My 2016 Artisans Market Review is on the agenda today. Well all weekend actually since I have so many photos to show you. It took a long time to try and weed out the ones I didn’t want to use. Then I tag them all, put my website on them and optimize them so they will hopefully load quickly. I hope you enjoy looking at the pictures. On with the Artisans Market review!

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

We started out great beginning Friday, December 2nd with a morning show live broadcast on a local (Evansville) news channel. I’ve looked for the clips, but I cannot find them. If I do locate them, I will add a link to it. I would like to see them myself.

That coverage along with a great marketing campaign this year really made a difference in the traffic. Saturday, the Rapp-Owen Granary was full of shoppers for most of the day. In past years, attendance has declined significantly. The marketing group does a lot of social media as well as traditional marketing, which is what we needed to get the information out to everyone.

I actually heard someone say that she lived only 10 miles from New Harmony and had never heard of our Old World Christmas festival that goes on every first weekend for years. That tells me the previous people in charge were not marketing the show. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Marketing is key for a good show.

So when you first walk into the Rapp-Owen Granary, you are greeted by all kinds of fresh baked goodies (the brownies were to die for!) and food like chili, burgers and hot dogs available for you to munch on at the concession area.

The seating area to eat your goodies.

To the right of the entrance door, there is an elevator to the 2nd floor where the majority of the artisans are at with their goods. I am so glad there is an elevator!

Look to your left and you’ll see why…

While beautiful, I didn’t want to be schlepping my stuff up and down them over and over again. So, the Granary is very handi-cap accessible. Great in my book.

Next up, we have Tony Treadway’s pottery booth. His lovely wife, Christy, minding shop while he attends to show matters. Find his Facebook page here.

On down, still on the main floor, is Kotah Moon and her fabulous metal sculpture art. I have several pieces of her art. See her page here.

Then next to Kotah is the last artist that is on the main floor, Ben Labudde. He is a wood carver and does very fine work. In fact, all of his pieces were sold by 9:30 am on Saturday I heard. I managed to get lucky and scored a carved tree ornament. His companion Lana and I are good gardening pals.

Now we’ll head upstairs and see all that was going on there. Right off the elevator you see the gorgeous jewelry of mother and daughter, Sue and Sara Rappee.

Across from them is artist Vicky Wilson. She is new to the artisans market this year. We became fast friends. She has a website here.

Next to Vicki were my friends Mike Gaines and Katherine “Kat” Howell. Both had fantastic but very different jewelry. I’ve posted about Mike’s jewelry here. Kat has Studio 2069 Designs and her jewelry has a very distinct look. See Kat’s page here. I see Mike and Kat at lots of shows, they are always a riot.

Another new painter for the Artisans Market this year is Julia London-Meddles. She is a hoot as well. Julia painted a few paintings while in her booth – something I am very interested in but not sure I have the organization for. We became friends as well. In fact, I’m friends now with all the artisans!

In between Julia and my booth were my very close friends Connie Tousley and Patti Blakeman. Connie had her beautiful jewelry that is sometimes up-cycled from stained glass, broken china and who knows what else. Patti was a sweetheart and graced us all with her incredible baking skills with the most delicious cookies. Patti will be bringing her other art to upcoming shows I’m pretty sure. She is working on a book and has also shared with me her work in progress mixed media piece that will be a terrific addition to the Artisans Market if she decides to make more of them.

I bought two pieces of Connie’s jewelry, a bracelet with a silver heart with red bamboo coral and also these cool Day of the Dead turquoise skull earrings.

On down, next to Julia was my friend Becky Kiesel who makes the classy jewelry out of the Karges Furniture hardware. I’ve featured her one of a kind work before on my blog before also, click here to see it.

Across from Becky was a new fellow named Mark Riggins from Bloomington, Indiana. He was so fun and has these incredible pen and ink renderings.

Back in the corner, where he usually is, was Tom Wintczak of Bee Tree Pottery. You’ve heard me talk about Tom and his pottery before and about his wife (Ruth) and they’re most incredible gardens.

Next to Tom, is Loom Hall Textiles featuring all the hard work of my friend Peggy Taylor. I’ve posted about Peggy before also and you can find that here. I’m so glad she could come this year, last year she was sick but her daugther ran the show for her.

Across and diagonal from Peggy is the beautiful sounds that come from violin, harp and guitar. Ahhhhh… It was such a treat to hear the sounds again from this family affair. Music by Elaine is the website where you’ll find her. Elaine Wilson and her father Richard Wilson, a father and daughter duo, were here last year. Their beautiful music made shopping a pleasure. Ellen Wilson (below) was also there selling her teas again this year.

We had a new basket weaver in the Granary this year. Patty J. Kelley is her name and she had the most ingenious baskets!

Next to the baskets, was Patricia Beagle again with her sweet paintings “Painted by Patty” on eggs, votives, bird houses and more. I posted some info and more photos of Patricia and her work here.

I can’t leave out Laura Foster Nicolson with her LFN Textiles. She skipped last year, but returned to serve many happy customers with her sewn tea towels, hand puppets, bags from her weavings and more. Find more about Laura and her work on her website here.

Next to Laura was my friend and fellow painter Nancy Pace. Nancy also makes hand made jewelry and wire sculptures. Nancy is a lot of fun and we’ve been friends for years. Find Nancy’s work here.

Last but not least is my booth! I played around with yet another layout for the interior. I’ve dropped my covered panels – I’ve always hated how it closed off the people around me. I also tried extending my tables to form a T for more real estate. I was pretty happy with how my booth looked.

Shameless promotion coming next.

New for this year were hand painted glass ornaments. I guess I should’ve made more since they sold out Saturday morning but I didn’t know how they would be received. So you know next year, I’ll have a lot more. On the upside, I’m working on about ten more for orders I received during and after the show.

Here are my booth walls and my shelves (new this year), with some of the paintings on them. I could use a few more lights.

I sold the original middle right painting called “Blood moon” to a family who bought it for their son for Christmas. He was only 14 and very mature. He’s already an art collector… off to a good start that one is. He picked it out himself and asked for it. I noticed he kept coming back to it while the family shopped. I love seeing young people into art.

Below is a slideshow of more funny and memorable photos from the show. There are arrows on the left and right side of the photos to move forward or backwards.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my Artisans Market Review. If you were a shopper during the Christmas in New Harmony, I’d love to get your take on how things were as far as the quality of work seen, diversity of items to shop for and also how you heard about the event. Even if you didn’t attend, I’d like to hear what you think judging from the photos. Just leave me a comment 🙂

I absolutely loved this event. It felt like a reunion with my artist friends and meeting new ones whom I’m sure will form long term friendships as well. The traffic was great, sales were good and load in and load out is easy.

I’d say my next show will probably be in the spring. You can always see my schedule for shows as I get applications on my events page. And if you know of any shows I should be attending, please let me know! I’d appreciate it.

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If you’re new to my blog and website have a look at my ‘About’ page in the menu at the top. I’m an artist – a painter mostly and an avid gardener. I paint a variety of subjects including birds, koi fish, my gardens, ponds and flowers as well as anything having to do with nature especially trees and tropical scenes. I also enjoy painting abstracts in the form of expressionism. If you’re interested in my art, I have a newsletter mailed about once a month that gives you special status for invitations, birthday greeting and more. Sign up here for it.