Scenes from the open studio:

I'm Christmas shopping today, so I thought I'd share some scenes of my recent holiday events. My holiday events came early this year. I held my 2nd annual open studio in mid- October. This may have been a tad too early in the fall, but it was still very successful. Normally I am not able to keep a huge inventory of artwork on hand at the studio, but for one brief weekend I hang my studio work space like a small gallery and open it to visitors. I may eventually hold this event more often- perhaps bi-annually, but we'll see. This year's event was held on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. By far the evening events seem to have the heaviest attendance, but the daytime can often bring in people who want to look at the art without distractions. For this reason I feel it's important to do both days. Here are a couple of shots of the studio before this year's event:

 

This is a wall shot of the front room as you enter the studio. This wall would be to your right as you walk in the door. I use the front room as a display area for visitors: 

 

 

 

Here is the large second room, which is normally my work area.

Here is a shot as visitors are starting to arrive. We didn't get many of these pictures this year as things got a little bit busy.

 

The work doesn't tend to stay in the studio long after the show. I will normally ship unsold works off to other shows or consignments. These shows are a lot of work and don't last long, but they offer a nice opportunity to display a larger body of my work in a cohesive way.

Here is a view of my studio work area as it looks today. My easel stands just opposite of the walls that have the large boxes on them. Looks like I had better get to work!