping through the market and your tent is looking a little ornery.....Scott and Charisse are just awesome. Their Tee's are hanging in the background of the shots of my booth, really great and creative stuff. You can find their work here:

WHITEFISH STYLE

So here's to a fun market season........

Where there is always good company, in the shade and the sun, in the wind and the rain. Where pie and beer are forms of currency, and kids are covered in sticky colorful sugar of some kind. Where I find that I am in the company of great art, music, and love.