Fish averaging 16-18 inches are commonly caught from drift boats on the Green River.

I arrived in Dutch John, Utah the third weekend in June, looking for Big Daddy Brown and friends in the fabled tail waters of the Green River below Flaming Gorge Reservoir.  After leaving the flat lands of central Kansas in my rearview mirror, I drove hard for thirteen hours while crossing three states on a 935-mile marathon.  Catching a catnap in a truck stop, I showed up in Dutch John at sunup the following morning.

Located near the three corners of Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, Dutch John would most likely cease to exist if not for a constant stream of vacationers using the lake, and an army of fly fishermen testing their skills below Flaming Gorge Reservoir.  Little bigger than two gas stations and a red light, Dutch John is a small isolated village, so remote, that you had best be going to Dutch John with an exacting purpose to ever want to end up there. It is the jumping off place for fly fisherman wanting to experience the crystal clear waters of the fabled Green.

Utah’s Green River is a Mecca for those who worship the dry fly. Okay. Okay. For those who wish to bounce a nymph, we won’t kick you out of the club, just yet. The Green will rightfully tempt you to become a fully initiated member of those among us, who fish hard and fish dry.  Seeing a mammoth brown slowly rise to the surface, opening his mouth and twisting his neck to devour your fly, puts a charge into your pants that you cannot get any other way.  Did I just say that fishing a dry fly on the Green is better than sex?  Almost.

What embodies the Green as such a storied tail water, is the incredible number of fish per mile and the absurd growth rates of these wild browns inhabiting the river.  This is due to the large amount of aquatic hatches and food available along its banks.  If you are ever lucky enough to fish the Green, don’t be surprised if most of the fish that stretch your line average sixteen inches or better.

That is why every summer throngs of fly fishermen, decked out in their fancy fishing duds, stand in the parking lot at Trout Creek Flies to talk shop before heading down to the water. If clothes could actually catch fish, Dutch John would be the place for a casual observer to write a book about it.  As if on command, a daily parade of noteworthy guides, towing drift boats, begin pulling into the parking lot of Trout Creek Flies, pausing just long enough to pick up these expectant anglers, who have been dreaming about monster browns in their sleep since before last Christmas.

Should you choose to fish and wade, without the advantage of a drift boat and the aid of a trained guide, the fellows inside Trout Creek Flies will tell you what flies the guides say are “hot,” and also give you the latest tips for catching fish.  There is easy access along the river while walking any of the six miles up the river trail from Little Hole to the dam. For those fishermen a bit more adventurous, this hike up the canyon offers a bit more solitude and waters less fished.  You can also take a left turn from the boat ramp at Little Hole and head down river to fish the B section of the river.  Either option offers a menu of incredible fishing.  Much further downstream from the B section, lies the most remote portion of the river, accessible primarily by drift boat.  The C-section of the river carries with it all the lore of days gone by and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  It is in this three-corner area of Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado that the outlaw gang made history by outrunning lawmen from the three adjoining states.  The fishing on the C is said to be a bit slower than the A or B sections of the river, but it is also rumored that the lower portion of the river is where monsters lurk.

Most betting men would pick mid to late June to fly fish the Green because of the massive Cicada hatches that can turn June from a truly good fishing month into one of epic proportions. It is the big terrestrials that the browns gorge themselves on all summer that makes the Green such an extreme dry fly destination.  Combine the quality of available terrestrial insects with the large aquatic hatches that appear on the river during the heat of summer, and the Green comes alive with bugs.

I fished the banks using hoppers, ants, and black crickets.

This year proved a little different.  The cool and damp weather before my arrival had not only slowed any hope of the usual appearance of the cicada onslaught, but few if any notable bug hatches had yet to appear on the river to date.  I found guides standing in small circles praying to the bug gods for warmer days.  Some went as far as to announce that the cicadas would stay in the ground for another year.  Was I in Utah?   This was the first official day of summer and the locals seemed almost ecstatic to see a ray of sunshine overhead, instead of viewing a constant threat of rain.  The damper weather had combined with an early snowmelt, which had resulted in much higher than normal water tables in the lake.  The high lake water resulted in fluctuating amounts of water to be discharged down stream from the dam.  Things weren’t running like a Swiss watch.  This irritated the guides and the lack of bugs seemed to weigh on everyone’s psyche.  I asked myself, “Would there still be fish in the river?”

