Macee McCunn Knecht (Macee Mare) - Metal Jewelry, Sculpture & Mixed Media
has begun! Come out and catch me at a show this year. Exciting for me that a lot of my shows are in the Midwest this season as I'm on a journey to work and explore our country! It's fun for me to bring my work to new customers in new places! Here's the general line up - details will follow soon on the right side of my blog:
or a car and come see us on the WVU campus in the Mountainlair for our next festival event. Come visit us this weekend - get directions: 
I'll be waiting for you!
Ok, so not quite that bad, but you get the point! Even with all that being said, I have the best loyal customers who return year after year to this event, no matter what the weather to buy and enjoy the festival. Thanks to all you lovely people, many of which who have become my friends!
Jewelry Tins are In! I put together the cutest little tins of jewelry for the holiday shoppers and just delivered them to the Manhattan Golf & Gallery at 50 North Centre Street in Cumberland, Maryland (301-777-0021). 
I found myself sitting on the floor half asleep a couple nights ago as I prepared these particular jewelry tins. After ordering the tins, I had to design the inserts without a team of company helpers like the big boys. You simply can't find companies that already pre-make the inserts - believe me, I checked thoroughly.
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A quick recap of upcoming shows....
and what fun that was! Ok, so it wasn't so fun to lug everything up a "shared" freight elevator for the set-up, but once it was set up and we were ready to go, it was fabulous. The students, professors, parents and other vendors were just wonderful! I can say I thoroughly enjoyed it. This festival, held in the Mountainlair Student Union, has been around for a lot of years (somewhere around 63) and the whole week is packed full of all kind of activities worth checking out. Though my booth typically doesn't have blue in the background, I thought it was very appropriate to use their colors and I thought it turned out very "WVU festive". Some of my favorites purchases were handmade soaps and a "way cool" poppy pillow! They had everything you could think of from tasty pastas, bee products, fiber, pottery, chocolates, of course jewelry, stained glass and much much more. http://mountaineerweek.wvu.edu/ http://wvutoday.wvu.edu/n/2010/11/17/mountaineer-week-celebrating-appalachian-heritage is a little recap of the week - notice my wacky and fun Topper Stoppers (bottle stoppers) are featured and sold out at this event!
What a picturesque moment during CanalFest. I felt like I was a big part of Cumberland Maryland and it's C&O Canal history.
Nothing like friends surrounding you during an event. We sure end up at a lot of festivals together and it can be a really good time! Printer Eddie and Potter Steve surround me as we enjoyed the great music line-up!
I can't forget my wonderful friend Annie and her beautiful booth and work. She does such fun paper products and always keeps me company! Sometimes events don't go off perfectly for us and it's times like these that it becomes more than about the mighty dollar.
Another festival down and with new merchandise, mixed in with cool older classic Macee designs.
It was a beautiful weekend with the weather being gorgeous along the side of Deep Creek Lake!
I went back to my older display since we were on uneven ground. Such is the life of an artist that goes to outdoor shows, ALWAYS uneven ground!
Lucky me, I got to be beside my good friend Annie and her lovely handmade paper creations! She keeps exploring and these quilt like sewn paper 2D works are fabulous!
In my world, it will forever be about the art, but it can certainly do me no harm to also be about the food. The Purple Fiddle in Thomas WV is one of those places, if you haven't discovered, you need to drop in and check it out. They have a line up of music that includes old-time and traditional bands, but also a little rock n' roll, jazz, funk, raggae, Celtic, folk, Latin and more. The menu consists of a lot of fresh made unique wraps, homemade falafel, hummus, and pico de gallo and is served in a dining area either outside or eclectic in nature inside. You can even draw with chalk on the walls in the lady's bathroom! Fun.
A cute and small artsy gallery is located just a short jaunt away. It is owned by a couple local artists.
One of their displays is quite interesting. They had a bow in the floor and decided it would be really cool to insert a door to take care of the issue, then suspend another door on top to use as a display table. Clever and fun. This was currently being used for "buttons", of which Seth created a lot of the sayings and images on them. My daughter ended up with many of them. They included a couple of my favorites that he made to just see if you would say them out loud to make you sound silly: "supa sep secky suchy saba susser sa!" and "licka lally lupa luck luk!". Then there were "buttons are sexy"and "cheeses priced". 
This is Sean, one of the co-owners. His work is super cute and comic in nature about life, drawn with sharpies and microns. His work can be seen at http://www.theartofseth.com/. We spent a good bit of time talking to him and Chaise walked out with several items, to include a print. He had a wonderful and welcoming personality and was super easy to talk to about why he does what he does.
