Anne Leuck 8/19/08 Anne Leuck 8/19/08

Ch ch ch changes...

Fourteen years ago I exhibited at my first Art Fair ... it was the Bucktown Arts Fest...I had no tent and sold my hand painted tile magnets and painted mirrors (displaying the mirrors on an upended futon frame)...I managed to dig up the photo below. It was great fun and of course a huge ego boost to be selling my art work! This was also the year that Rich & I bought our house in Bucktown which happened to be a 2 minute stroll from the art fair. Little did I know how that show would change my life. I made so many great friends and started relationships with so many people who have collected my work over the years. Another highlight was in 1999, I did the poster design for the art fair and got as close as I've ever come to selling out my booth.

Now it's 2008 and time for a change, I will miss this very unique show and community event and I'm sure I will be back at some point but it was time to try something new. The art fair pundits say you should mix it up, you can saturate your market and karmic-ly it's probably good to open up a space for a new artist to come in. (Sharon Sears will be in my old spot #33, I should probably supply her with some cards in case anyone comes looking for me!)

So this weekend instead finding me at Bucktown, I hope you will make the trip up to Highland Park where I will be exhibiting at the Port Clinton Art Festival - this is rated as one of the top shows in the nation and I'm very excited to be exhibiting my work for the first time in this community. For those of you who do get to Bucktown, I have many wonderful and talented friends still exhibiting there...among them Laura Nugent who is coming up from Kansas City to do the show for the first time...(and I'm so glad to have her staying with us) I hope she can snag a poster for me - Amy Arnold designed them this year - I just love her work (soft sculpture: peepwool) and was thrilled to see it in 2d on the poster.

Okay...time to get to work...need to make that Port Clinton E-blast announcement! You'll find me in Booth #53!

1995 - The year we moved to Bucktown & I started selling at Art Fairs.

1999 I was the Bucktown Arts Fest Poster artist...I was 32 and Rich was in fact 33 in 1999. That was back when I wore cut-offs to the art fairs...you know a starving artist had to dress the part!

Anne Leuck 8/10/08 Anne Leuck 8/10/08

Living in the shadows...

Lake Michigan 6:13-ish. It was really windy and huge waves were crashing...magnificent. I won't bore you with all the photos, I got a little obsessive trying to 'catch a wave' with the camera!

Anne Leuck 8/6/08 Anne Leuck 8/6/08

A wonderful trip...

Monday night I returned home from my trip to Minneapolis for the Uptown Art Fair. It was a great week, I was able to spend time with my Mom on the way up and my Dad on the way back. I traveled and stayed with my best friends from childhood...it was such a treat...lots of belly laughs...you know the ones where you laugh so hard you cry. Also got to have my booth right next to my good friend Deb Le Air:

And the art fair was my best of the summer so far...which I will count myself lucky as folks reported sales (always a relative thing) as being way down from last year.

This little pup...Frida...a Red Heeler mix hung out in my booth for awhile..she was very sweet and affectionate as I was needing some dog love being apart from Izzy & Alice for so long. Notice her crazy spotted tongue!

This is a photo of me with the Wood girls left to right: Michele, Heather (with daughter Karlie) and Dawn - we grew up across the street from one another in Sparta...their house was like my second home (I remember the day Heather was born!). Dawn is my oldest friend and like a sister.

This is my crazy friend Lee who I also grew up with...she and Dawn were amazing atheletes and I was always tagging along trying to keep up but NEVER did. She makes me laugh hysterically and is just an overall outstanding human being who I do not see enough of!

Anne Leuck 7/28/08 Anne Leuck 7/28/08

Art Re-Treat

Back from an amazing art retreat weekend in rural Wisconsin with Rachel and Erica ..and remotely our dear friend Lois Keller.

Rachel started this amazing new series of paintings and created several lovely water colors...

Erica pulled this one out of her hat...this large piece consists of 10 separate panels:

Lois shipped us a box of treasures, included for each of us was a lovely drawing (this is the one she sent for me) with sentiments and her wishes for each of us and our creative lives for 2008.

And these are some of my pieces - I did paintings on cardboard:

These 3 women have impacted my life and art in so many ways, we have a very magical connection that has only strengthened over the last 7+ years. I'd love to share more as so many wonderful things transpired...but I'll just have to leave you with these snippets since I'm scrambling to get myself and things together before I leave Wednesdayfor my trip up to Minneapolis for the Uptown Art Fair. Not an easything since I've had a non-stop whirl wind of fun, adventure and travel over the last few weeks. I feel so lucky to be taking all these trips and for the chance to reconnect with so many wonderful friends and family.

Anne Leuck 7/24/08 Anne Leuck 7/24/08

From the archives...Still Life With Pears.

At a recent art fair I ran into some lovely customers that I have not seen in quite awhile. This is a commissioned painting that I created for them back in 2004: "Still LIfe With Pears". I started drawing still life compositions at an art retreat with my friends Erica Huntzinger and Rachel Weaver-Rivera in 2001...that was the start of a whole series of new work. Tomorrow I head up to WI for another long over due art retreat weekend with them. It's exciting to know that some other new theme may develop on this trip so many years later...

Anne Leuck 7/23/08 Anne Leuck 7/23/08

Back from paradise

Rich and I took a long weekend trip out to see my brother and his wife in Washington State at their beautiful lakeside cabin in the mountains. We had a great time: lots of relaxation, amazing food and kayaking...!

My two favorite guys...next to my new favorite lake: Wenatchee

Rich found this fossilized rock on the beach...

I'm a big fan of the duo impromptu self shot photo...my brother Carl & I have been taking these for years...we have such a good time together if only we didn't live so far apart...

of course Rich managed to find the one musical instrument on the premises!

Kicking back, watching beautiful blue striped dragon flies..little did I know that a short time later I would be a crazy lady caught up in a paddling frenzy trying to escape a swarm of mosquitos!

Happy hiking family...Linda & Carl with my smiling canine nephew, Willy!

The offerings at the Plain "Farmer" Market...this was a fun joke as there is only one farmer at the Plain Farmer's Market. We enjoyed these beets and fuschia colored carrots for dinner...served up with a side of goat cheese. Yum. I had never seen carrots of this color before, the farmer said they were "speciated".

Anne Leuck 6/11/08 Anne Leuck 6/11/08

Green Thumbs...not yet but my fingers are crossed...

Well after 2 back to back weekends of art fairs and all the loose ends I need to tie up before heading to the Fields Project on Saturday, I have no business going out and buying flowers but I had to. Last year all I had on the deck was an azaela bush (which stopped flowering the week after I bought it). I need to see some color when I look out the window and the sooner I get these into pots and settled the sooner I have more color, right? (My thumbs are a fleshy shade of pink, no green in site). Mom, you know I wish you could snap your fingers and be here to guide me! My Mother and her husband Bill grow the most beautiful gardens around their home in the woods...I paint with acrylics, she paints with flowers. (...And Rich is taking care of the vegetable portion of our petite urban farm).

Anne Leuck 5/19/08 Anne Leuck 5/19/08

We Did...10 Years Ago Today

On a Tuesday morning, 10 Years ago today Rich & I got married on the shore of Lake Michigan by Reverend Lee, who we found in the Yellow Pages. This was our fun little announcement that we made from photo booth pictures..it was an elopement. We have been together since meeting in January of 1991 in Milwaukee. I cannot tell you where the last 17+ years have gone, it's been like a blink of an eye. So we are off to Milwaukee for a long over do little overnight visit to celebrate this 10th Anniversary. Big Love to You Baby...I wouldn't be living this big wonderful art life without you, your never ending support and voice of reason!