An Art Festival Experience & Launch of New Mother/Daughters Art Business

The last couple weeks I've been putting all of my energy into preparing for Artsfest on Historic Walnut Street. It's the largest art festival in Southwest Missouri and also happens to be in my city of Springfield. My mom and sister are also artists (the ladies that inspired me to start making art) so we went in for a booth and officially launched the 3Cs as our business together. All of our names start with "C" (Christie, Connie, Chelsea), get it? We all paint, my mom has been dabbling in encaustic and is a graphic designer, and my sister makes jewelry! This new project has been in the works for a while, so we were very excited to get it rolling!

My mom had to travel from Colorado and my sister a few hours north from Columbia, but it was awesome because the three of us hadn't been together in way too long. We were sure to get a picture of us, and we were lucky enough to get a photo when my grandma came through. Three generations of ladies.

My mom and I participated for the first time last year, and it was my first time doing something like this. I tell you what, it is a lot more work than what you might think! There is just so much preparation and is not for the faint of heart. Luckily my mom @connieluebbert had set up the tent numerous times for a Farmers & Artisans Market so we weren't starting completely from the ground up. At these types of festivals, you set up your own tent and display. It's amazing some of the tent displays the festival professionals put together. They're usually so resourceful and efficient too!

There is also the preparation of inventory to fill these tent up. I'm so glad that I have about a gajillion little painting studies I've been working on for a few of projects I have in rotation. Some flowers, abstracts, and landscapes. All of those needed to have their edges painted and/or framed and wired, or packaged. Also, they had to be priced! My mom and I were up late wiring the night before!

My mom @connieluebbert has been dabbling in encaustic placing her Chinese brush style paintings on rice paper in wax

I also had a number of prints leftover from past events and print runs, and I added some new prints to my inventory. I did decide to paint more mini master study magnets that I discussed in my last post. They're just so much fun!

Overall, we did well and simply had a blast. It's worth the work especially when you're with people you love! It was awesome being able to connect with people with our artwork too. My favorite was everyone chuckling at my mom's punny cards with her paintings on them. Here's some more photos and a little video of our booth.

Hilarious shot by my step dad.

My sister's beautiful jewelry. I traded a painting for the pair I'm wearing right now!

Photo by Artsfest on Historic Walnut Street

The event was Saturday and Sunday, and we had to say our goodbyes on Monday :( I took a day to recoup yesterday and am back at it with my next projects in queue which I'm excited to share! Stay tuned!

Thanks for looking!

www.christiesnelson.com