A 2 Week Vacation

In the year and a half that we have been on this crazy tour of ours, we have never taken 2 weekends off. We have had a few 1 weekends off but only because we didn’t get into a show and we couldn’t find a pick-up show quick enough. On those weekends off we sit here in the van staring at each other wondering what the hell are we gonna do with ourselves. We often regret not having a show to do and wish we were showing somewhere, anywhere. We live off my art and sometimes live show to show so when there’s no show there’s no money coming in.

We did have a pretty good show last weekend and with all the commissions we racked up we should do fine taking this little break. Which brings me to the “real” vacation part, we lined up a whopping 9 commissions online and at our past 2 shows, which is a good thing since we didn’t know what we were going to do during this break. I had wanted to work on the children’s book but that is a whole other ball game and beast in itself.

The cooler weather coming in nicely. I know, I know, I’m from Colorado where they just got hit with 12 inches of snow, so how could this little wind be cood? Well it feels good to finally run the heater and to be in the van listening to the howling wind and making art.

We got to party a little bit for the Halloween Season, which I drank a little too much on Saturday, which lead to a nothing filled Sunday, which also lead to an almost nothing filled Monday. Although I did finish the “Owl” piece I was working on at the last two shows and its just scary enough to share on Halloween.

And now we are off to go check out our new home away from home (away from home I guess) but still always at home. This might actually make a great blog about the places we call home, and no folks its not "down by the river". Stay tuned...

The Shops At La Cantera Art Festival In San Antonio, Texas

As always easy setup, easy tear down in what might be the most beautiful mall in San Antonio. We setup on Thursday, which as you all know I love setting up the day before the show, and we even sold a few pieces which was a great start to a wonderful weekend. I cart in and out everything on a little dolly so I get some much needed exercise. We stayed out a little bit longer which works as an extra night and in some cases can result in a few early sales.

Friday was pretty slow but for us, Fridays and Mondays at art fairs are always slow. We did chat with a lot of people and made some great connections and even sold a few pieces. We were open long hours from 9am to 10pm, but from about 3pm on there was a nice energy about the place that I liked, not to mention all the beautiful women in sexy heels. At some point it turned into a high paced show. We ended the night drinking wine with our friends in their bus in the parking lot.

Why more artists dont RV is beyond me. It’s the best way to cut out the overhead of doing these shows. Out of the 60 or so artists I think I only counted about 5 RV’s or trailers and 1 or 2 people just sleeping in their vans. I need to write a blog about the differences in all the different types of artists living on the “circuit”.

Saturday was even better, tons of people and tons of ordered commissions (yup that means you're gonna have to put up with my commissions for a few more weeks, well if you follow me on Twitter and Facebook). We ended up having one of our best days which we really needed. Although Sunday was slow the show turned out great. And even though the price to do the show is a little higher than we want to pay we just might be back at this one next year.

I talked to many other artists and people and it seemed like everyone was complaining about advertizing but many of the customers I talked to read about it somewhere and the people who were complaining weren’t buying, they were just complaining, which seems that even if they did know they would just be complaining about something else. Although the artist's success was up and down across the board, you can’t criticize the show for that, and you cant give up on what you're doing. We always question what we are doing on bad shows. But good show or bad show we do almost the exact same things, so you can never say what works and what doesn’t work. Its like waiting for lighting to strike. But if you're not out there you will never get hit.

So for our “Big Texas Shoot Out” we came out on top with the loving support of our home base of family and friends. We got to see a lot of old coworkers and had family members bring us meals and we took the time to catch up with everyone. Couldn’t ask for a better way to start a much needed break from the art shows. So after about a year and a half we finally get 2 back to back weekends with no shows, then one in the Hill Country in Texas then one in New Mexico then a much need rest from touring to work on my book (blogs about all this stuff to come later).

Georgetown Art in Square In Georgetown, Texas

We didn’t make any new art for this show since I was so busy with commissions and not to mention we didn’t need any due to the rained out show last weekend. But you know what they say “when your tent gets full of rain and mud, you gotta hose it off and get back out there".

Best part about this show it was only about 2 and a half hours away from us and the setup time was later in the day so we could wake up at a normal time and drive there and not be rushing around like crazies. Setup up is easy if you go in early, dump your stuff off on the side walk and get the hell outta there, then all you have to do is wait and catch up with all the other artists and talk about the rained out show from the week before.