Our main goal to our journey was to stop in to Mountain Made. It is this wonderfully old, large building and has a fabulous gallery of art and fine craft. Not only can you shop here, you can shop on-line at http://www.mountainmade.com/. Since I also have a home in West Virginia, I was able to take my jewelry to be juried to see if I could become an artist represented by Mountain Made that was established to promote WV artists. They offer classes, art studios and, of course, art. The work is dropped off and the wait time of about a couple weeks begin as they look over my work to see they agree that I am a nice fit for their gallery and that my quality is what they are looking for. Judging by the work currently there (I've shopped there many times before), I think I'll make a nice addition. Wish me luck!
It was that time of the year for me when you decide it's time to go be one with your customer base. It never is a small task and I always appreciate what other artists do to get their work out to the masses. I started this season with a trying out a new, and what I hoped to be, easier and less time consuming display to set up. My family humored me as I roughly tried it out in our livingroom for about a week!
My daughter helped me pack the Rover. This is only part way filled and with the new display, quite the puzzle to put together! I can't believe what I stuffed in there! Uhm, time to buy a larger vehicle.
The new display. It set up, knocking 2 entire hours off my time! It is a flat surface set-up only though, so on unlevel ground, I'm back to tacking on those hours. I was pleased with how it clean it looks.
I love my snazzy banner a friend created for me out of my images. It all added to my professional image and was very well received by my customers at Arts on the River in Morgantown! Thanks to those who always make it worth my while to hump and slump my entire store to them.
Another contemporary artist was at the festival and decided to play artist on the sidewalk in front of his space. Some kids even joined in, and it ended up to be a pretty cool piece. He almost had his own type of language and it was about 20 feet long by the time he stopped. It stuck around for both days considering people were walking on the Deckers Creek Trail that begins at the Hazel Ruby McQuain River Front Park, where our small festival was located. Funny, but people didn't want to step on it!
Of course, one of my favorites is the paper booth! Annie Morris Simcoe (from http://www.annabellpetunahead.com/ or check her out on facebook.com under ABPH) makes fabulous hand made paper, out of things like ramps, vegetable matter and so many other items. Then she sews the papers together to make both 2D work and 3D vessels, jewelry and lamps. This lovely friend put me up for the weekend in Morgantown and we both tried to deal with the upper 90's that mother nature threw at us. It is always lovely to be at a festival, side-by-side with a friend, but especially one that has such refreshing and original work. Did I mention, I own many of her pieces! Now, on to the next festival.
It was the time of year to clean the barn and install art work at the Lost River Artisans Cooperative in Lost River West Virginia. As usual it was a wonderful collaboration of cleaning fiends or should that be friends, because it sure seems like this is a great group of peeps who come out to lift a dust rag and eat good food together to get ready for the public!
The buds will hopefully soon be popping in time for this seasons opening of April 10th. The Lost River Artisans Cooperative was founded in 1988 in the scenic Lost River Valley in West Virginia's Potomac Highlands and is home to nearly 100 regional artists and crafts people. http://www.lostrivercraft.com/.jpg)
Tim Wheeler (current LRAC President) is directing his artistic cleaning crew to paint, dust and sweep this large space. About 30 people showed up to lend a hand..jpg)
A little window washing (also known as an outside comedy act!). Much more goofing off from the heights of the ladder would have resulted in a few broken bones!.jpg)
Yours truly on another ladder for a calmer job of dusting lights. Trust me, Tim was running out of jobs to give people. "What do you want me to do now, Tim?!"
After clean up, a little installation of some of my work.
After a nice warm day with this lovely group, I took off in my old car for a nice 20 m.p.h. ride home. Okayyyy, I was BEHIND this slow poke, but what a cute slow poke it was, until I passed him. This is always a nice country ride to and from Lost River and well worth the drive. So is the art - take a stroll and wheel on down sometime. Check out their site and see the demos, classes and festive activities ramping up for the year. If you are an artist interested in selling your wares, they will still jury new artists in for 2010. There is even a cool shop next door for a yummy bite to eat.
The Hard and Soft of It show went off beautifully!
A new direction for me. What a fun collection of jewelry to work on and have available to the public and what a neat way to present "hugs and kisses". This is becoming part of the wholesale line and will be avaible to retailers very soon.
Jean (Barnes Downs) explored new directions and has such a great way of exposing texture and this happens to be one of my favorites!
More "hugs and kisses"! I love the way the softness of the idea behind a gentle kiss can be combined with such hard steel & brass.
Our opening mug shot! More importantly, look at Jean's organic works in the background. Her works are always wonderfully soothing and if you happen to explore the new hospital (Western Maryland Health Systems - Cumberland, MD), her artwork can be found in the halls surrounding the waiting area on the Outpatient Surgery floor. You can explore more on Jean at http://www.solitudestudio.com/. 
More fun, colorful and fuzzy! This bracelet stretches over the wrist and reminded me of the days when sweat bands were cool to wear on your wrists and head! Hum.... 70's, plastic, wool & bullet casings.... what a combo!