Although few aquatic hatches were actually happening on the river itself, these fish seem to thrive on ants, crickets, and hoppers along its banks.  Fishermen were beginning to take big browns in good numbers, even if not in the epic proportions of past memories.  The fish were there.  Many of the bugs were simply on vacation.  The only difference seemed that the fly shops were pushing different insect patterns rather than the typical cicada, and without a specified hatch, the guides found themselves searching for a silver bullet in their arsenal of ammunition.

By now, you may find yourself scratching your head and asking what is the big deal about the Cicada hatch on the Green.  These noisy critters are large, clunky, and often overlooked by fly fishermen.  When these bug-eyed creatures crawl out of the ground in summer the trees come alive with a cacophony noise up and down the river.  Cicadas cannot fly very well and their futile attempts at flight result in crashes into the river.  The cicada hatch makes for an ongoing buffet for the trout as long as it lasts.  Generally, that is from the middle of June through early July.

I had reserved a guide with Spinner Fall Guide Service out of Dutch John.  I came to learn the hard way that it is best to book early when fishing the Green.  Many slots were no longer available by the time I picked up the phone in early April.  Hey dude, why get into a hurry?  I had originally planned to partake in two days of guided trips on the river, but was only able to schedule one float during the week that I was to be in Dutch John.  I got the last available slot with Spinner Fall Guide Service for a one-day gig fishing both the A and B sections of the river.  Lucky me!

My guide was a fellow named Jeromey with a quirky personality as big as the state of Utah and as twisted as all of Wyoming.  Best of all, Jeromey loved to fish hard.  It was the extreme skiing of northern Utah that had first lured Jeromey away from his home state of Maine.  Migrating to Park City in the mid 90’s, Jeromey found guiding to his liking during the summers when he wasn’t on the slopes.  Jeromey seems to approach fishing with the same degree of extreme intensity that he attacks fresh powder. I often say that life is full of priorities, and Jeromey has found his.  He works as a bartender at night so that he can ski all day.  Once the snow finally melts, Jeromey calls the rivers from Park City to Dutch John his home.  I believe that no one can upstage Jeromey’s intensity on the river.  He has worked as a professional fly fishing guide the past fifteen years and knows the Green like the back of his hand.  I was not to be disappointed.

The A section of the river flows through a beautiful red rock canyon.

The first thing Jeromey told me as he crawled behind the wheel and we drove to the launch, was that there was no Cicada hatch and not to worry.  We might not find a lot of suicide fish willing to eat anything that hit the water, and we might actually have to work hard to catch fish.  But we would catch fish.  He promised me at least twenty-five “eats,” and the rest was up to me.  Jeromey had every intention of putting me in the right drift where the fish were patiently waiting for dinner to come floating by.  As he properly stated, “Fish have to eat.  It is all about making it look totally natural and fooling the fish.”  He took his philosophy a step further.  There had been few aquatic hatches on the river, but, as always, there was an abundance of terrestrials for the fish to feed on.  Jeromey explained that many of the guides would fish the banks where crickets, ants, and hoppers might easily fall into the water.    So, he posed the question, “What happens to that cricket or beetle that makes it far enough to eventually be washed down stream?”  Eventually those land-loving insects find themselves in the middle of the river.  That is where we fished much of the time, and Jeromey’s thinking was spot on.

It did not take us long to get our first four eats, and I brought four nice browns to the net.  I knew that my average was too good to be true and the next several fish got the better of me, as I totally missed setting the hook.  The important thing was that Jeromey was putting me onto the fish.  So what if the Cicada hatch had just totally rained on our parade.  It may be rumored that a blind man can catch trout on a dry fly when the Cicada hatch is at its peak on the Green River, but that was water already under the dam as far as Jeromey was concerned and we were here to catch fish.  What other river provides such an opportunity with 25,000 fish per nautical mile?  We were here on this given day and Jeromey had just promised me twenty-five eats. I did not question his methods, as Jeromey delivered on his promise.

We floated sixteen miles that day, while fishing hard.  Jeromey never let up. Then he almost apologized as we pulled in at the end of a very long day.  It was not the best of days for the Green in June, but a bad day on the Green is all in the eye of the beholder.  I thought the fishing was great. No, not epic, but hard to beat anywhere else in the lower 48.  I can see where it would be easy to become a bit jaded when you are a dyed-in-the-wool guide on the Green.  The fishing can truly be that good at times. My experience was great.  No, there were not fish feeding on the surface everywhere around us.  There were no suicide fish looking to become immortal.   In fact, few surfacing feeder fish showed their faces at all.  This was a day for good fishermen, and those not so good, to fish hard and show their metal on a river that gives up to those who deserve their just reward.

