The Big Show was a Success!

I'm pleased to report that my art show and special one-time sale last Friday at the Old Colorado City History Center was a great success, with a fine turnout and excellent sales.


I did make the entrance to the center more obvious, with 4 homemade posters that at least let people know what was going on inside. I nailed another poster on the tree down on the corner, directing people in this direction (and I did take down all the posters afterwards). Since the history center was one block off the avenue where all the other artwalk galleries were located, we were concerned that people might not know where we were. Joanne Karlson even had a volunteer standing down there handing out flyers part of the time. Those were all efforts that paid off.


I cleaned up the main display and put a large spotlight on it, which made a pretty dramatic entrance to the display that got everyone's attention. Four of these five paintings sold.


It was a beautiful evening and people came from all over. The interior of the history center was quite attractive, and the evening sun coming in through the old church windows was gorgeous.


There was lots of room for people to mill around and to look at the history exhibits as well as the art.


The old church pews were set around the edge of the space and lots of people spent their time just sitting and socializing on the comfortable seats. In the photo I'm picking out another red dot from my folder so that one of the super volunteers, Jan deChadenades, could affix it to another sold picture, to the amusement of our neighbors, Jane and Kurt Weiss from Texas, and Barbara and Joe Vuillemin from Arizona. Jane and Barbara purchased the two views of Sacred Heart in the winter and in the summer, both of which had the back yard of their home just down the street in them.


The displays were easy to look at and even the pictures on the back display were well lit. Here's Paul Jaeger, my son-in-law from New Mexico, deciding which picture to buy.


Judy Ekstrom and I stand with Ann Washburn in front of the picture she purchased. Ann lives just down the street from us, and was very happy to have the scene of Pikes Peak from Old Colorado City on her wall.


Nearly everyone I invited showed up. Here's Judy with Kaye Grant, the Marketing Director for Services at the Air Force Academy. Kaye was my boss for nearly 20 years. She was pleased to purchase a picture. Serving wine was volunteer Werner Karlson, who also helped clean up afterwards.


Kaye and I were happy to see each other. She's still working at the Academy, from which I retired over a year ago.


My old friend and fellow painter Warren Schroeder came with his girlfriend Jeannie. He'd long waited for me to have a show, now I'm waiting on him to have one.


Long-time friend Betsy Evans goes through the box of prints I had made, while Jan watches. I produced 60 prints, 5 of each picture, and put them in clear plastic envelopes. They were very popular and 35 sold.


Here I am talking with another long-time friend, Fred Clark, the President of Warren Tool Co. and a long-time sponsor of the old National Carvers Museum.
I give my sincere thanks to everyone for helping me with this show, it's gone a long way to accomplishing one of my goals in this blog: to figure out how to sell my old paintings so that I can have room on my walls for new ones. I especially want to thank my long-time friend and co-worker Todd Ryan, who took most of these pictures.