Once again this was a sort of slow show and everyone who I spoke to who did the show last year had a negative attitude towards the turn out and success of the show. It was having an effect on the newbies too, and even though I heard one guy say he had a 0 show and another guy said it was his worst show of the year, it seemed like most people had a pretty good show. I guess last year turned a few people off since the show was a bit smaller than before but we like the smaller show and love the women behind the show. Although a lot of the artists seemed iffy on coming back and we too are a bit iffy, but only cuz it’s one of the more expensive shows we have done this year.

As always the artists party was fun and we got to walk around the courthouse and check everything out. We drank way too much wine and had a hard time waking up the next morning but they kept us full of coffee and muffins. Hospitality is always good and I hear they might have tacos next year. However we spoke to a lot of new people who seemed like they could turn into our newest fans. We picked up a commission and almost sold out on our necklaces.

We did hear about a show in Galveston going on the same weekend and word on the street was it was jumping and a few of us felt we should have been over there. Once I get the low down, and of course once next year comes around, we will see. But who knows we might be on a book tour from book store to book store or be doing gallery shows from state to state, that’s the great thing about doing what you want to do.

Bunny Time

I did this bunny a few weeks back as part of a series of pets I was doing for a girl we met in Boulder, CO a while back. As you may know I post regular updates on Twitter and Facebook of what I’m working on so everyone can enjoy the painfully slow process with me. Well this bunny got so much attention and I ended up doing another one for another girl and one with a different color in the background for another girl. How cool is that huh?

Commission Time

So I have gotten a few more dog commissions and I wanted to share them with you. And as always, if you want to get your dog or cat or kids or yourself drawn up with circles, I am here - info@artbynemo.com. They also make great gifts and with the holidays coming up you can mark a few loved ones name's off your list with a drawing...and remember "a prefect circle makes the perfect gift".

Bayou City Art Festival Downtown In Houston, Texas

After a nice little break, having our engine die while cruising down the road and getting Texas plates put on the van (the dieing and the plates have nothing to do with each other). We set sail to Houston for the start of our Fall Season and the start to our Texas shows.

Parking was great with a free site down a bike trail and a $10 a day site just a few blocks from our booth, we opted for the closer one. This was a huge show with over 200 artists and we were out in the corner in Sam Houston Park, many of the artists there were complaining about how people weren’t going to come see us and just stay in the streets and a few artists requested to move but people did manage to visit us.

The first day was pretty hot and sweaty but the tall buildings and clouds provided a bit of shade. We didn’t get out to walk much of the show to see our old friends we have met along the way and there were some good ones there too - (the banana boy) Dakota Pratt, (the gourd guy from Kansas) John Hernandez, (the bus people) Bill and Tony and the (planes made outta cans guy) Sompit Xia just to name a few.

The little party that we had to donate a piece to go to was crazy. They had a magician doing tricks at the tables, ladies dancing on stilts, nonstop drinks and appetisers. I drank a few too many salty dogs and had too many chocolate things in the shape of a top hat and bunny. My piece was picked up in the 2nd round and the 1st round only had 6 people on it.

Ok, on this tour with such a high volume of shows done in every type of climate you can imagine (that’s 52 shows so far), we have never had a rained out show. Sure we have been rained on but never rain all day. Although a few people did show up, since all of Texas is hurting for rain you couldn’t really complain and there was much to complain about. We packed up everything soaking wet and now we need to set up our tent again just to dry it out and the rain did hurt our sales but at least there’s a good reason not to have any sales. I mean we have pulled in some pretty low numbers on great days with great people walking around.

All in all it seems like I cant be too hard on this show since you cant stop the rain and everyone was so nice and helpful. From the other artists I heard a mix of reviews, from one guy making over $15k to a few pissed off $0 shows. One guy even got his truck broken into and woke up to a rainy glassy mess and the headache of having to get that fixed. One down two to go in the “Big 3 Of Texas Shootout”, Texas 1 nemo 0...

Back In Texas With A Weekend Off

Well, we made it all the way back to Comfort, Texas and the rain followed us all the way here. Everyone told us that is had been hot in Texas but when we showed up it started hitting the low 50’s at night and in the mornings, so perfect timing. Its so good to be back around family and friends and around Grandma's cooking. We washed clothes and cleaned our van, then got settled in to our spot for our time spent in Texas. It has been too dry down here so the cows were moved to greener pastures, but we enjoy the company of a lone bull eating whatever left over green thing he can find, he’s happy though.

