Gallery opening, Louisville and the age of ugly

 Again, we are showing at the farm and anyone is invited. Friday, Saturday, Sunday Oct 17-19 12-6. I have held back some paintings for the show and am in the process of making a few new ones. These will be there.

Sorry but I have to get this out of the way. It is difficult for me to be in a place that has as much character as Old Louisville and then come back to Wisconsin on a dreary day and sift through factory farms in search of something beautiful. I feel like we are living in the age of ugly after spending time around the glorious shotgun shacks in the Germantown neighborhood, or the prestigious Victorian homes near St James Court. It is like we stopped caring about aesthetics. The old farms cared, I seek them out. The new architecture doesn't care. It is ugly. And so too often are the cars, where are food comes from, the way we dress, our politics, our communities, our art, ourselves. Too many of us are ugly. We are living in the age of ugly and I am sick of it. I wonder about the kind of people that live in the older neighborhoods compared to the new ones. What are their values? Does it effect how we live? Is it really that different. Over and over again people tell me my art is peaceful calming and beautiful. A younger version of me would not think this very rebellious, but in reality it is rebellious to be handsome and dignified in our culture of anger and dumbed down efficiency. When I am in Louisville, I always fantasize about living in an old house and making paintings of the neighborhood. I am supported by the people of Louisville, or at least the ones that come to the show. I love its dive bars and character. Its feel and texture.

Anyways, St James Court Art Festival, doesn't attract as many higher end artists. It is large and sprawling but I love it more than many of the top shows in the country. All weekend long I talk with people young and old and just have a good time as I bask in the glory of the Conrad House. I hope everyone else has as much fun as I do. I hope my rant against ugly is not too negative, but from having talked with so many people, I know I am not alone in this. 

My travelogue of art shows has concluded. Thank you to everyone who helped me get through this tough year. Thank you to the beautiful and interesting people that float by my booth. Thank you to the people who spend their money on me. Thank you for the privilege of bringing something I made into your homes, I can honestly say it came from my heart, I still have a hard time believing this is all possible. Thank you for those of you who show me photos of paintings they bought that are now in their homes. Thank you for those who share a beer with me. To those who just are encouraging. To those you make me laugh and smile. To those that are amusing. Thank you for the feeling of togetherness in a sometimes isolating world. Thank you for the shared time and experience. I don't understand it but many times this is where I feel most myself.

Plaza

	10:05 PM (1 minute ago)
Plaza Art Fair, Kansas City

All the art shows we do are so different, a different flavor, different part of the country, different venues and different reasons for existing. I have been told by another show director that Plaza is done for all the wrong reasons and lately it has been hard to argue in defense of Plaza. But I cancelled last year and wanted to do the right thing, so there I was again in Kansas City.

The Plaza Art Fair has been put on for 86 years by the Plaza Country Club which is a high end historic shopping district. Perhaps the first mall in the world built for automobiles back in the 1920's, it is to anybody that appreciates architecture pretty special. But the shopping clearly is not my bag. It reminds of the bad things and superficial people in the place I was born. The show has gotten a reputation of a big drunk fest and for not giving a shit about the artists. I can't say I was eager to be there. Plaza was once a top 5 show in the country, now it is just a show. A long grueling one at that. That said I have met some great people there, just like at any show, but there seemed to be less of them lately. The Plaza had slipped. It was loud and seemingly out of control in recent years, and so less buyers and serious patrons showed up. Then less of the best artists. You could see how the downward spiral of a show happens at Plaza. 

But there I was, grumpy and rolling my eyes at high maintenance women and corporate men in outfits that made me uncomfortable as I drank my Hillsboro beer. And the people came and drank. Got dressed up and meandered around holding fish bowl margarita glasses, and like always it was a big crowd. A diverse crowd. By diverse I just don't mean gays, blacks, liberals; I mean everyone. Sports fans, wealthy professionals, bums, every slice of life. Maybe not as many nerdy art people and that is the problem. I like that art can break down divisions in our country, I like that about Plaza, but I don't like that it has become an event that had nothing to do with the art. Drink, be seen and listen to some live music. Fine, but it makes for a bad art show. And the quite sensitive folks that enjoy artists and artwork don't want to be at a meat market.

