back south for the winter

Well life here in Molena was slow and lazy for the summer. The art / craft festival in Newnan, GA (Powers Festival) went fairly well. My booth site was uneven and I had to put wooden blocks under the display table to level everything. Saturday morning it sprinkled and I think that kept some people away. Even so Saturday was my best day. Then Sunday had more people but it was my worst day. All in all it was worth going to and I would go again next year if opportunity arises.

From Molena

my booth

From Molena

These folks were from South Caroilna and they made hand woven sweet grass baskets. This type of venue was not good for them. To me their product was very expensive. The basket in the forground with the fruit in it was marked at over a thousand dollars and the one in the backgroung with the wavey exterior was five hundred. The smallest baskets were $35.00

From Molena

From Molena

I will be leaving Molena on September 19 for Loxahatchee and I will be taking two days to get there. I see no need to drive 10 hours straight through so I plan to take my own sweet time and arrive on Sunday.


I hope everyone out there is well and Happy as you can be in this economy. I’m Looking forward to seeing my friends in South Florida. This year will tell if I can survive selling jewelry at art fairs. I have at least twenty shows scheduled between the end of September 2009 and end of April 2010.


See ya soon
Ken

lazy crazy daze of summer

Summer Time and the living is easy

My cousin Bill Shank and his wife Paula threw a Fourth of July party down at the pool. The weather cooperated and the guys put on a great fireworks show.

On July 19th I flew out of Atlanta to visit my daughter’s home in Darien, CT.

From Molena

My Flight leaving Georgia was the roughest that I have ever have been on. The turbulence lasted a good 30 minutes into the flight and I was still ill when I landed in White Plains, NY nearly one hour and thirty minutes later

The weather in Darien was great and we cooked outside Friday evening.

From Molena

The next day Dawn, Mike and I went to an art and craft show an hour or so north of Darien.

From Molena

From Molena

Then we drove along the waterfront on our way to a rustic seafood restaurant.

From Molena

On Sunday Dawn and I went to an outdoor fine arts show that had some very interesting work.

From Molena

After lunch with Dawn she dropped me off at the airport for my flight back to Georgia. I got back home around 9:00pm. I had a great time except for the flight turbulence.

After a couple of days back I set up my new tent and display to give me experience setting it up.

From Molena

From Molena

I set it up as if it were a show so that I know I have everything. Then I will load it into the truck and I will be ready for the first show in Newnan, GA (Powers crossing) on Labor Day weekend. It is a three day show Sat, Sun & Mon. Then my schedule is as follows.

Return to West Palm Beach on or about September 22, 2009. Then the shows start.

*Stuart, FL September 26 & 27
*Delray, FL October 3 & 4
*Coconut Creek, FL October 10 & 11
*Sarasota, FL October 17 & 18
*St. Petersburg, FL October 24 & 25
*Lauderdale by The Sea, FL October 31 & November 1
*Juno, FL November 14 & 15
West Palm Beach Gem Show November 21 & 22
*Delray Beach, FL December 26 & 27

* = website for thees shows http://www.artfestival.com/

That is everything that I have confirmed as of August 5, 2009. I have applied for more but have not received confirmation of acceptance.

Hope everyone is well. I am doing good. Hope to see you soon.

Ken

got to chatch up

I am going to shorten the art show stuff because it’s boring and I need to get up to date with this blog.

I did OK at Delray, about average with the earlier shows. I decided that I needed an item that was lower cost. So Jo and I decided to make earrings that would sell from $15 to $25 per pair. The next show was Coral Springs, which is a larger show than the previous shows and is supposed to be higher end. I did pretty well there. What was most interesting was the percent breakdown of sales. 2% was angles and crosses, 8% was pendants, 15% was rings, 30% was bracelets, and the remaining 45% was earrings, which I would have missed if I hadn’t decided to make some for the show.

The Last show that I had entered for the season was over in Sarasota, in a little city called Siesta Key. Gross sales were about the same as Coral Springs there except that the earring sales were around 75%. I would have died at this show had it not been for the earrings. My E-Z UP display tent finally bit the dust. I had been holding it together with duct tape for the last two shows, so I tossed it into the dumpster as I left town.

All the shows now over I returned to my Aunt’s in Molena, GA. Set up my camper and relaxed for a few days.

From Molena

Then I assembled a portable garage to store some things that I didn’t think I needed to haul around in the truck or to bring back to Florida when I return in September.

From Molena

From Molena

From Molena

Before I left West Palm I developed a new friend who also does wire wrapped jewelry. She taught herself, which is an amazing feat if you ask me. She does excellent work, far better than me. Her name is Marilyn Hodges and she has a booth at Sailfish Harbor on Hutchison Island Thursday nights if you want to check her work out. The season starts around October I think. We have decided to share a booth at the West Palm Beach Gem and Mineral Society annual Gem show. Which is the weekend before Thanksgiving (Nov 21, 22) for more info click http://www.gemandmineral.cc/ .

