Mind and Matter Art Festival

After the Wood Coop Gallery closed down, we took our wares door to door and came upon the Arnold Mikelson Mind and Matter Gallery. Mary Mikelson felt my work worthy and accepted us into her gallery. At the same time she encouraged us to participate in her annual Festival of the Arts in July. To make a long story short we altered our summer plans, burned the midnight oil to produce a body of work large enough to enter the festival and got our display organized. As you can see from the photos it was an outdoor affair in a wonderful setting.

It was generally a poor year, with all the regular attendees complaining about low sales volume. We only sold three pieces but there were many who sold nothing. We learned a lot about presentation, what people liked and that people in fact truly admired my work. One lady had to be convinced that “Venetian Trilogy” was not  glass and another lady asked “What am I looking at?”. She was confused because some looked like wood, other pieces looked like glass and she couldn’t believe that the coloured, highly figured wood hadn’t been hand painted. She meant it as a compliment and I was most grateful. We got some very good exposure, had direct offers to show my work in two other galleries and one to participate in the Arts at Darts festival as a result. Well worth the time, I would say. Although we didn’t sell much (times are tough) I would still encourage any artist to participate in an art festival (not a craft show) simply because of the exposure and how much you will learn.

As always, I encourage your comments and questions, so please refer to the tag line at the bottom of the article to post a comment.

 

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Nice note on another blog

Just got home from a motorcycle tour of western Canada. Lots of email to catch up on and one caught my attention right away. A gal named Patti stopped by our booth at the Mind and Matter Art Festival just before we left on our trip and praised my work very highly. She is an interior designer and uses a lot of art to decorate her homes. She posted a comment on her own blog http://rentfluff.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/mind and matter/. Thanks, Patti

As always, I encourage your comments and questions, so please refer to the tag line at the bottom of the article to post a comment.

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Welcome to Ed’s Woodturning

Welcome everyone. My Name is Ed Pretty. I have been a woodturner since the age of 9 when my father introduced me to the craft. I began to take the craft seriously at the age of 39 when a few of us formed the Fraser Valley Woodturners Guild in 1988. Since that time I have gained experience producing architectural woodturnings for builders and also enthusiastically pursued the artistic aspect of the craft. My work at this time is purely of an artisitic nature. My goal upon retirement from the fire service was to have my work displayed in a gallery and was successful on my first jury application to the Wood Coop Gallery on Granville Island. To everyone’s dismay, the Wood Coop had to close but my work has now been accepted in three other galleries; The Arnold Mikelson Mind and Matter Gallery in White Rock, BC, the Circle Craft Gallery in Vancouver, BC and The Little Cricket Gift Gallery in Fort Langley and Maple Ridge, BC. I presently belong to the Fraser Valley Guild as well as the Greater Vancouver Woodturners Guild (GVWG) and the American Association of Woodturners (AAW).

The purpose of the gallery page is to eliminate the need to carry a portfolio of my work with me wherever I go. Although my work is presented in the galleries, people often ask me in discussion for photos of my work. This site was orignally created to fulfill that purpose.

When we were putting the blog together  it occurred to me that the site could be so much more than a simple showcase.  I realized it was also an ideal opportunity to host a forum for woodturners. To that end I will be hosting discussions on just about any aspect of woodturning from wood selection to finishing as well as discussions about wood lathes, woodturning tools and other related tools.

If you are new to woodurning, I welcome your questions. In response to the need for instruction in basic woodturning skill, I established a Focus on Fundamentals program for one of the Guilds to which I belong. I have demonstrated these basic skills as well as other advanced skills to several groups, so am attuned to the needs of both basic and advanced turners.

I will be posting various articles and comments related to virtually any woodturning topic. I suspect that discussion relating to those posts will initiate questions and discussion that will provide ideal needs-based learning opportunities. If I know turners we can expect comment from all skill levels, providing a lot of knowledge in one place.

I hope that you will enjoy this blog. I am enjoying putting it together and know that as it progresses, I will enjoy it even more. Thanks for visiting!

As always, I encourage your comments and questions, so please refer to the tag line at the bottom of the article to post a comment.

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