Sockeye Salmon Magnets at the Salmon Festival

We made our first visit out to the Salmon Festival since it started to replenish some stock that sold.  The artisan market is even more impressive this year with a wide range of salmon themed artwork from other local artists.  The market is in a tent this year which provides plenty of room for the large amount of tourists passing through.

This is Connie who is heading up the market and has done a terrific job so far with everything being so well organized.

We made more sockeye salmon magnets again this year in both the sculpted technique as well as our "stylized" ones.

These were created from texture sheets we made from clay using my original drawing.  They are  flexible so we can run them through our pasta machine to make a deep impression.  Mica powders are then applied to give the shimmering color.

If magnets are baked in the clay they can lose their strength so they need to be glued in after baking.  To increase the strength of the magnet as well as maintaining a strong hold so it won't come out, we embedded a metal washer (A) in the back.  Another layer of clay was placed over top with a large enough space to glue the magnet in after the pieces are baked.  In this case we found that an apoxy clay worked really well.

Salmon Everywhere

The Salmon festival started yesterday and our display rack at the artisan market is all filled and ready for the more than 200,000 expected tourists to come through over the next 3 weeks.  We will be out several times to view the spawning salmon in the river as well as replenish the supply of our handcrafted ones.

As part of the artisan market gift shop, we are to take our turn to help out and demo our work.  We will be taking our first shift this coming Friday (Oct 10th) and are looking forward to it.

To get into the spirit of things, we are seeing salmon themed shop windows like in the Intwined Fibre Arts store in Salmon Arm who have some of our salmon zipper charms for sale.

Chum 'N Luba's Unique Boutique here in Chase is selling our salmon jewelry which go really well with some of the new fall designer dresses they have in stock.

This dress happens to have a front zipper and the salmon zipper charm looks like it was made just for it!

These are a couple more of their dresses with a salmon necklace that go really well!  I absolutely love this dress and could see myself wearing this!  I love the hat too and is handmade from Nelson BC.

The red dress here was in the shop window so was difficult to capture a good picture.

Gone Fishing

Dave and I have been doing a different type of fishing these days -- even though we live by the water we are sculpting our fish rather than catching them.  Every four years their are larger amounts (in the millions) of salmon returning to spawn in October.  This year is one of those times and so several hundred thousand tourist will be stopping by to see this spectacular event.

This will be our second time participating in the Artisan Market.  We know a little more what to expect this time round so will be better prepared and have already been in high production mode.  We have set aside several days each week where we try to make our "quota" of salmon.  With this plan in action we should be able to have enough made in plenty of time.

Here are some of the salmon ready to attach to various findings to create souvenir items like zipper pulls, key chains and such.

Inspiration

It's January and after doing the mundane things like stock taking and doing year end, we find that we do have a small window of time to try new things that have been buzzing around in our heads for the past year.  When I hear about my friend, Wendy Moore, in Australia having to live through searing heat and brush fires every year at this time or other friends like Cynthia Blanton and Helen Breil who live in another part of our country,  are putting up with freezing temperatures and heavy snowfall, we feel so blessed to be living where we do.

We've lived here for 5 years now and the weather pattern seems to be similar each year with no major storms to speak of.  December cold temperatures and snow and January with acceptable temperatures and more snow.  As I look out my kitchen window, I see the lake is not frozen and most likely won't this winter.

We are nestled in a valley between 2 mountains which protect us mostly from strong winds.  We don't find it very difficult at all to get inspiration from our surroundings.

One neat feature of the area of where we live is that there are 200 lakes all within a 2 hours drive of us and they are all teeming with fish.

Probably the most interesting feature, is that every year the Sockeye Salmon come to our area to spawn and every fourth year they come in the millions.  I believe it is the largest Sockeye salmon run in the world (except for some place in Russia).  We will again be involved in the Art Festival surrounding the salmon run this October where over 100,000 tourists come to see this big event over a 4 week period.  This really is a unique occasion since many of our 3,000 residents of our town are involved as well.