My hat is off to Jeromey.  He is one cool cucumber, who is doing exactly what he loves to do.  Life simply does not get any better than that.

The B section of the Green.

For more information on Spinner Fall Guide Service, visit Spinnerfall.com.

Fly Fish Utah is a new painting by Larry Stephenson.  It is the fourth in a series of vintage license plates heralding the great fly fishing of the western mountain states.  View this and other fun art at WWW.LSTEPHENSON.COM.  Prints are available for order.

Think about this.  Today’s contemporary art forms are the chic collectables of tomorrow.  I once had a friend tell me to invest my money in 1950’s chrome and formica kitchen dinette sets.  That was in the early 1970’s and he did not seem like a visionary at the time.  Since then, the baby boomer generation has come to eat that stuff up.  I am one of them, a boomer; and I have since learned to appreciate Art deco,  Catalin radios, retro barware, juke boxes, fat tire bicycles, Airstream trailers, and 57 chevy convertibles.  No, I don’t own all of that stuff, but in some ways, I wish that I did.  These cultural icons capture the times of my life.  So what is my point?  Collecting art is much the same.  Tomorrow’s very collectable fine crafts may be staring you in the face and you may not even know it.

I recently met a craftsman, artist, and designer at a small art fair in Kanas City with an interesting approach to making metal jewelry.  Matthew Naftzger calls his designs The Works of Man .

sculptural bracelet design

Mathew works in shaped metal that is riveted together rather being  soldered.  His current pieces are made of titanium.   Titanium cannot be soldered.  Rings are machined from bar stock, then other pieces can be riveted into place.  I found the entire approach rather intriguing and quite unusual.  No doubt his approach is the road less often traveled.  To press the edge of the envelope, Matthew designs and works on whimsical sculptural pieces that would fit in the palm of the hand.

Using contemporary metals, this retro rocket ship reminds me of the days of Buck Rogers.

Wheels move, and the hoop rotates on this sculptural wonder.

The moving parts of some of Matthew’s palm-sized sculptural pieces set me to thinking about similar craftsmen from earlier days who probably were not totally appreciated during their own time.  These earlier crafts people may have worked in other mediums, but the story is really the same today.  It is a story about pushing the edges of the envelop beyond function.  It is about creating art for the sake of making art that is more than an implement for decoration.  This is a story of exceptional skill and mastering one’s own craft; then taking that craft to the next level.

Below is a sculptural piece of folk art from another era. This walking cane takes the art of wood carving far beyond simple function.  Few folk art walking sticks tested the artist’s skill to the degree of the example below.

Folk art wooden walking stick. The use of alligators, snakes, fish, and frogs suggests the swamps of the deep south.  This cane may have been carved by a slave working on a tobacco plantation.  Snakes wrap and uncoil from around the cane’s shaft as they stare down a frog to eat.  A rabbit hides behind leaves on the other side.

Throughout history, artisans have found interesting ways to showcase their talents.  I have a collection of hand carved folk art walking sticks.  Many of these canes were made in the early to late 1800’s by masters of their craft.  I suspect that some of these earlier wood carvers sold or traded their folk art to friends for peanuts, or may have traveled from farm house to farm house showing their wares.  These intricate carvings were once made as a form of personal entertainment after a long day’s work in the field.  Some canes were whittled from naturally shaped roots.  Many were shaped from tree branches.

Detail of Alligator eating tobacco leaves wrapped around a ball handle.

Detail of carved fish resting on a polychromed red heart.

Some of the fanciest examples of folk canes were made at sea.  Whalers often passed the time during months away from port on long voyages, by carving whale bone and ivory into scrimshaw.  Shafts of turned bone made for some of the most beautiful walking sticks in their day.  These canes were often fitted with whale tooth handles, either carved or turned,  before being decorated with scrimshaw.  The pieces needed to fit together with precision.  They were riveted together with small pieces of shaped bone.  What remains today in the form of hand carved walking sticks of wood or whale ivory are a testament to the creativity and talent of these master crafters from another century.  Many of the most unusual pieces have now found their places in museums or serious collections.  Today’s values can go into the tens of thousands of dollars for the most unusual pieces.  In a bygone era, well dressed gentlemen and ladies carried a cane as much for fashion as for personal use.  The finest artisans used their God given talents to hand make these canes.

