New England Craft Fair Round-Up!

Hello Friends!

Do you like shopping small, shopping handmade? If so, I have got a list for you!

It's holiday craft fair season! New England boasts some incredible shopping events and I thought I would make a handy place to find 2015's fairs and markets. (If you know of one I missed, please leave a comment so I can add it in!)

Scroll down for a list with links!



Concord Handmade (Concord NH)
Nov. 20 - Dec. 29

Craftland (Providence RI)
Nov. 27th - Dec. 31st (also year round)

Bust Craftacular Boston
Nov. 28 & 29

Herbstalk Winter Herbal Market (Somerville)
Nov. 28

Craft Fix 2015 (Portsmouth NH)
Nov. 29

Harvard Square Holiday Fairs (Cambridge)
Throughout December

JP Crafts Fair
Dec. 5

Society of Arts&Crafts' Craft Boston
Dec. 11-13

SoWa Holiday Market
Dec. 12 & 13

Picnic Portland (Portland ME)
Dec. 13

Gather Here's Handmade Holiday Show (Cambridge)
Dec. 19


Egg-A-Go-Go will be at the Bust Craftacular (making my triumphant return to the Cyclorama after the end of the BBB, RIP), Picnic Portland and Gather Here's Handmade Holiday. I hope to see you there!

XOXOXO

Time to stretch the eyes

I've been spending a lot of time hunched over the dining room table painting away. It's great but exhausting and rough on the ol' eyeballs. So on Saturday, after dropping off some donated school supplies from C's mom to a dear teacher friend of mine, Curtis and I headed up to one of my most treasured childhood memory places.

Mount Blue Job (which apparently other people call "Blue Job Mountain") is in Farmington/Strafford in Southern NH and it's an easy 1,357 foot elevation hike. I climbed this little mountain (which seemed HUGE at the time) with my brother and dad and various family friends over the years.





Curtis and I had actually planned to hike Blue on the day before our wedding with my brother and his girlfriend but scheduling and nerves and a funny tummy prevented that visit. So instead of right before our wedding, we went up right before our honeymoon (we leave in 2 weeks)!





The trail of roots and sandy, mica-flecked soil brought me right back to our childhood hikes - though I think we went up a different trail. The top was just as I remembered it (but maybe the fire tower was a little LESS rickety). Perfect.






(Click to see bigger!)

It was a spectacular day weather-wise and a fun and much-needed outing. Curtis was happy to see a place I have been talking about since we met and I was so happy to show him. Eyes have been sufficiently stretched (to all edges of NH in fact). Now, back to painting!


A little sweaty but pretty pleased. :)

xo
Sarah

If you are going to go hike Blue Job - and I suggest you do!: Make sure you continue on past the first summit with the fire tower to get to 'Little Blue Job' which is another 20-30 min or so. You'll hike down to a little lake and then up again to a big rocky tree-less plateau with an amazing view (where most of my photos above were taken).

October Hurricane Watch

We are hunkered down with oatmeal cookies and a bottomless tea cupboard. The cats are on full alert. Hurricane Sandy is headed for New Jersey and although she won't make landfall up here, the storm is so wide that we are getting wind and rain. They're shutting down Boston's public transport in a couple of hours and some of the coast has been evacuated.

In other news, our neighborhood trumpeter has been heard on his front stoop tooting Silent Night into the storm. I appreciate his contribution and dedication (we can usually hear him playing down the street when it rains).

Stay safe, East Coast friends. See you when things dry out/stop blowing around!

xo
Sarah

Other Artists - Dahlov Ipcar

Last month my mom sent me an email asking if I had heard of Dahlov Ipcar. I had not!

My mother wrote: "She's a Maine artist. 94 years old and still painting. There's going to be an exhibition of her circle paintings at UNH Sept. 10 to Oct. 19." And she attached these images:



So much of what I love in art, in the work of one artist. Big colors, animals who are just slightly stylized but still so instantly recognizable, flat backgrounds, pattern and texture.

She was born in Vermont to renowned artist parents, grew up in New York City and never enrolled in any art school. She eventually settled in Maine in 1936 with her husband where she has been painting, illustrating and showing her work ever since.



Her leaping ungulates have a very special magic to them. Her command of the animal form is spot-on. A love of animals and the natural world radiates so loudly from her work.
And the patterns! The layers! The landscape backgrounds that are more flat geometric shapes than literal images. Be still my fluttering heart.

What an inspiration!


I wish I could find more photos of her at work in the studio. What a long, beautiful, exciting life in art!

"I find it hard to explain my art, but then it doesn't really need explanation. It may seem mysterious or challenging, but all you need to do is to open your heart to the joy and excitement of a new visual experience, to accept a new vision of a world full of the unusual, a world of the creative imagination." - Dahlov Ipcar

We ended up missing the show at UNH. I'm so so sad we didn't get to see her work in person. I think I will treat myself to a few of her books to sooth my sorrow.



You can see more of Dahlov's work and read more about her amazing career here.