The Picture Perfect Locale Award- The 4th of July Celebration, Yorktown, Virginia
This show had the prettiest location of all my shows. Located on the Chischiak Green on the bank of the York River, I had a great view of people in their sailboats cruising up and down the river, people sunning themselves on the beach, and had a great breeze to counteract the scorching 4th of July in Virginia heat.
The Bug Attack Award- The Hanover Tomato Festival, Hanover, Virginia and Princess Anne Arts and Crafts Show, Virginia Beach, Virginia.
This category had a two-way tie between the Hanover Tomato Festival and the Princess Anne Arts. Bugs and all manner of creatures are inevitable when doing outdoor shows, but their presence in these two shows are quite memorable.
Ever heard Japanese beetles? Around these parts, they are called June bugs for reasons unknown to me. In case you've never seen one, June bugs are big dark green beetles that fly about as if they have no of sight or direction. You can hear one coming since they have a buzz like a miniature chainsaw. And the only way you can hurt these suckers is if you hit them with something heavy...like a bank safe. Seeing one fly around is interesting...seeing a swarm of say 500 is something a little more than interesting. At the Hanover Tomato Festival, swarms of these bugs flew all over the field in which the festival was held in which they dive bombed festival goers, landed in people's hair, and fell in and drowned in people's drinks. People were seen swatting at the bugs with the cardboard fans festival officials handed out and some were seen actually running from these clumsy pests. Several customers were chased out of my booth when a pair of June bugs flew in and got trapped as they buzzed from one end to the other. One lady actually had one fly into her mouth, and I had a bug hit me in the back of my head while I was talking to a customer.
The other Bug Attack Award has to go to the Princess Anne Art and Craft Festival. My body has an interesting reaction to mosquito bites. When mosquitos bite me, the bites turn into huge bright red welts which in time fades into dark bruiselike areas on my skin. The picture above is a picture of what my legs looked like after I did the Princess Anne Festival when I got bitten approximately 3 dozen times by some pretty vicious mosquitos. I had forgotten the cardinal rule of outdoor shows and had arrived without a pair of long pants or some type of bug repellent. This moment I stepped out onto the show grounds, I was promptly attacked by swarms of mosquitos. Within five minutes, I was running to a neighboring artist begging for bug repellent, which he graciously allowed me to use.
The Shiny Happy People Award- The 3rd Annual Festival of the Grape, Powhatan, Virginia
Generally, the crowds at most festivals and craft shows are typically in a good mood, especially if the weather isn't too hot and they didn't have to park too far. But I've never seen a happier crowd than the one I saw at the Festival of the Grape. Of course, the fact that it happened to be a wine tasting festival may have had something to do with it. As the day wore on, people steadily got friendly and happier until they began to dance on the courthouse green. This was actually one of my favorite shows of the year because not only was everyone friendly and watching the festival goers was great fun, but as one other vendor had put it, people buy anything when they're drunk enough.
The Dry Shirt Award- 21st Annual Christmas in September, Richmond, Virginia
Summer in Virginia can be a hellish experience. Visitors to my booth constantly remark on the energy draining and debilitating effects of humidity and heat and ask me how I can stand it. If you do outdoor shows, you pretty much just get used to it. After about the third or fourth show of the year, your body and mind adapts to the heat and you remember to carry plenty of water. But no matter how much you get used to it, you still go home at the end of the day hot and sweaty with your shirt plastered to your back. So it's always a treat when the weather turns tolerable and you have a nice pleasant day like the one I had last week at the Christmas in September show. With weather in the seventies and no humidity I went home with a dry shirt that day.
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