The artists of today are little different.  They apply their talents in many ways while using the materials available.  It seems only fitting that some of the best artists that I know use their talents to make fine jewelry.  Matthew Naftzer is one of them.  His men’s wedding rings are a different take on an everyday object.

This brings me to wonder about the folk art of today and the collections of tomorrow.  As I travel while participating in art fairs, I have the pleasure of meeting modern day fine craft artisans.  I am often amazed by their creativity, their methods, and the materials employed to make their art.  I am convinced that real treasures of tomorrow abound in the simplest of places at today’s fine art fairs.

Not to be overlooked, Matthew Naftzger makes his trade working in metal.  Works of Man is a collection of riveted metals shaped into jewelry and sculptural pieces by Matthew using his original designs.  How cool is that!

We didn’t simply click together the heels of our ruby slippers and arrive back home in our humble abode in Andover, Kansas, but we are are glad to return after a rather sweltering weekend on the art fair circuit. The weather was about as unforgiving as a bump on the end of the nose from the gloves of George Foreman. You couldn’t see it, but the humidity clung to the air like white on rice. As much as I do love participating in art fairs across the country, there are times that I miss the simple comforts of home. Yes, air conditioning comes to mind. Yet, there is something that we miss even more when both Sheryl and I leave home together for a weekend at a show. We miss our dogs. I just hate to go off and leave them at the doggy hotel no matter how many stars are behind its name.

It would be hard to describe the well-found greeting that we received early this morning when we returned from our short trip to Kansas City. Lexi and Dude acted as if we had just returned from a far flung adventure around the world. Although it had only been a few days since we were last together as a family, the dog’s joy was written across their faces. I opened the back door and Dude raced down the steps from the back deck to the lake shore some forty feet behind our house. Before I could say a word, he was frolicking and swimming circles in the middle of the lake. Lexi looked on with a grin that said it all. A few years earlier and she would have been right there in the thick of it. These days she gets about as much enjoyment watching and knowing that all is well. Life is very good at the Stephenson household. Yes, it certainly is.

About the show. Most of what I can say is that The Prairie Village Art Fair is a well run neighborhood art event in the Kansas City area. It is not a large show. The people in attendance are quite nice and I enjoy the overall friendly atmosphere. The crowds seemed a wee bit small to me, but that may be relative to some of the bigger events that I tend to frequent. I feel certain that the heat and humidity this last weekend kept people inside. I know the show’s administrator, and Donna does a ten-star performance. She, and her staff and volunteers,  would settle for nothing less. For artists unfamiliar with the Prairie Village Art Fair, it is worth the first time experience. You be the judge. The sales are there for some, not all.

The third in a series of paintings by Larry Stephenson, watercolor artist, of antique license plates romancing the sport of fly fishing, Washington on the Fly, depicts four steelhead flies casting a long shadow.  For many who have ever swung a fly in the larger rivers of the Pacific Northwest, the two-handed spey rod cements the moment.  The vintage plate is the artist’s own creation.  The 6000 series reel is among the latest offerings from Sage .

Other fly fishing license plates include Fly Fish Wyoming and Fly Fish Montana. Soon to come are the states of Oregon and Utah, with Utah currently on the artist’s drawing board.

This new image, Fly Fish Montana, by Larry Stephenson, watercolor artist, is currently featured on Midcurrent.com, a great place to get up-to-date Fly-Fishing Gear, Tips, and News. This original watercolor painting is available as a high quality archival reproduction, each signed and numbered by the artist. It one of several new Larry Stephenson paintings featuring the theme of fly fishing and old license plates of the mountain states located in the American west. Midcurrent is a great blog and newsletter for the ingrained angler looking for the path less traveled by the average fisherman. Why do it the easy way when you can fly fish? The fly fisherman knows about going the extra mile. For me it is more about being there and experiencing the moment, than it is about catching fish. That is not to say that experienced fly fishermen don’t catch their share of fish. They do. Fly fishing is about much more than baiting a hook. A fly fisherman learns to check water temperatures and match the hatch. It is about casting that perfect tight loop while learning to allow the rod to do the work rather than just thrashing air. Casting a weighted line and a whisper of a fly takes the patience and perfect timing that comes from hours of practice. There is an art to taming nine feet of tapered bamboo or teaching a shaft of highly engineered carbon and epoxy to know its master. The best things in life never come easy, but the rewards can be priceless. Life is good.

