Sherpa in the “Midwest Gallery” © 2011 Bo Mackison
Sherpa and I spent the last three days at Tempe’s Art Festival exhibiting my photography. What a weekend! I am so, so grateful that Sherpa was willing to fly to Arizona for a long weekend so he could be my assistant.
The show was open from 10 a.m. til 6 p.m. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. A total of twenty four hours. But when Sherpa and I added the hours we spent unpacking and carting the tent, display walls, art and other necessities to our 10 foot by 10 foot site, setting up until one a.m. for the first day of the show, opening and closing the booth each day, and then the packing everything back into the trailer for the drive back to Tucson — wow! We easily worked another 15 hours “behind the scenes.” And we didn’t count any travel time nor the time it takes to actually create the art.
I love the art festivals. I love talking art to the many thousands — yes, thousands! — of people who stop at my booth and look at my photography, talking about a specific photograph that catches their fancy, or asking questions about techniques or camera gear or locations. And of course, I love to talk art with the wonderful people who like what they see enough to purchase my art for their homes.
But doing art shows is lots of work, too.
That is why I want to send a special thank you — decorated with big hugs and kisses — to my best assistant ever. He is my biggest fan and my strongest supporter, and without his encouragement and help, I could never manage the travel required for 16+ shows a year — Spring in the Southwest, Summer in the Midwest, Holidays in Wisconsin. I couldn’t physically manage the strenuous load-ins and load-outs. And while I can work in the booth alone, it is surely more enjoyable having my life-long companion there beside me, working together.
It always gives me a thrill when a customer asks him about “his” photography, and he smiles broadly, nods towards me, and says, “My wife is the photographer. I’m just the roadie.”
Well, this photographer loves her roadie, and she thanks her Sherpa for helping keep this creative dream alive.
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Bo Mackison is the photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is living in Tucson for two months – exhibiting her photography in art shows, taking photographs, and blogging about photography, art festivals and often about living life solo. But she didn’t have to live life “solo” this past weekend as her soul-mate and show-assistant flew to Arizona for a long week-end. She said good bye to him this afternoon as he boarded a plane back to Wisconsin. But it won’t be long, this adventure is winding down. Only two and a half more weeks and I, too, will be saying “Good bye, Arizona. Hello Again, Wisconsin.”