Side note- anyone that says people buy art when they drink are completely wrong. I like to drink, but I don't drink to experience beauty or have an emotional connection with something, and that is what I need for someone to do if they are going to buy a painting from me. Drinking makes you more likely to buy another drink, not an expensive piece of art. Having a leisurely beverage and relaxing as you talk and take in the show is different. Drinking is straight up bad for business.

This year was a little different. The Plaza has new owners and they clearly gave a shit about the show. They had quality control brought in from Cheery Creek. They had better hours.They were more visible and the crowd seemed far less rowdy. The music wasn't as loud. Things had bottomed out. I had more conversations. People seemed more into the art. My grumpiness subsided. I had a good show. I even won an award so if I feel like it I will be back next year. We got home today and I didn't feel beaten down by Plaza like in previous years. I feel good. I feel good about Plaza and grateful, like at every show, for all the staff and volunteers who put on the shows. I couldn't do this without you. Thank you! 

 

Next up: Louisville Kentucky

Remaining schedule and gallery opening

  Surprise, we got through some heavy stuff and I grew calmer, more relaxed and my work got better. I feel better than I have in a while, as long as the Brewers don't give me a heart attack or crush my soul. Often times I wonder why I even give a shit about sports. Hopefully I grow out of it. Anyways, I feel good and good about my work for the remaining few shows. Sitting in the field for hours is always healing for me.

Our two last art festivals are: 

Sept 19-21 Plaza Art Fair, Kansas City MO

Oct 3-5 St James Court Art Festival, Louisville KY

Then Oct 17-18 We will be having an opening at our gallery, Painting Is Dead Gallery on the farm here. In the gallery, the show is titled Fresh Fish. We will be showing fish related work like these drawings I did from my time on the Mississippi River. We our also very excited to have our 13 year old nephew showing his crocheted fish. We have spent some time together in the last year fishing, which has helped us all deal with the grief of losing people we love. Fishing has always helped me get through hard times.

Yes, I did catch all those fish, and drew them from life.

AND we will have our booths set up with new and old work. I am holding a few pieces back for the show which I will tease in a few weeks. I have older pieces I am willing to sell discounted and stuff nobody will have ever seen before. All are welcome to attend. Email me for details.

heavyweather1977@gmail.com

Charlevoix

     Art festivals don't always go as planned. You don't plan on selling so much the previous show that you have to scramble to get to the next show. Which we did and arrive fried. Or maybe you do plan on that, I do think pretty regularly: what happens if I sell that, then what will I do? You don't plan one show you plan a succession of them. These parts of the gig suck your soul and exhaust you. In the back of your mind your plan for bad weather, but you hope you don't have to deal with it. You try not to think what if something bad happens when you are away from home. 

     I have done Charlevoix on and off since 2004. You enjoyably drive around Lake Michigan, cross the Mackinac Bridge, spend some time in the UP. On the beaches you look for fossils and get some rare relaxation. The show sometimes is like a paid vacation which is why some artists do shows-make enough money to go someplace cool and experience something you wouldn't otherwise. There are just things to do and see that make Charlevoix unique as a show. The affluent boating culture is a turn off but the quaint no big box downtown is like going up north when I was a kid. I see families experiencing a vacation in a way that is healthy. You are in town at the seasonal high point, a time when most of the country is sweltering in the heat of the dog days of summer and you are happy to be up north. The show is run very well and the area supports it nicely. With all the transients you never know who you are going to sell to or meet. I see some of the same people year after year and have built friendships, but mostly it is a new crowd of vacationers. This makes the show a little more surface level than most of the other ones I do.

     Bad weather is part of this. We sign up for it, and have to make our peace with it. We jumped in Lake Michigan after a brutally hot set up. We camped and it was too hot to sleep, which made the show really draining. With the extreme heat, people came out early like always and then it became a trickle. In the heat people don't engage as much. They don't linger, they are not as curious, they don't take as many cards, and I don't have as many good conversations. People are on a mission to get through it and back into the air conditioning. The show drags on. It was good enough but tiring.

     Then at the end chaos. A storm rolls in. You manically bust your ass to get everything down and then out of the rain. It is stressful. You never know what a storm will bring. I have experienced and seen enough to know you don't want to be in this situation. But we get it done and have a nice meal. Things cool off and we sleep well. Unfortunately we wake up to find the storm flooded Milwaukee and our family is one of the victims. 

