getting ready for sowa open market

Happy Friday everyone! This week has been wildly busy over here in my studio. If you follow me on Instagram, you've seen a few quick photos as I prepare for opening day of the SoWa Open Market this upcoming Sunday. 

I've strolled through the market several times each summer for the past three years, but after having such a great time selling art at the Boston Seafood Festival last September I decided to apply to SoWa as a vendor this year. I was accepted and have been ordering supplies, packaging prints and signing canvases like crazy for the last couple weeks. Here's my gallery wall before taking these paintings down to pack them up with my booth.

It was a little surprising how much effort goes into just one day of selling art (after the first festival I was exhausted) so my goal this time was to try and space out all these tasks so I still had time to take refuge in painting, including one big piece in particular. 

I went into this one with no specific plan except to incorporate inspiration from my new neighborhood and use colors I liked and just go with the flow. Just paint. My studio sits right on the border of Boston's Fenway and Back Bay neighborhoods, just off the Berkelee College of Music campus (awesome… more on that later) and this piece was made entirely of imagery and material collected from within a quarter mile radius of it. 

At one point I was a little stuck, and put down my paintbrush for a while and as always seems to happen, inspiration grew through the process of just living and exploring. Those beautiful magnolias on the marathon race route made their way into this collage and turned out the be the missing piece.

Always keep your eyes and heart open to inspiration… it's all around you.

If you'd like to see this painting in person, it'll be coming with me on Sunday, May 4th for opening day, along with dozens of other original paintings and prints. SoWa is located at 460 Harrison Street in Boston's South End, runs from 10am-4pm rain or shine (um, shine please!) and is accompanied by a very big farmer's market, vintage market and Boston's best food trucks. 

I hope to see you there!