By now you have that new digital camera that is so tiny you can take it almost anywhere. Better yet, it takes pretty good pictures with just the click of a button. Simply point and shoot. It’s so easy that your two year old niece could do it. The digital age has made taking pictures almost as ordinary as breathing oxygen. If you don’t already own a great digital camera, the chances are that you own a cell phone capable of taking a digital capture. These digital devices are getting better by the day. What used to have limited optics and somewhat sparse mega pixels per capture, now contain a digital chip almost worthy of a true professional. Advances in technology have allowed cameras with passable optics to get much lighter than the hefty SLRs a pro lugs around. These mighty minis can easily fit in the palm of your hand. Everyone can be an amateur photographer, so what is wrong with going out to the local art fair and photographing everything in sight? The answer may be nothing for those who don’t understand the meaning of intellectual property rights. If the idea of copyrights and intellectual property are new to you, read on.

Taking a photograph of an artist’s work without permission is the same thing as stealing. You may think that I am making too much ado about nothing, but think of it this way. Imagine for a moment, going to the grocery store and grabbing a quick candy bar on the way out the door without offering to pay for it. After all, the candy bar was there in plain sight just asking to be taken. It’s not grand theft, and it may not land you in jail, but we all know that it is wrong. The funny thing is that many of us do not understand that it is wrong to take a picture of an artist’s artwork without permission. You may not think much about it, but all rights belong to the artist. That includes the right to photograph any artist’s work, no matter how innocent your intentions. That drawing or painting is the artist’s intellectual property. It is the artist’s creative idea. Most professional artists make a living by selling their ideas in one form or another. Taking photographs may seem like a little thing, but it is simple courtesy, if not the law, to ask permission before photographing artwork.

It has become almost commonplace for people to take their cameras to art fairs these days. I know a number of artists who get down right bothered when people visit their booths and take photos without permission. After all, these same artists are there to sell their work, not give it away for free. Think about it. That artist has an investment in just being there. Chances are, the booth fee was pretty hefty. The hours are long and its not exactly a day at the park for vendors. These are private business people working hard to make a living. It is not asking too much, by artist’s standards, to expect people to consider buying something rather than taking photographs to remember their artwork. I can understand why many artists refuse to allow photographs to be taken of their creative works of art.

Generally speaking, I almost always give permission to those art fair patrons who ask to photograph my own artwork. My thinking is this. I have much higher quality photos of my images available on my web site than these patrons will be taking themselves. My images on my web site are taken in a studio setting using professional camera equipment. Those images on my web site are there for the taking, although they are not in a high resolution format generally acceptable for fine art reproduction. That brings me to another point.

Do people actually visit art fairs looking to photograph paintings and reproduce them at home on a desktop color printer? I hope not. If that is the case, these same people most likely are not interested in any of the archival reproductions that I have for sale. They are not my customers, and I am not likely to convert them any time too soon. There is a lot that goes into reproducing a quality archival reproduction from an original painting. I won’t go into that right now, but what does worry me is the advances in technology that makes such devious behavior even possible. When I see someone inside my booth at an art fair, squaring up the lens for that perfect photograph, I am forced to wonder. These are the same people that would steal that candy bar and not pay for it.

There has always been the occasional commercial artist or graphic designer out to steal a few ideas. Some might say that is a part of being in the business. Again, they simply need to take my card and visit the web site. It is all posted for anyone to see. I threw my own paranoia out the window a long time ago.

For many years I made my entire living from the royalties earned by licensing my artwork. My intellectual property appeared on everything from greeting cards to textiles and wallpaper. In those days it would have been unheard of for me to give out photos without a contract and a cash advance. But that was then. This is now, and I have learned to live with the idea that people taking pictures with cell phones are not rabid dogs. However, the cultural changes provided by advances in technology do not excuse a need for good manners. Next time you wish to photograph an artist’s work, take time to ask first. It simply is the right thing to do. If the artist is like me, you will most likely get the response you desire.

Just a quick note to say that the art show in the Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis is a well organized event that is attended by an art savvy crowd.  Because the weather in early May can often wreck havoc on this out door show, the crowds fluctuate with the weather.  Sunday was a beautiful day and the crowds showed up in force for a Mother’s day afternoon at the art show.

Any given weekend, people all over this country  travel relatively short distances to local art fairs situated in grassy parks or laid out on city streets.  Art patrons enjoy a plethora of fine crafts and unique handmade artwork in a pleasant outdoor setting devoid of a more sterile gallery atmosphere. There is something aesthetically pleasing about viewing the creative talents of hundreds of artisans coming together in a single location, without needing to  participate in a gallery crawl or shop in stores at the retail level.  You may not have previously thought about it, but attending an art fair is a uniquely American experience.  It has become as much a part of our culture as mom and apple pie.  The exact same experience is not found in other parts of the world.

