I'm back from the North Shore Festival of Art - Old Orchard...

... and I brought home an Award of Merit!  It's really wonderful to receive acknowledgement for my artwork.

The weather decided to challenge us to see if we were serious about selling art over the weekend.  Chicago experienced some heavy downpours that evening and there were pictures in the local newspapers of people wading across streets and of water up to the doors of cars.

I heard that one of the artists at the fair had their tent destroyed by the weather.  The metal beams of her booth had actually snapped in half during the thunderstorms on Friday night!  I was told that the producer of the show, Amy Amdur, was there for this lady the next day and had a rental tent ready to go for her right away so she did not have to go home.  How great is that?

Saturday morning was a bit rough for some of my neighboring artists.  One had their booth tip over but was rescued by Amy with weights to prevent it from happening again.  Another had a beautiful display stand crash over but I think it was OK as they were able to get it back up again and nothing looked majorly broken.  Then the sun was out at noon and patrons started to show up for the second half of the day. Sunday's weather was perfect for the entire time that the show was open.

I met so many terrific people and had the opportunity to show scratchboard art to a few who had never even heard of it.  I think I might have even convinced a few folks to give it a try.  If you are reading this, don't forget to email me photos of your first scratchboard pieces.  I can't wait to see them!

I also want to send out a big Thank You and a really big hug to all of the people who invested in my artwork.  You have no idea how much it means to me. 

I also want to say "Thank You" to my parents for helping me out the entire weekend and being a part of making the show such a success.  They came all the way from western Canada!  I have the best parents in the world!  One last (but not least) "Thank You" goes to my husband, who is always the biggest reason I can do these art fairs but he really went above and beyond to be a part of this one.