    Suddenly a day on the beach turns into a helpless and distracted day. We want to go spend a night in the UP, but settle for a walk on the beach and a long drive home. Our family lost their entire basement in the flash flood. All day long we hear stories of the disaster. We get home to a swollen rain gauge and a wet but okay basement. We host Katie's Mom's funeral in 6 days. Art seems very distant. Sometimes this is just how it goes. Things pile up and you just find a way to get through them. And we did. We hosted the funeral service in our barn as a ferocious thunderstorm nailed us. It was a deeply emotional and memorable ceremony. And then we crashed. Two days later I am painting in the heat over by the Mississippi River, my happy place, just trying to get centered. Trying to find some peace, trying to make my way through another blur of an art show season.

Ann Arbor aftermath

 Ann Arbor was a great show for Katie and me, and it almost always is. Unlike most shows, Ann Arbor draws serious people from a very wide swath. All of Southern Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, even Chicago and Cleveland. The weather at the show cooperated and I spent the last few weeks being overwhelmed and confused. No confusion about Zingermann's Roadhouse though, that is all good. 

Part of me never wants to do this again. I am physically and emotionally spent. It is increasingly difficult to keep this pace up, which I didn’t want to do this year, and I feel creatively drained. The work feels formulaic to me at times. It is harder and harder for me to drive around in rural America and be motivated. America is ugly, and has gotten much worse in my lifetime. Science and technology make it worse. Our addictions to cheap food, cheap houses, and cheap solutions, wears me down. Many days I come home upset by the lack of craft, thought and beauty. Its hard seeing people get rich off of it too. Furthermore, our deep political divisions only add fuel to the fire.This is not how I want to spend the rest of my life: feeling down.

Then there is a part of me that loves what I do. Painting plein air always makes me happy, even when I fail. All the cool people that I meet keep me going. As much as I dislike the world around me, I at least try to light a candle, even if I do curse the darkness. I am proud of that. I see what most people put in their homes, I know I am giving people something different, authentic, sincere and aspiring to be beautiful for their homes, and that feels good. And it is rare. Unquestionably, I put my heart into it. So I am torn as to what to do next. Right now the thought of painting the Mississippi River or Lake Michigan or the woods makes me most excited.

Lately I have been thinking about what 19 year old me would think of this. It started when a couple of women in their 20’s came into my booth, separately, and cried because the work emotionally got to them. 19 year old me says “see I was right the whole time!”. I feel fortunate that I stuck with that initial inarticulate rejection of dominant culture and have refined it. That I focused on finding beauty for my whole adult life. For me though, it is still hard to separate 19 year old abrasive scrawny dirty me and 47 year old me. I recently sat down with a big strapping fireman and his beautiful wife who had come to town to see me, it is hard to imagine that ever happening to me. The whole thing is like a dream. Like aren’t you people going to make fun of me and be mean at some point like when I was in high school? I think about dropping 19 year old me into many of these situations and wonder how that shit kid would have totally flaked out. Like, I act weird enough as it is, but imagine Napoleon Dynamite with long hair, that was me. Sometimes, sadly I still act that way, and yes you should make fun of me for it. I guess I deal with my success by finding ways to not think about it. Being successful makes me uncomfortable(I am Lutheran), but I do cherish people telling me about a painting they bought from me at some point and that they value it. Thank you everyone for that and for helping me grow up.

Schedule updates and more of the same

 So after saying I wasn't going to do this again, I did, and here I am again in the middle of it. I needed to get something financially squared away before I could slow down and with the uncertainty of a new/old regime I felt I needed to push forward. Three shows into it this year and festivals feel the same except I feel more love and poignancy at them than before. 

