Lost in Folsom

Ignorance did not prove blissful this week. Groom and I just returned from a seven day trip participating in the Sacramento Arts Festival. Our best two shows this year were in Boise, Idaho’s capital city, and Salem, the governmental seat of Oregon. Our logic was that Sacramento, home to California’s beautiful capitol building, would round out the trifecta, making our last out-of-town show end with a big bang.

How about a less than impressive fizzle?

Fraught with tension just a few blocks away, Governor Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders were locked in a five-hour meeting spilling into Friday evening, October 1, 2010, attempting to end California’s record-long budget stalemate that has been continuing for more than 93 days.

Rumors of a hand-shake deal spread throughout the Sacramento Convention Center by 7:30pm. The show went until 9pm. In other words, a loooooooooong day.

Unbeknownst to us, government workers have been made to take Fridays off without pay, called “Furlough Fridays.” The trickle-down effect has been fast and furious.

In its 13th year, the Sacramento Arts Festival was unfortunately in the line of “friendly fire.” Without enough money to pay their bills, most people stayed home, choosing not to fork out the $15 per day parking lot charges and $7.50 entrance fees (and I thought parking in Eugene was an issue). As we were downtown four days in a row, we did not budget $60 to park our van so that stung a little. Blissless.

In its defense, the Sacramento Arts Festival is a beautiful show, one of the most diverse collections of artists and artworks under one roof that we’ve seen. With plenty of time to walk the show, it didn’t matter how many times we wandered about, there was always something new to see. The layout was great, the colors bright and the art complementary; but hardly a customer to be found.

The promoter, Warren Cook, is beloved. More artists told me that they do his shows simply because he’s Warren. He was a joy to work with and I can see why he’s so well liked and respected.

As happens at a slow show, there’s not much to do but visit with each other, so on a fonder note, we met some fun vendors. One couple from California boasted quite emphatically that Stanford was going to kick the University of Oregon’s, and therefore, our behinds during Saturday night’s big game. While he said it with humor and swagger, we kept checking the score. By 7 o’clock when the show closed for the evening, the game had not finished but Stanford was up 31-24, so the butt-kicking would have to wait until Sunday morning.

My cousin, who lives near Fresno, took a vacation day off from work and drove up to meet us. She booked a room next door in the same hotel, so we turned the weekend into a fun slumber party of sorts, staying up late, visiting and eating yummy food in our pajamas.

Perusing the Sacramento magazine in our hotel room, I noticed an ad for “the largest collection of antique shops in California.” So Cousin and I decided to play hooky from the show Sunday morning and go on the hunt for jewelry-making parts while Groom opened the booth.

What started out as a simple plan…

In spite of using her GPS, we still ended up lost, because the address given in the ad did not match the photo or the description. It was an empty building up for lease. I Googled the place on my handy dandy new Internet phone and we called the number listed. The message went to voicemail, a young girl wishing us a nice day.

While lost, we ended up in Historic Folsom, the city made famous by Johnny Cash and his 1956 trademark song, Folsom City Blues.

Early on Sunday morning, most shops were closed, but we did notice three different signs about karma, the Eastern philosophical concept of action and deed, cause and effect. Hmmmm….curious.

Walking back into the show, we encountered Mr. Stanford. As soon as he saw us, he covered his face with his hands. As the UO beat Stanford 52-31, he apologized for his arrogance and offered me a fabulous glass of wine to go with his humble pie. For you wine-bibbers out there, do I have a tip for you: Heringer Estates 2006 Petite Sirah. I finally understand descriptions like ambrosia or nectar of the gods. Aah, Bliss.

While the profits from the show were not what we were hoping for, we did get to visit with my cousin, see my parents and hang out with friends on the way home, so all was not lost.

Driving down I-5, we pulled into a rest area for a quick stop. Three nuns in full habit emerged from the vehicle next to us and proceed to amble toward the women’s room. Respectfully, I was not going to rush so that I could push ahead in line of three nuns, nope, wasn’t gonna do it. Turns out, there were four stalls, three of which had doors and the fourth one did not.