American art fairs may have first stemmed out of the hippy moment of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s when young entrepreneurs desired to work for themselves rather than hire out to corporate America.  It was quite primitive early on.  The first outdoor art shows displayed artwork hung on fences or leaned up against storefronts on city sidewalks. Tales are told  about artwork that was hung on clothes lines or hooked to heavy pegboards anchored against the wind.  Show tents were yet to be invented.  The shows consisted mostly of painters and potters in the early days, and these artists were totally dependent on good weather.  Whole shows were put up each morning and completely taken down at night.  In the beginning each artist designed and built his or her own display.  These displays were often heavy and impractical for travel.  As this cottage industry grew, manufacturers soon recognized the need for standardized display panels and sturdy weatherproof tenting for outdoor art fairs.  White tents became the standard because they did not clash with the artwork and white provided the best inside lighting for display purposes.  Show administrators preferred white tents for a uniformed presentation and the size of the booth space standardized into a 10 x 10 foot square.

Today, all of this is taken for granted.  I am often asked by visiting patrons if the artists rent their tents and displays from the show or if they are simply provided.  In fact, each artist generally owns his or her own setup.  There are also rental companies that will set up a display for those artists flying to the show with limited luggage.

What had offhandedly begun with a handful of artistic pioneers, soon grew into bands of thousands of independent business people traveling from city to city  displaying and selling their wares.  News of  the best shows began to spread by word of mouth.  Artists traveled long distances transporting their artwork in trailers and vans.  The shows became much more diverse in the types of creative products that were offered, as artists began to push the edge of the envelope.  No longer were these shows comprised mostly of painters and potters.  The quality of the shows also improved to the point that in many cases quality surpassed the standards of those galleries on a local level.  Patrons were amazed at the creativity and overall quality of the art offered the public at the better shows.   These shows not only allowed people to meet artists personally, but it allowed the artists the ability to successfully sell their own work while controlling their own business without the expense of a middle man.   The American art fair had been born and was now thriving coast to coast.  That was over forty years ago.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since artists first organized and began doing art fairs in this country.  Many of us embraced this business model and went on to earn a normal living.  The idea of “starving artists” became mostly a cliche of the past for those successful enough to combine a little business ingenuity along with their artistic talents.  The way and the means was easily at every artist’s fingertips who did not mind embracing a little work.   It was never easy; but a reasonable, if not very good living, was available for those with the talent and the fortitude to get out there and work for it.  Traveling fair to fair was not for everybody.  But it provided a means for high quality artisans to sell their artwork for reasonable prices.  It was a entire generation of artists who first embraced this cultural phenomenon four decades ago and many of those same artists are now beginning to live out their lives or retire.  Will the torch be passed to a new generation of artists?

About the same time that you begin to embrace anything as your own, you also take it for granted.  Americans have embraced art fairs as a part of our culture.  Yet, there are reasons that we cannot take this cultural phenomenon for granted.  While young hippies gradually morphed into successful business people forty years ago, youthful artists are faced with a whole different set of problems these days, should they wish to follow a similar path.  The initial investment is substantial.  The necessary tools, displays,  a traveling vehicle and a season’s worth of booth fees requires  a serious commitment.   This all comes with no guarantees.  Shows no longer are easy to get into.  There is a long line of applicants for any of the better events.  These art fairs are juried by qualified jurors looking for a diversified show comprised of the highest quality artists and craftsmen.  And once an artist makes the cut, there are no guarantees that the public will show up with pockets full of money willing to shower on the available talent.  We are in the middle of a recession and main street is no longer easy street no matter how talented any of us may be.   If it is tough for the died-in-the-wool artisan; think how tough it can be for the neophyte just breaking into the business.

This has all been food for thought.  I have one final thing to think about.   Like in any business, some of us plan for the future better than others.  And, some of our planing is caused my circumstances beyond our control.  I speak as an artist.  All of those among us who are traveling artisans, are in the soup one way or another.  What may have started out as a part time business for many, became a life long career along the way.  We are responsible for our own destiny along with our own health insurance, college funds, and family expenses just like any one else.  While many artists continue to do well, there are those artists who are simply limping along these days through no fault of their own.  The economy has taken a huge toll on the art business just as it has to American industry and many other  forms of American livelihoods.   When it comes right down to it, art is among the first to go.  Let’s not take it for granted even though there are better days on the horizon.