During our Melbourne show we hit our first year mark living in a van (yes, down by a river) and were really impressed by our numbers, about 22,000 miles were put on the van and we visited 21 states and had a record breaking 46 shows and only 3 nights were spent outside our van (2 when are pump froze and 1 when the belt tore). In that time we haven’t had a chance to rest, so when we didn’t get into a show in Dallas we decided to take it easy for a weekend. We didn’t have to drive, we didn’t have to show and we didn’t really need to work, well we worked a little bit, but making art is the easy part of what we do.

We still feel good about being on tour and will continue. I was talking to someone at the past show about how we have been on the road for a year already and they were surprised to hear we were still doing good and still willing to go for more. But its true we are here for the long haul. And no we don’t want to kill each other, and yes 96 square feet is enough room for 2 people to live in and carry everything they own.

But then it was right back to planning for the 3 big Texas shows we have coming up. As you folks know we are trying to get rid of all the frames and glass in our booth and going to Claybord. So everything must be done on canvas and boards but a week is way too short to fill up a booth. I also have had a steady stream of commissions coming in. But little by little our booth is taking on a new look.

We are trying real hard to put more focus in our art instead of drawing every random subject we could think of, we want to have a more cohesive look in our booth. We noticed that when we see someone who is successful at these shows they always have the same thing in common and its cohesiveness. Even us, we have seen better results when we have similar looks, frames, sizes and colors, and towards the last few shows of this leg of our tour while scrambling to fill our booth with older drawings and stuff we don’t really show as much it kind of started to look schizophrenic and mixed matched, could that have hurt? Who knows, but we want a very nice and professional looking booth, even if it is just for us and even if no one else cares. So we are looking to fill our booth with a new first string.

Life Without Limits

Ok so I downloaded “Nook” on my phone in hopes of taking in a little reading here and there. We have gotten rid of all our books and the 2 or 3 I have I never really saw myself picking up. However I stare at my phone to great lengths waiting for a tweet, Facebook message or e-mail so I figure I should at least be reading while I’m waiting. I try to read a chapter or 2 every night and 1 in the middle of the night when I wake up and cant go back to sleep.

I am very big on self help books like “Steps to Success” and “Think and Grow Rich” kinds of books and since I have been thinking about turning my own blog into a book one day I picked a new book that I saw at the store and wanted to buy but didn’t since I didn’t think I would read it. But first book up on the nemo chopping block? Life Without Limits by Nick Vujicic. Let me start out be saying I’m not that much into the idea of believing there is a God who will make everything all better, there there put your head on my shoulder and cry type thing. Which turns out a lot of the types of books I read are. Don’t get me wrong I’m not a bad person, I have faith and I feel there is a higher power but when I believe, I believe in myself and have faith I make the right choices and listen to what my gut is telling me. However I can look past all the religious talk and praise, unlike some people who would say I’m wrong in my thinking, but I’m ok with it and if you're not something’s wrong with you.

Nick is a great little guy who was born without any arms and legs, he has been to hell and back, almost killed himself but found that God really did have a plan for him. His plan was to tour the world and tell people that anything that is going on with you from the bad to the worse you too have a plan and if he could do it with no arms no legs and a little toe to do just about everything we take for granted you too can overcome and live a ridiculously fun and exciting life. Through his words I feel somewhat overjoyed to know that such a guy with such bad luck for a situation could move many, many people.

In my own life I can take for granted almost everything I have. I am loved by an army of people who seem more than willing to stand up and take a bullet for me. And in this rush rush world of ours I know I never take the time to thank them much less see them sometimes. I know the love of a good and kind woman, I’m pretty healthy, strong, built for war. I run my own mom and pop shop just like I always wanted to. I get to see parts of the country most people only dream about and I have one hell of an amazing gift to draw a pretty damn good circle.

I often get caught up in the "how am I going to pay my bills" all too often and I stress almost every night about what it is I need to be doing to build a successful business, and I work and I work sometimes till my hands want to fall off then I put in a few more hours. I plan and replan and shoot for the moon. Most times I fall right back on my face but I’m up the next day trying to take another leap. I do wonder about this plan God has for me and why he would put up so many road blocks and make it so hard for someone like me, a some what good hearted person who only wants to see good in this world. I know life isn’t fair and bad things happen to good people. It just feels like sometimes this road I’m on isn’t working out.

Nick has taught me that no matter what comes your way, be it a death, getting hurt, or not making money, that as long as we are given another day, weather you believe it’s a gift from the heavens or something we must put up with, we have a chance to do some good, to make a little difference in someone’s life. So sing a little song dance, a little jig, but love those who love you and make the ones who don’t laugh a little, they’ll come around. And a big chin hug to Nick, maybe one day I'll see you out here on the road.