A wonderful open house

Today I had the privilege of hostessing for the spring Open House at Great Hang Ups Gallery.  Sonya had her little pop-up canopy set up in the parking lot. Her work table was underneath it, ready to help ladies or anyone paint silk scarves, with Mother's Day in mind. It was a good day for Open House but was a bit windy outside. Sonya's stuff kept blowing around, but it helped the finished scarves to dry faster.

Mark is regaling us with a story of some sort

After a slow start the traffic picked up with lots of people coming in for framing. No problem with that! Even my friends, Jacquie and Mark, stopped in to get a pair of paintings framed. Oh, how excited I was to see them! I think I haven't seen Jacquie since last August when we had lunch at Panera. Many of the people who came in I recognized and my job was to encourage folks to sign up to win one of Dee's paintings which was displayed. 

Besides the scarf painting being offered, Dee set up in the shop to do a demonstration painting on Yupo, a Japanese paper, where she showed how to maneuver the paint on the more glossy paper. It was fascinating to watch: 

Around the store were light snacks, cookies which Dee had made. One was a meringue cookie with bits of pecan and the other cookie Julia describes as 'crack'. Actually they are a lace cookie, her grandma's recipe, and are so good, you can't stop eating them. Because both cookies are so light, having more than one goes almost unnoticed by your system. Julia also had coffee and midget doughnuts from Dunkin. A few people enjoyed a glass of wine while they mingled and took in the art exhibits or watched Dee paint. 

At one point both Dee and Julia were tied up, so I went to talk with a lady who came in. She asked me how much the painting of the sheep cost and I had to go ask about that. This painting had won Best of Show and a couple other prizes at the County Fair. Dayan actually was looking for cow pictures so I directed her to a certain bin to see if there were any in there. 

We talked and eventually she made her way to the counter. Somehow the conversation turned to pottery and sculpture so Julia brought out a piece she had done of a nude. It had won a prize at a show last year, I believe. After some more conversation and such, all of a sudden Dayan said, "I'll take her." Wow! We took a picture of Julia signing the piece and then of the two ladies with the sculpture. This was a red letter day for Julia and for the lady who bought 'Nicki'!

The door prize drawing was scheduled for the end of the day, at 4:00 pm. First, Julia drew names gathered from the FB page as anyone who shared the announcement got their name in the drawing for a $25 gift certificate. Then, she threw those names into the bag with the others from today. Julia shook it up really good and Dee reached in to extract the winner. It was ME!!!!  If I hadn't been there to witness it myself, I would have guessed it was fixed, but it certainly was not! I won the painting!!

Talk about being blown away! I told the ladies I would come in next week to select my frame, thinking I'll use the dark red that Jacquie had looked at for one of hers. It should pick up those berries perfectly, I think. 

This is not the first time I've won and been the hostess. One time several years ago (since I lived in this house) Justin was there to do the drawing. Julia shook the bag and held it up high so he couldn't peek in, not as if he would, of course. And out came my name!! That time I won a slumped glass bowl made by Kevin Eagleton. I have several of his pieces in my home including the lovely one on my river room table. Maybe tonight I should buy a lottery ticket since I feel so lucky/blessed! It was a good day!