I have been cutting a bunch of cabochons in preparation for the show. I hope to have at least 300 cabs for the show. Some I have already photographed and put on my web site http://www.wilstones.com/ .

The weather has been nice up here. I spend my time reading, relaxing, cutting cabs, making more wire inventory and cutting grass. My aunt and her children have around 40 acres of land between them and I have been running the bush hog in the mornings and the evenings (to keep out of the heat of the day) for the past week, I still have some more to cut but I will take a break for awhile. Last week I was browsing through “Craig’s List” looking for another display tent and I found a good used one I liked in Atlanta and picked it up at a good price. I will take a photo of it when I practice setting it up and post it in the blog.

I am going to the Sweat family reunion June 19,20 & 21 in South Daytona. I’m looking forward to that. I think Ann & Candy will be there. Then in july My aunt and her family are doing a fourth cookout and festivities. On July 17 I am flying to Darien, CT. to visit Dawn and Mike in their new house for the weekend. My next scheduled show is in Stuart, FL on September 26 & 27. I have applied for a show in Newnan, GA on Labor Day weekend but I have not heard if I have been accepted or not.

Well that just about catches me up. On the next post I will list all of the shows I am accepted at and anything new that has happened in the interim.

Ken, Wil, gOOch, AV, William, dubyacay, Bill, and whatever else you want to call me.

I'm Back, maybe

It’s been awhile. I have decided that life and the motivations of the human race is a far too complicated issue for my meager brain to indulge, so I am leaving the pontificating to those who probably have less capacity to unscramble that knot than I do.

Update 2008 / 2009 Loxahatchee, Florida

I arrived in Loxahatchee (West Palm Beach) FL around early December got with friends and family for Christmas. My Daughter notified me that she and her husband were coming to Florida around Christmas time and hoped we could get together. She also informed me that she was pregnant with twins. They never made it down to S.E. Florida due to complications in the pregnancy, which I plan to elaborate on in a future blog entry.

I was able to gain entry into two craft shows scheduled for January and February to sell my jewelry and gain experience into the art / craft fair business. There definitely has been a learning curve.

The first show in mid January was at Hollywood Beach. There seemed to be lots of people roaming the boardwalk but few were spending money, especially at my booth.

From jewelry

That weekend I netted about $300.00. That did not include the time spent there and driving to and from the event. I enjoyed myself as I interacted with the people and developed a sort of explanation of how my work evolved from rock right out of the ground to finished piece of natural art. My friend Joellen helped me set up my tent and display. Only a true friend, a guilty relative or a blackmail victim would get up at 5:00 am, drive 30 miles to assist someone in putting up a flimsy tent in 20 mph winds in the dark (pre DST). Fortunately my spot was somewhat shielded by a large building and the wind factor was greatly reduced. Jo stayed with me most of the day and came back Sunday afternoon to help and to assist in take down. Sure was nice having Jo there.

From jewelry

Gross sales were close to $600.00 I think I made about 2/3 of that on Sunday. According to experienced artists who have done many shows, Saturday is usually the best day and they also indicated that gross sales should be about ten times the entry fee during good economic times. My entry fee was $220.00. Still I was not too discouraged with the result considering the bad economy and all of the French Canadians. Plus jewelry is a luxury item even though my items were not high priced. My inventory consisted of about 60 pendants, 20 bracelets, 10 rings, and a few crosses. Joellen brought about ten pair of earrings that she had made. I think she sold two pair. The interesting part to me was that 9o% of sales was bracelets and rings. I did not sell one pendant. Pendants are what I enjoy making because I enjoy cutting the stones. The wire part is OK, but cutting a stone is like a mini treasure hunt, in that, you never know what you are going to find inside of a rock and bringing out the best in a stone takes skill. So between the two shows I made more bracelets and rings and tried to get into more shows.

From jewelry

The next show in mid February was in Weston Florida, a fairly affluent community due west of Ft Lauderdale International Airport. Jo again showed up at 5 am to help. I love that woman. I changed the display a little but it was basically the same as the Hollywood show. The results of the show were almost the same, the difference being I sold more on Saturday than I did in Hollywood, which had me thinking that this would be a better show. Sunday, however, sold less than Hollywood, each day was about $300.00 gross.

