The third weekend was the quietest out of all three. There were almost no visitors, very few people even walked by. Maybe it was the heat, maybe something more interesting was going on in the neighborhood, maybe we didn’t do enough to promote the event.

Slava and me were showing at the Great American Framing. Marsha Sims, Kathy Sartain, Cathy Zander from the 1st SVOS weekend at Community School of Music and Arts were here again, and I met other artists that I don’t remember seeing before: Lei Min and Linda Salter.

Lei’s oils are beautiful and energetic. She used to do commission portraits and showed me an prospect from her solo exhibit with awesome portraits of Taiwan, Philippine, and Malaysia prominent figures and of their family members.

Linda Salter paints and draws many different subjects: great portraits, still life, figure drawings, landscapes. She seems to work in every medium available – oil, watercolor, graphite pencil, pastel, ink – and always experimenting. She was doing nice small ink drawings while in the gallery. Made me want to pick up my ink and brushes again.

We still had some guests, some good conversations with them and with each other, and I saw the local University Arts store for the first time. To say that I was impressed would be an understatement. It’s huge, it’s full of great stuff, and what I can’t or won’t use myself is still fascinating to look at. I am not going to their San Jose store, ever.

Got my horse photos, thanks Irina!

This weekend was the first time that Slava and me participated in SVOS as artists. Slava was at the Great American Framing Co & Gallery in Palo Alto (why or why don’t they have a website?), and I was at the courtyard of the Community School of Music and Arts along with Kathy Sartain, Marsha Sims, Cathy Zander, Kushlani Hall, and others. Apparently, Kushlani is in KALEID too – need to find her display there next time I go change my artworks.

When we were getting familiar with the place a couple of weeks ago, Kathy Zander said that Mother Nature always knows when there is going to be an art show and turns the wind on. It was very windy then, but this weekend Mother Nature decided to be creative and added rain to it. We were setting up under the drizzle and occasional big drops, with a wind gust here and there. Nothing too bad, but not exactly a weather that makes people want to go outside to see some art.

Still, we had quite a few guests, some with kids who were going to or from CSMA classes. Many of those kids love horses (yes, they are girls mostly, but there were two boys too). Kushlani’s daughter is a horse person herself, and she and her brother draw. Lucky Kushlani. My kids don’t touch art stuff at all.

Kids are hilarious. Watching them and just enjoying it was one of the best parts of the show. One boy was shouting today after all wondering around the courtyard, “What? Are we leaving already?!!” Another one discussed drawing horses with me – I think he was about 8 or 9. Very serious, no smiles.

I finally got to see what Kathy Sartain does – it’s glass mosaics, very beautiful. Marsha Sims’ photographs are great, especially the double rainbow and the rock sliding in your face (well, it gives that feeling that it keeps sliding towards you because of the tracks behind and the angle of the shot – absolutely awesome).

Kushlani painted her daughter from a photo today – a light figure walking into the darkness. She didn’t have time to finish it of course, but I really liked how it was turning out. And she had some kid for a company half of the time. She is doing oil, oil pastel, encaustic art, pretty jewelry, and she’s pretty good at all of it.

All I mastered when there were no visitors in the booth or around was 1.5 sketches. I can’t draw and converse at the same time.

Silicon Valley Open Studios come early this year! Stop by to see my new art at the following sites during the first three weekends of May, 2009:

May 2 – 3, Site 140:
Community School of Music and Arts
230 San Antonio Circle, Mountain View, CA 94040-1276

May 9 – 10, Site 179:
Columbus Group
21471 Columbus Avenue, Cupertino, CA 95014-4972

May 16 – 17, Site 61:
Great American Framing
229 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301

You can find maps for all these locations on the SVOS website.