7th Annual Goleta Valley Art Association's (GVAA) Festival at Stow House

The Goleta Valley Art Association is having its annual festival a week from Saturday. I signed up for a 10' x 10' booth. Yesterday we had a high of 95° in my backyard, and I thought if it's like this at the festival, I'm going to need a shade canopy. So I went to our local sporting goods store, and a nice young man told me that I could put this canopy up with only one person. Ha ha ha ha ha! And I believed him! I was able to get it this far along, but it definitely needs at least one more person to pull from the opposite corner. I have a feeling it will really take one person on each corner to get it clicked into place. So for now it sits in my driveway waiting for some kind neighbors to come along and give me a hand.

And since it's been so hot, I've spent afternoons in the house mosaicing. Here is the marble wine arch. It turned out to be much harder than I thought to add all the cheeses and corks and tablecloths and fruits, etc. so it ended up being just two wine bottles in the window with greenery, sky and sun. I've sprayed it with marble sealer today and will grout it as soon as the weather turns cooler. I learned from experience that marble needs to be sealed or it will absorb the grout and turn dark.

To the right I have a piece I did yesterday. It will have a mirror in it and is made from various plates I had in my collection. I like the combination of plain colored plates and patterned plates and enjoy finding colors that go well together.


Below on the left is the blue flower mirror I began months and months ago. I cut a mirror for it yesterday so it needs to be grouted also.


And finally below on the right is the finished blue mirror with glass bead flowers.


Someday I will figure out how Blogspot wants to display my pictures but this doesn't seem to be the day.