All Arts Market!
Phew, gonna be tired tomorrow, but I really wanna get all this out :)

So, the art festival was December 10th, and holy crap it was AAAWWWWESOME!!! Shannon (of NoDaRioty) had the Neighborhood Theater PACKED OUT with 90+ local artists who did all kinds of different work. It was an absolute blast to get to walk around and see what kind of work my peers here in town are doing. We've got some good stuff going on!

I left my table several times and went around meeting the folks whose work I liked the best. I gave out a ton of business cards (more on that in a sec), but unfortunately, I only got like 2 or 3 in return, so I don't have a way to get in touch with most of the folks I met :( I still need to email the cute hippy chick I met who had a bunch of print work and was wanting to learn how do more. These folks were pretty friggin awesome. Oooh! And to top it off, there was a cash bar, and my favorite deli (Salvador Deli) was there selling sandwiches to boot!


The event had live music the whole time--a local band was there playing the whole time, and I actually really enjoyed it. It was pretty eclectic as there were a lot of members that sort of came and went as they pleased, so a lot of different styles were represented. They were playing a lot of funk, almost hip hop towards the end of the night. The only downside was that there were artists packed into the theater all the way up to the stage, meaning that talking to patrons was almost impossible for artists close to the stage-----like I was, hahaha. It's all good, though. It was disappointing to have that hindrance, but I really enjoyed the music, and danced right there at my booth.

I really enjoyed this particular festival and will absolutely participate the next time they do one, but I also really enjoyed the festival context in general as a way to show my work and meet people. It's something I'd like to do a lot more often :)


Speaking of Business Cards
So, I printed up a bunch of business cards to take to the show and hand out to people. I basically printed up a whole fresh batch of my 3-color, 5x6" ILY hands, and drew up a 1-color image to print on the backs to promote my "brand." Now, I didn't procrastinate on this, but in the days leading up to the festival, I was working on a lot of different projects, and time was short. I asked my friend Becca if she'd be willing to come be my print slave assistant for a couple hours, in exchange for an IOU dinner. Well, long story short, we ended up going to our friend Cameron's house, where him and his girlfriend Katie served us delicious pork loin and then both Becca and Cameron came back to my place to help me print.

That alone should tell you I've got some pretty great friends.

But it gets better :) Becca and Cameron really aren't art people, and they know nothing about printing. But, to help me out--so I could go back to my room and work on a poster I needed to have ready by Friday--they volunteered to learn how to screenprint and knock out as many of the cards for me as they could. *long pause*

I am still sort of awed by that. I've got some pretty awesome people in my life. Thank all of you :)

Anyway, they ended up having a blast, and they understand a little better now my obsession with this medium. I took a couple quick vids with my digital camera and uploaded them to YouTube. You can see them here, here, and here.


Can Santa Be Bad If There's No Bad Santa?
So, the friday after the festival was the next movie party. The plan was to watch Bad Santa, though, lol, we never got to it, goddamnit. See, I was running behind, and actually FINISHED printing the party poster as guests were arriving, and by the time I was done, no one felt like walking down to the theater. *shrug* Not a huge deal except it costs $10 to rent it. But it was a great party regardless :) Good big crowd, great folks, and pretty much everybody had a good time. Need to find a way to get Charlotte and GSO peeps to mix more tho ;)

Anyway, here's a couple pix....

... and here's the poster. It's pretty awesome ;)

-P.