We will be making many small pieces of salmon themed art work to sell during this time.  We have to think of our designs now as this may be the only large chunk of free time before the event.  Although it has been in the back of our mind since the last one, (more than 3 years ago), it is unique because we normally don't sell the salmon themed pieces at any other time.

So why am I talking about this now?  It takes away from our regular routine, as I say it only happens every 4 years and we are forced to think of what will sell to these tourists and at a price point where they will sell quickly.  Also, if last time was any indication, we will have to be more prepared and make dozens of each design which are basically the same.  This is a different approach for us as we pride ourselves on making unique and individual pieces.

Four years ago, we found that every second day we had to replenish our supply again and again.  This meant long hours doing pretty much the same tedious duplication of pieces we had already designed.  We don't like to work on a deadline but when it was all over, we found that it was well worth the effort both financially and creatively.  Forcing us to produce on a deadline with an assembly line style, we came away being able to produce larger amounts of other items such as beads and buttons in a shorter time period.  This became the basis of an increasingly successful wholesale business to yarn and quilt stores.

Salmon Festival is Now Over

The Salmon Festival is now over and it was a extremely successful this year.  They had a count of more than 160,000 visitors over the three week period which is a lot of people for a town of a population of only 3000.

I want to thank Lynn Erin for the wonderful job she did of running the gift shop set up in the log cabin.  She was there every day, rain or shine, and worked tirelessly with always a cheerful smile.  Lynn has the Fireweed Art Studio in the area and this is an example of one of her gorgeous paintings:

Salmon Festival is Almost Over

These last three weeks seem to have been a blur and now this Sunday will be the final day to the end of the Salmon Festival.  We went out again this morning to add a few more salmon pieces to our display and hopefully there will be enough to last the weekend but if they sell out, that will be all right too!

I thought I would show you some more photos of the area since it wasn't too crowded with people this time.

One of the main focuses of the Salmon Festival is education and so every student from every school in the whole surrounding area comes to this event.  The other day we counted 11 school buses lined up and there were more arriving on a steady basis.

Another main attraction there was all the food.  There was everything from salmon burgers to salmon chowder with other types of goodies.  This booth shown here was extremely popular with their traditional native cuisine including delicious home made bannock.

The salmon society partners with First Nations People and this authentic TeePee was one of their displays.

Today was much quieter than other days but I know it will be busy again over the weekend.

More Salmon for the Festival

We left a nicely filled display in the gift shop at the Salmon Festival last week hoping there would be enough stock to last over the weekend.  But with over 100,000 people so far, we weren't surprised when we got a call Sunday morning to come out and refill our display again.  So I'm back to making up another batch of red and green salmon in pins, magnets, earrings, pendants, pens and switchplate covers.

This event has been so overwhelming, yet successful - but I really am ready to turn in my fishing license after it is over!  lol!

One thing this event has taught me is how to speed up my production time. Instead of creating individual clay pieces one at a time, I found myself working in batches of a dozen or so at a time.

This is a new salmon design I created by carving out a template from my own drawing and then stamping it into clay.  The pieces are then colored with gold mica powders and alcohol inks.

I also apply these fish pieces to other items like pens and switchplate covers.

Update on the Salmon Festival

We made a trip out to the Adams River today to restock the display in the gift shop as we knew items were either sold out or getting low.  This was our 4th time we needed to add more pieces and the festival is only one third over.  We decided to go out early and beat the crowd since it is our Thanksgiving holiday today.  Were we in for a shock when we arrived at 8:00 am.  There were already half dozen tour buses plus many private cars parked.  The gift shop wasn't open yet so I had my chance to take a few photos.

Was a little crisp but a beautiful sunny morning so thought we'd take a walk down the paths and view the salmon again.    We were amazed at how many people were there that early in the morning already!  As a matter of fact there are thousands of visitors every day with well over 100,000 visitors expected over the 3 week period of the festival.

Here are some tourists on one of the viewpoints overlooking the river.