By this time I had heard from the show promoters that I had applied to, the problem was that entry deadlines were long past for many of the shows, so, of the 6 shows that I requested I was put on standby for 4 and was accepted for 2 one near Sarasota at the end of April (that the deadline had not passed) and one put on by the city of Hollywood called “Mardigras Fest and Fat Tuesdays”, a show that my new friend, Donna Wilson, warned me not to enter. But I had already paid my entry fee prior to her warning. I’m not going into detail about this 4 day event except to say, I GROSSED $230.00 and left Sunday night. I would have saved money if I had just forfeited the $400.00 entry fee. Donna is a long time veteran of art festivals and has taken me under her wing so to speak (she’s 4 ft and around 15 inches tall). She is guiding me to the best shows and has been suggesting different changes in my display.

The next show coming up was Sebring, it is just north of Lake Okeechobee on State Rd 27 I was “wait listed” for this show and there were no openings.

The next was Delray Beach, My friend Donna suggested I just show up and hope for a cancelation or hope they could find me a spot. So contacted the promoter and told him my plan and he said that it would be ok if I did that but he could not ensure that I would get a spot. Now, of all the different types of items sold at craft fairs and art shows artist who sell jewelry are in the greatest number. Therefore, when some asks you what your product is and you tell them they roll their eyes and say “not another one”.

I got to Delray just before 5 and the show director told me it would be at least 8 am before she would know anything. So I went to Duncan Donuts and got a dozen donuts and a “Box of Jo”, brought it back, wrote “HEALTH FOOD” on the donut box lid and passed out donuts and coffee to the crafters and made sure the director got some. (a bribe, I told her). When I ran out of donuts and coffee I still had a couple of hours to kill so I began helping the artist set up their tents. At a little after 8 the director came to me and said they had a spot. (the bribe had worked).

I will finish this tale in my next post in December. (a little joke)

I will get to it within a couple of weeks, promise.

Ken

Explanation of sorts

Hey gang

I may have gone a little “Postal” on that last blog entry. Unfortunately I do believe that Man is, for the most part, arrogant, greedy and selfish. There are exceptions of course.

Jack Grove sent me an E-mail of an interview with a man known to the world as Pastor Rick Warren, Author of “A purpose driven life”. I have summarized from this article (which I will include excerpts in this posting) that the reason Man is arrogant, selfish and greedy, is because he is internally focused, which to me seems to be the natural condition of a sentient being. So the credo of Man would be “My life is about me”. Instead, as I understand Pastor Warren, Man’s life is best suited if the focus is externally, in other words, a focus on a man’s Purpose in life.

Quote PRW: “You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems. If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, which is, my problem, my issues, my pain." But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.
What is the purpose of life? Life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven. One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me. Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one,or you're getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making
your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.


I am not trying to make this a religious argument, Your beliefs are yours and these are Pastor Warrens. To me it is very reasonable and logical that whatever I focus on, it is going to manifest it’s self in my life. (ie “The Secrete”) If I focus on my pain and problems, then pain and problems are what I get, if I focus on material wealth, fame and power, this is also what I get. These are internally focused events. That’s why Man (me) is arrogant, selfish and greedy. Man is unlikely to focus on anything other than himself and his loved ones. If he does focus on God it is to see himself as a “better” person. (Internally focused)

Quote PRW: "This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something
bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always
something good you can thank God for.
You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease. So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72. First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases. Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church. Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick,and educate the next generation. Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years
since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free. We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?
When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say,God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and
love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do."

That is what Pastor Rick and Kay Warren did.

Now, this is my point with this post. How many People that you know, would have done with the money earned from the book sales, that he and his wife did? How many people in the state of Florida do you think would do what they did? The United States, the world? Would YOU do what they did?

Nada, none, zip.

There aren’t nearly enough Rick and Kay Warrens in this world to make a difference. And I am not saying that if you are so inclined that it is not worth doing. I believe it is. But I doubt that I would actually do it.

One more point. Even though I am for environmental issues and I could ride a bicycle to the grocery store do you think I will? Would you? The earth will be overrun with human beings and its ecology will be destroyed in the next few hundred years. I see no way for it to survive other than for 80% of the human population should disappear. Even that is a short term delaying tatict.

I am not trying to bum every one out. I just think that if we (the human race) do not acknowledge the reality of the situation there is absolutely no hope of doing anything about it and other than this post I don’t think I will do anything about it either. So you see, I don’t believe Man will change even in the face of annihilation.

comments? khatch46@yahoo.com

AV

Happy days?

I haven't made an entry in my blog since Cutter died, not sure what that's about. I have been busy getting ready for craft shows. I had one in January which I did ok at. Many of the participants indicated that it was a terrible show. Being my first, I have no idea if it was acceptable or not. I suspect not. I have three more scheduled in Feb. and I have applied for several more in Mar & Apr. I plan to stay in West Palm Beach until at least the end of April. I am not liking the traveling thing as much as I thought I would. It seems that I want to put down roots and not move for awhile. Anyway, all is as well as can be expected in this economy.