In Chicago there was a nationwide protest against the president and you could feel that things were off. From what I heard about the protest in Milwaukee that weekend it effected the show more there than in the windy city. Other than that I must confess I really enjoy being in Chicago for the Old Town Art Fair. Growing up with a cultural bias against people from Illinois(FIBs), you aren't supposed to like Chicago. I never even traveled there until I was a freshman in college for a school field trip to the Art Institute, pretty unbelievable for someone living 90 miles away from one of our nations largest cities. I was so immature I lasted about an hour at the museum and then walked around the city for hours on my own vaguely wondering towards the Sears Tower. The next field trip a semester later, I was rocked to the core-an art history class and some teachers helped. I never made it out of the second floor before we had to get back on the bus. The paintings just destroyed me. Over time I have come to enjoy the Old Town neighborhood, the feel of the show and yes the people of Chicago. Turns out I have more in common with them than the place I grew up. Don't get me wrong though, I still hope the Cubs lose every remaining game and the traffic and tolls can stick it, but it is just amazing how you can be brought up to believe something when it clearly isn't true. Perhaps it is a stubbornness that we think where we come from is better than other places. People make a place, whether we like it our not. At the art festivals I get so many truly wonderful moments that I lose track of them. I have been too busy the last few months to write them down, they turn into a blur and become forgotten which is regrettable. When people come up to me just to say hi, to show me a picture of their painting they bought years ago, it really does mean a lot to me. I think of myself as an artist everyday, I can't shut that off ever until I die. But I don't think about the paintings I have sold or that people like what I do. I think about making the next painting or creative project. I forget about being Andrew Clair Fletcher. When I go out, I spend a lot of time processing how different I am from everybody. If I am at a bar or restaurant, gas station, an estate sale, fishing with my nephew, it can be difficult for me seeing other people and the decisions they make. I am grateful I can go to Chicago and feel welcomed and supported for being me. Sometimes I feel like my only home is at an art festival.

Des Moines was hot and sweaty and I was worn out. It was an okay show, Chicago made me scramble, and I was just happy to get to the show. Wearing polyester from the 70's on the pavement with heat indexes of 100 is a questionable decision. Aside from one of my favorite bars-The High Life Lounge, the show is about the people and the moments. Old Town and Des Moines are both very well run shows that make your experience easier. Old Town is a neighborhood, Des Moines is a city, a city coming together. Maybe it is a city banding together against the rest of the state right now, but it is a place where you feel unity. On the drive home Katie and I listed off our top ten moments of the show. So rarely is it ever about when you sold your biggest piece. It is usually about the people that bought it. It's the woman with a 4000 sq foot garden. The man whose little son brought his puppet to the show. It's connecting with people that speak your language, that dig what you are saying. You feel so blessed to have those experiences that carry you forward.

I am off to Ann Arbor this week, my body is sore and I want to quit this and move on to the next phase of my life, but I am enjoying the hell out of everybody. Thank you. These are two of the paintings I am bringing with.

We will be doing the Plaza Art Fair  in Kansas City, September 20-22

Also Oct 19th and 20th we will be having an opening at our gallery. The show will be called Fresh Fish, and will be all our fish drawing and paintings, along with setting up our booths with whatever paintings we have left, more announcements about this to come.

Being at an art festival in May of 2025

 If you focus on all the negative and uncertainty going on in the world you would miss the good that is still out there. Being our first show we didn't know fully what to expect but I had hope, some new old clothes, no alcohol and a winter's full of work. I was stressed out some, just because if things went bad that could mean a bumpy road this summer, not just for me but for every working artist I know. No, my department wasn't slashed, my overseas market didn't suddenly shrivel up, and I am not in fear of losing job because I don't have one. The show however, did not go bad. It wasn't crazy good, it wasn't a free-for-all, it was a good art festival.

Being at a good art festival makes me feel good. I watch people walk by, and even if I am in the back of my booth, I am paying attention the best I can. In KC I saw people being nice to each other, families leisurely enjoying the day together. I didn't see an abundance of status, the cold distance of corporate culture, or the phoniness of people out to be seen. Brookside is a neighborhood, and that is how it felt to be there. You felt part of a community, part of something valued, something healing, something worthwhile. That said, we were there to make money and we made enough. I also saw other artists make enough. And honestly, that felt good. 

Sometimes, and yes even at this show the surface level nature of many artists work upsets me and I am not good at hiding that. But I also walk around and see my friends, I see good art. I see good people. Talented people. And the thing is most of us want to help each other out, help out younger artists and students. We want to feel like we have something to offer and we want people appreciative enough to except what we creative people bring to the world. Too often in our world everything is about the individual, and I feel that most of know deep down that is wrong. At most of the art festivals I do, one feels very human. Very connected and even vulnerable. It's just people out walking around and talking, observing, discerning the best they can. And I am part of that process. Presenting something hopefully good. Hopefully thoughtful, sincere and skilled. It feels good to be part of the group and you feel like you are doing something positive to get us through the tenuousness of life.

I'll repeat this: being at an art festival makes me feel good. Thank you to the people putting on the Brookside Art Annual who made us feel welcome. Thank you to the people of the Kansas City and from parts further that attended the show. I needed you and you were there for me.