There were more fish this time and the river is getting crowded.

The current in the water is very strong and the fish really struggle to maintain their guarding spot over the eggs they laid.  They will keep guarding their nest until they finally die.  Here is a fish trying to guard its eggs and we watched it chase several other fish away from its nest, all the while fighting the strong river current.

We have a few more photos posted on our facebook fan page so feel free to check them out there...

More new pieces for the Salmon Festival

We made a quick trip out to the Adams River yesterday to see which art pieces have sold and what we need to make more of.  There were a lot more holes on our display than expected so I have to get busy and make more.

Here are some more switchplate covers with a different look.

Some pens done in a similar style.

We really like the twist pens from Boston Craftworks but were looking for something a little more economical to cover and sell as another option.  Surfingcat and Angela from Crafty Goat's Notes each had great blog posts sharing various pens they had experimented with in covering and we really liked the Bic Soft-feel Retractable Click pen the best which is what we used here.  They come apart, simple to cover and then put back to together again.  One tip I learned about covering this type of barrel is to smooth a very thin layer of liquid clay all over before applying the sheet clay to eliminate any air pockets underneath.

First sights of the Spawning Salmon

It was a gorgeous sunny day when Dave and I delivered our art pieces to the gift shop at the Adams river park yesterday.  We took a stroll down the path and over the several bridges to see all the salmon that were spawning and what an awesome sight it was!  The fish were much larger and more majestic than I imagined they would be.  I love their rich red and green colors they transform into by the time they reach their spawning grounds.  The fish were very active, splashing about and literally jumping out of the water.  Both male and female will guard their eggs until they eventually die.

The whole experience was very awe inspiring and with it only taking place every four years is quite exciting to not only see it up close and personal but to participate in such an event is a real privilege.  Here are a couple photos I took of the fish while there.

Return of the Sockeye - Ready or Not!

After a few set-backs this past week with Dave in the hospital for four days, we still managed to have over 100 pieces of various items finished and ready to sell at the Salute to the Sockeye Event.

There is a log cabin at the local provincial park where the Salmon society are setting up a gift shop with various items from local artists.  We provided all sorts of goodies to sell including pens, magnets, jewelry, and even switch plate covers.  I created a good amount of spawning salmon pieces as well as other nature themed items.  Here is a photo of our display set-up --.  They are still working on getting the gift shop ready for it to open this Saturday so I will have more pictures for you later.

Here are some of the items we created for this event:

Totem Inspired Salmon Pins

Here are some more salmon pins I've been making in a different style to sell at the Salute to the Sockeye at Adam's River this year.  The technique is a spin on Julie Picarello's "lizard tails" and even though each fish was created individually in the same way, no two come out exactly alike.

They are in the same bright red and green as the spawning salmon as they turn this color by the time they reach the end of their trip where they spawn.  This style was inspired by the first nations native style art in our area.  The spawning grounds where the salmon return to is very important and sacred to them.  The salmon symbolize dependability and renewal as well as a provider of food.

Preparing for the Return of the Sockeye

I've been in full production these days preparing for the Return of the Sockeye  starting October 2nd.  There was an abundance of salmon this summer -- (millions) -- out in the Pacific ocean and a good amount of those are heading our way inland to spawn in the Adam's River.   We were fortunate to be juried into the local artisan gift shop they have set up at the log cabin there each year.  Thought I would show you how my spawning salmon pins are put together -- each one formed by hand so there are no two alike.

Salute to the Sockeye 2010

Every year in October, thousands of spawning salmon swim up from the Pacific Ocean and make their way inland to Adams River where they lay their eggs.  The Adams River Salmon Society organizes a Salute to the Sockeye at Roderick Haig Brown Park attracting more than 100,000 visitors over a three week period.  There is a gift shop set up in a log cabin in the park where many of the local artists sell their work.  I had the pleasure of being juried in for this year which will be most exciting.

Here is a salmon brooch pin and earrings I made as samples to sell along with my other nature themed pieces.