This story reflects my personal views and a history of art fairs as I have seen them develop.  I did my first art fair sometime around 1976.  It is hard to remember now.  It was a local fair and I did not begin serious travel to other cities until 1978.  I do not wish this story to come off negative in any way.  It has been my accepted lifestyle for over three decades and I would not change a thing. There are many working artists still doing art fairs with great success.  I consider myself among the lucky ones if you want to call it luck.  This business is comprised of some of the smartest people that I have ever come in contact with.  Most of these same people are highly independent.  They work hard at what they do, and my hat goes off to all of them.

“Water under the Bridge” by Michael Wommack

One of the things I treasure most is making new friends during my travels while doing art fairs.  I asked Michael Wommack if I could share his story and a sampling of his artwork.

I was fortunate enough to show next to Michael Wommack at the Bayou City Art Festival in Houston earlier this spring.  I was immediately taken by his fresh approach and use of contrasting cool and warm colors.  After three decades of doing art fairs I often think that I may have just about seen it all.  Yet, there was something about Michael’s pastel drawings that pulled me in for a closer look.  At first glance I realized that these are well thought out compositions of a very abstract quality, executed in a realistic format.  Michael uses contrasting complimentary colors to suggest sunlight and shadow while breaking up space in a way that pleases the eye.  I found that I could return to his pieces again and again without ever getting tired or bored with his choice of subject matter.  Both Michael’s use of color, and his choice of contrasting values, make for an interesting composition in the purest abstract sense.  As a viewer, I can just as easily look at Michael’s work from the realistic side of the fence.  I have shown with Michael in several shows since that time and it is never surprising that he wins awards where ever he goes.

Michael Wommack’s pastel drawings relate a story that first came to him in a reoccurring dream influenced by the tract housing development where he grew up.  I find it interesting how something so ambiguous can influence an artist’s life in such a way half a century later in life.  Imagine for a moment that you are in a dreamlike state flying over neighborhoods  of tract houses, each the same  size and shape.  These are small single family homes in a modest neighborhood, viewed as the crow would fly.  At first glance everything seems so mundane.  Alternating houses differ only when floor plans are flipped as they line up shoulder to shoulder on gently curving neighborhood streets.  Yet Michael’s pastels manage to pull the viewer into a scene that is anything but ordinary. Contrasting shadows define abstract shapes using both cool and warm colors so intense that they almost vibrate off the drawing’s surface.  Here comes the twist.  While the homes are generically the same, each house has its own swimming pool in the back yard.  I find this totally ironic in a cookie stamped circa 1960’s development.  Historically, developments of this kind were designed to fit a modest pocketbook.  The swimming pools add a dreamlike quality to the scenes while providing Michael with another means for abstraction; adding to his toolbox.    The swimming pools provide the artist with concave shapes cleverly playing in and out of shadow.   I could not help but overhear art patrons wondering out loud if the pools were empty or full of water.  This underscores my observations that viewers are instinctively pulled into Michael’s compositions at an intellectual level.

“Border Control” by Michael Wommack

All of Michael’s work plays with the use of light.  He uses shadows to define shapes and the dark of night to contrast  with electrified swimming pools illuminated with light.  His daytime scenes tease the senses with his use of warm against cool.  Oranges, rich browns, lemon yellows, and aqua colors play against  abundant blues and purples that are laid down with an artist’s hand.  Michael’s personal thumbprint is on everything that he does.

Michael Wommack

I make no claims to be an art critic.  Rather, I attempt to relate what I see in art, and how it effects me, personally.  All of us will see things differently.  That is as art should be.  I believe that art can be entertaining on both a sensual and intellectual level.  My gut tells me that Michael’s work bridges the sensual and intellectual worlds when we allow our own imaginations to interact with his artwork.  His rich use of pure pigment and surreal subject matter pleases me.  The fact that there is a hand drawn quality to the work is pleasing as well.

So, what is the story that Michael Wommack is trying to tell us through his pastel paintings of cookie cut neighborhoods?  It is Michael’s tale, but each of us can personalize the story.  I think back to land developers that came to town with bull dozers, flattening the earth and stripping it of trees before laying down ribbons of cement .  I saw whole neighborhoods rise up almost overnight.  That is part of what I see beneath the surface of  Michael’s artwork.  Most likely you can add to this story.  Yet, the story remains the same.  It is a story of simpler times when the American Dream could seemingly be had by almost all of us.

