A great weekend of fun!

Hard to believe that the weekend is into Sunday already, but with all the events that went on yesterday, it will be good to get a few things done here in the studio. Yesterdays "Hooked on Books" event in Chaska was a raving success. With all of the activities for kids to do and the space to do it in at the Chaska High School, I bet there were close to 1000 people that attended the festival. Having been there two years ago, I was blown away with how large the event has become and am already looking forward to next years event. I would definitely recommend this fun day of activities for anyone with a family and for you authors and illustrators out there that have published books. One of the highlights though was when a couple of kids were so excited to see me drawing "bugs" on the easel that they were overcome and had to show me what they would have done had they been given the chance. As you can see, I have some stiff competition! They really went all out and the average age of the kids was around 4 or 5. So, now I have a fun piece to hang in the studio to remind me of the fun interaction we had.



Also taking place yesterday was the final celebration party for MCAD's beloved retiring professor Kinki Akagawa. The picture above was taken on Friday night at the opening celebration with Kinji sitting on one of his signature benches. It really was great to see the huge turnout for both Friday and Saturday nights. The Saturday night event was by far the gala though as it was held in the beautiful Mill City Museum and culminated with the auction of many alumni's work in honor of Kinji for a scholarship fund. It was really great seeing all of his former students and colleagues come together to honor such a wonderful person. And I have to say I was a little awestruck at all of the well known artists, some which were pretty famous, and of course the opportunity to meet our former Vice President of the United States Walter Mondale. There's just a certain swagger that some of these people tend to carry when they walk into a room! So with that, I hope you have a wonderful rest of the weekend and look forward to getting some things done!

A chance find

One of the great things that I have really enjoyed about the blogging world in the brief 6 months that I have been here is the people you just happen to come across. This past week, I had one of those chance findings when I came across an artist by the name of Tracy Helgeson. When I came upon her site from somewhere I don't quite remember, I was struck by how beautiful her landscapes were and the use of color that were in them. To my surprise, I saw today that she had mentioned my blog on her site and also her time she had spent at MCAD. As a fellow MCAD alum, it is always fun to see how other artists' experiences of art school were and where they have gone from there. I would definitely recomment you guys visiting her site and checking out her work. It is a real treat that is a nice way to end the week.
As for the piece above, it is a painting that I had almost forgotten about until I ran into the person who bought it a number of years ago. To reconnect with her was alot of fun and to see how happy she still was to have it in her house was a nice compliment. Often when a piece leaves the studio, you never get to know what happened to it over time. But with this week, it seems that the past is coming back in more ways that one! Hope everyone has a great weekend and will be back in the next couple of days!