The Return of WinterFest

Back in mid-December I got an e-mail announcing the 2nd Annual Winterfest would be coming to the Jersey Shore Arts Center in February.  More details to come.  Last year I decided to show a selection of medium to large prints, but I have a history of not liking to show the same things in the same places more than once.  So thinking about what I have in storage, I decided that this year I'd do a group of supermarket prints.  The most recently completed in this series is #23 from last spring, which has never been publicly exhibited before, so I told the organizers they would be debuting a piece in this year's show.   The one from last spring about watching a guy dump old brick debris in a supermarket parking lot, seen below.

That e-mail from last year had given a delivery date of last weekend, but word came down that the guy in charge wouldn't be in New Jersey at that time.  But I dropped by the building yesterday and he was now back, and we made plans for me to bring in my contribution on Friday.  I had estimated that 6 framed pieces would be good for about the space I'm expecting and had brought a bunch to my apartment a few weeks ago.  I knew I wanted to switch one of the framed prints for the new rubble image, so spent part of last night looking at the ones I had and deciding which one would be changed.

So this morning I switched the rubble print with another one (the supermarket liquor store print last seen in the show in Newark last year), and repacked all the prints.  Once again the large tote bag I got from the BAC was the ideal solution to moving a large amount of stuff, as it easily held all 6 framed prints, and could be carried by the one set of handles.  I took a few minutes at home to gather some details about the pieces, specifically the dates, as the paperwork asked for those.  (for the record, these pieces range from 1997 to 2015).  After lunch I drove them up to the Studio building, unpacked them in the office (as directed), and filled out the paperwork.  Included a brief overview statement, but I've written about or been interviewed about this series enough times that it was easy to knock that out from memory.  I'm told I will likely have the same piece of first floor wall I had last year.

The 2016 Winter Arts Festival is officially open February 26 to 28, 2016.  Last year events were scheduled over 4 days on two weekends, and it snowed 3 of those days.  All went on as scheduled and we got a decent turn out considering.  The plan for this year is an opening reception on Friday the 26th, an official dinner/variety show with expensive tickets on Saturday, then a brunch/open studio and then open mic poetry event on the Sunday.  Except for Saturday evening, all the events are free.  How long the art remains up is unknown, but last year they kept it up on the walls until they were ready to decorate for this past Christmas.