Okay, so you are an artist.  Imagine for a minute that the mortgage is paid.  You have no outside obligations and you can create anything without your efforts being sales driven.  As an artist, we have all dreamed about making art for art’s sake without making art to pay the bills and provide a living.  Some of us can slip on this shoe and it already fits, because we have some other source of income.  Perhaps your husband is a wealthy doctor or makes his living on Wall Street. Maybe you were born into wealth.  If that is your personal situation, you have already found your artistic nirvana, or you simply are not really trying.  But it is a different story for most of us.  Should we choose to make art our profession, we must maintain some sort of business sense about what we do, and why we do it.

I currently have a fellow painter staying at my house in between shows.  He asked me the other night if I had ever contemplated what I would do if I could make my art without ever being stressed about selling it.   First let me say that selling art is not a dirty word in my book.  There were those art professors that seemed to think it was, but they were educators with a comfy retirement and tenure.  Their jobs depended on students, such as myself, signing up for an art education and paying their way.  Its a funny thing, but very few of those college professors ever mentioned a thing about how to use my degree to make a living when I left the university.  I guess that we could all continue to educate ourselves years on end and finally become college professors, but that business model will not work for obvious reasons.   So, that begs the question.  Do you paint for money if you desire to become a painter?  In my own case the answer was yes, and I have been successful while doing so for a very long time.  I have not gotten rich by any sense of the word, but I do live quite comfortably in a suburb full of conservative professionals living the corporate lifestyle.

So, what would I paint if I did not need to sell my work to the public?  I guess that I will never know, but my friend asked the question, so I will attempt to answer.

Let me state the obvious.  My artwork is not meant to be serious.  Seldom is it meant to shock the audience or make a political statement.  Art historians might overlook it as trite or commercial because it is not painted in blood and I never chopped off an ear in desperation.  It is realistic, yet not the same old, same old, landscape that has been seen a million times.  My work is not “pretty,” nor is it intended to be pretty.  I paint with a broad, wet, brushstroke while controlling both hard and soft edges.  This is a skill done almost effortlessly and has been obtained only after years of patience and practice.  Those who have ever dipped a brush into watercolor pigment and applied the paint to a virgin piece of white paper already know that watercolor is not the most forgiving medium.  Mistakes can be hard to negotiate.  Yet, I paint swiftly and boldly using a great deal of color and thick pigment for a watercolor painter.  My paintings are realistic, but not photo realism.  I prefer to see the artist’s hand in the brush strokes.  So, if I could paint anything, what would I paint?  Would I change anything at all?  I do not think that I would change either my chosen medium, nor the way that I apply the paint.

Would I change my source of subject matter?  My friend asked me if I would paint faces?  Paint people?  Would I choose to paint different places?  I had really never thought about it.  I guess that I need to kind of look where I came from to explain how I got here and why it is that I paint what I do.

I had a great watercolor instructor in college, Michael Backi.  I am not sure if that is the correct spelling of his name, but college was forty years ago.  Mr. Backi taught me to approach watercolor with emotion while combining restraint.  I was encouraged to be somewhat loose while painting realistic subjects.  I grew up from the traditional roots of  Oklahoma where realism was widely accepted, if not the norm.   After college I found work where I could, and painted part time.  I later taught painting at Northern Oklahoma College.  After developing a line of artwork for licensing to the stationery industry I left teaching and went out on my own.  I learned the importance of combining business and art.   During that period of my life I worked with my agent and all kinds of art directors and corporate executives.  It was all about pleasing everyone else but me.  My painting was totally sales driven and very commercial.  About ten years ago that all changed when I began to experiment with the whimsical subjects that I currently use in my paintings.  This is a far stretch from where I first began over forty years ago.  I have managed to combine a love for collecting antiques with the business of making art.  Vintage tin toys are often juxtaposed into precarious or comical situations in my paintings.   Things like tin windup tin penguins, dressed in tuxedoes and standing on ice cubes on an Hawaiian beach, make perfect sense only if the imagination is allowed to wander.  I had one person ask me recently if this is my political statement on global warming.  It could be.  Everyone sees something different if they begin to interact with the artwork.

“Beach Party” 29 x 40  price $3500.00

In closing, I guess that I already am painting exactly what I would paint if I could paint anything.  It took me forty years to get here, and I have no regrets.  This is fun!  That pretty well sums it up in one word.  Fun.  I would not change a thing.  Enjoy!