St. George Arts Festival

For the second straight year, Valerie will be participating in the St. George Arts Festival. It is scheduled for April 2nd and 3rd, next Friday and Saturday. The weather in St. George can be very warm and spring-like at the beginning of April. In fact, tomorrow it is supposed to be 76F and sunny there. Unfortunately, the weather in St. George can also be cold and wet and windy at the beginning of April. Last year it was cold and wet. Those conditions really seemed to dampen the croud and kept art sales to a minimum. We are hoping for better this year. The forecast has it at partly to mostly sunny with highs in the low sixties. Should be OK, if we can get it. Of course, the worst possible conditions involve high winds. They are not in the forecast for this year's event, but they did cause considerable damage to Valerie's equipment a couple of years ago: A strong gust overnight picked up her tent and flung it into her neighbor's display, causing damage to both of them, but almost destroying Valerie's. Fortunately, Grandpa was able to rebuild it.

18th Annual Braithwaite Art Auction

We've been donating more paintings than we've been selling this year. The latest was this little gem, called South on Center. Valerie donated it to a March 3rd auction benefitting the Braithwaite Gallery at SUU. The gallery is raising money to build a new art museum on campus (the Southern Utah Museum of Art), which should be great for the area. Last time we were at the Braithwaite, to see the Jim Jones show, we saw a mock-up of the new museum. The gallery director, Reese, said that they were still haggling a little over the final design, but it looks like it will be a beautiful space. In any case, Valerie's painting drew a number of bidders during the live auction, and it eventually sold for a good price—a little above what we might normally expect to get. That is an encouraging sign since it gives some indication that art buyers find Valerie's work to be priced competitively.