I giggled to myself, that here I was, the only other person in a room with nuns and my stall did not have a door on it. Whatever your belief, nun’s are a pretty significant symbol of religion and in the ongoing conversation with the Universe, it was not lost on me that I had an “open door.”

Hmmm, let’s quickly retrace. Getting lost in Folsom which is represented by a prison song, three signs of karma, a trinity of nuns and me with an open door. These things might make you nod off, but they certainly had the power to catch my attention, so while you’re looking at these photos, I’ll be a pondering.

Art in the Park

In the blink of a week, Groom and I added another thousand miles to our van going over the desert and through the woods to Boise’s Art in the Park, a fund-raising event for BAM, the Boise Art Museum. After setting up our booth in the lovely Julia Davis Park, we explored this boom town of the wild western 1860’s.

Of course, as the chronometer continues to spin through time, this capital city has adopted more of a modern metropolitan feel than its mining history, although some of the historic buildings still exist.

The first thing a person needs to know about the third largest city in the Pacific Northwest is that it is pronounced Boy-see, not Boy-zee. The locals tend to admonish ignorant pronunciation.

I don’t know if it’s the second thing anybody needs to know, but we found a restaurant serving “Trailer Park Cuisine.” Now who could pass up that opportunity? Groom and I were even offered the best seat in the house, a vintage car on blocks. You can see me leaning in toward it and then Groom ordering from their classy menu.

This was the luxury view from our window while we ate macaroni and cheese with sweet potato fries. It came with “trashy sauce,” which turned out to be sour cream and brown sugar plus a “secret ingredient.” Greasy and queasy.

As I’m typing this, I’m pondering our decision-making skills. Groom and I had just spent nine hours in van (interpret close quarters) and knowing we were going to spend more than 30 hours in our 8’ X 8’ booth over the next three days, we still chose to eat our white trash lunch cooped up in a car?!

In spite of the long hours required of us during the show, we’d drag our carcasses out of the comfy bed early each morning. Making certain our booth was business-ready, we’d procure a cup of caffeine from the artists’ hospitality booth and take a walk, meandering with coffee in one hand and camera in the other: A sweet way for us to start the day.

And you are now looking at some of the images we decided to put into our cameras.

Saturday was the anniversary of September 11th, so as we passed by these arches on a bridge, I peeked through one of the windows and noticed the flag, an appropriate symbol to memorialize. Speaking of American emblems, does anybody else see the irony in the next photograph? As the eagle represents freedom, it breaks my heart to see these poor birds behind bars looking so depressed. I really really hope this is not a sign of things to come…

Feeling momentarily sad, iconic Abe Lincoln made us feel a whole lot better with his generous hugs.

On a lighter note, Boise seemed to be filled with lots of color and personality this year. We stayed in the same hotel as KC and the Sunshine Band who played at the Taco Bell Arena on Wednesday, September 8, the same evening we arrived. We saw their limo and very colorful driver, “Rod.” Really, you must follow this link to his website page, where you can see a few more of his outfits. I spoke with this enterprising fellow and learned he has 365 outfits and wears one of them every time he leaves his house.

He is the most well-known and requested limo driver in the area and gives every customer the red carpet treatment (or blue or purple or…), regardless if it’s a trip to the airport or a night on the town. So, if you’re ever in Boise and need some entertaining transportation, you know where to find it.

The last shot is blurry, I know, but the lighting so early Monday morning as we got outta Dodge, heading east to go west, was too purty to pass up.

Of course, we’re happy to be home, but as Art in the Park was good (we sold all but two necklaces!), we must immediately gather and focus our creative powers for our last two shows coming up in rapid succession, the Corvallis Fall Festival and the Sacramento Arts Festival.

As Kimmmm asks, “How’s that hurry-up-and-be-creative-Now going?”