Hollywood Beach boardwalk, Florida Jan 17 & 18, 2009



My booth



I have really been an optimist for most of my life, but the older I get the more pessimistic I seem to be become, I am not sure if it is age or the stupidity and greed of mankind which conspire to bring me down. I used to believe in the inherent goodness of man. Now I not so sure, or maybe I am sure and that's the problem. However, I have discovered a solution to the Mexican immigration problem. Let them all come over but force them to join the army. Then invade Mexico and have no exit strategy.

I wish there were a happy pill we could take to become oblivious to this mess, but all the drugs I know of have worse side effects or would multiply the problems we all ready have. I would like to cheer you up, but I think am not going to be much help in that arena, because I only see things as getting worse, sorry. It would truly be a miracle if Obama or anyone could turn our economy and world image around.

A few of months back (I think before Obama was elected, not that it matters), I wrote down my current observations of Americans and the world populace in general, and they were not pretty, so I never posted it, nor have I shared it with anyone but one close friend. And since I am in a particularly morose mood today I thought I would share it with all.





The sky IS falling and it is going to flatten us.

We as a nation are not what we believe ourselves to be. We are like self delusional American Idol wannabees and when we are told we suck, we lash out at our detractors.

We see ourselves as strong, benevolent, honorable, when in reality we are fat, petty, arrogant, greedy and self righteous. When Bin Laden sucker punched us we took his bait hook line and sinker. When he scurried under a rock somewhere we lumbered after him and all who we perceived were of his ilk. Like a wounded elephant we expend our energy and resources in ablind rage, confirming to the world what assholes we really are. We stepped right into Bin Laden's trap and he is reveling in our stupidly. What's more unbelievable is that we are a giant waiting to be toppled, a cancerous carcass that doesn't know its dying.

Individually our greed has been like millions termites eating away at the foundational rules and regulations, all the while patting ourselves on the back that were able to circumvent the safeguards in place (the American way). We are sucking the earth's resources dry and to hell with the consequences. Then believing that we are fit and strong, we set out to right where we had been wronged, but in reality was we are old, fat and delusional. In our struggles we have begun to hemorrhage financially, a stroke will soon send us stumbling to our knees. Because we are so huge it will take a while for us to hit the ground, but don't kid yourselves it is coming up faster than you think. I don't see any way we can stop it because we can't repair damage that we don't allow ourselves to see. Even if we could see it, there isn't enough time.

As you may have summarized I have never been a proponent of this war, but if you think we have high unemployment now? Bring home the soldiers. We are in a cluster f**k of galactic proportions. You, I and George and deserve everything that is coming, but unfortunately we will skate away on death's wheels, our children and our children's children will pay the price. I can only pray that I am the delusional one.

So cheer up everything's fine, because if you don't acknowledge it, it doesn't exist.

Now for the bad news, the rest of the world is as bad or worse. Everyone is out to get as much as they can or at the very least hang onto whatever they have, including me. No one wants' to sacrifice and who can blame them, because that other asshole isn't going to give up anything. And those who perceive that they do not have anything (or enough) will kill you to get what you have.

The best line regarding human beings was in the movie the "Matrix" when agent Smith was explaining to Morpheus what he has discovered about humans.

"Agent Smith: I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet."

One thing agent smith missed in his analysis was, our obsession for more, man's GREED.

I know of only one way that the earth can be spared an early demise and that is if somehow 80% of the earth's population vanished. Me included.
AV

Rest easy friend

Cutter did not wake up this morning. He had been struggling with his breathing this past week but not as bad as some other times. I was sort of surprised because yesterday his breathing was clear and he seemed pretty spry. We went for a short walk around noon yesterday and he was fine, however he was huffing and puffing by the time we returned. It has been cold here, but I do not think that was a contributing factor, because we stayed in the trailer until the warmer part of the day.
I’m going to miss him.

From cutter

(April 1 the day we left West Palm) Are you sure were doing the right thing dad?

From cutter

(North GA overlook) How many other dogs have been here?

From cutter

Must be Hundreds.

From cutter

From cutter

Sleeping with his toy.

From cutter

So far it's been fun.

From cutter

I love this lady and she loves me.

From cutter

Having a gteat time, wish you were here.

From cutter

From cutter

I had a good time and now its time to go.

For more Cutter pics click on any photo

I have been getting things ready for the trip south. Picking up and disassembling my equipment. I will spend Thanksgiving here and pull out on the third of December. I plan to make it a two day trip to West Palm Beach. I’m looking forward to seeing my friends, especially Joellen.

I have been accepted into two craft fairs, one in Hollywood in January and one in Weston in February. I will post the dates in a later blog entry.
I don’t feel much like writing right now, so I’m going to sign off for now.
Love you all
Ken