I was in Charleston at the Audubon on our opening night and met fellow carver Spencer Tinkham, a great young carver that I only knew online. He said he used to read my blog. That's right, I have a blog, so 1999. Dated or not the blog may be, I decided it was time to catch up.
It's winter, although not as cold as last year and I put some insulation in the roof of my shop which makes it much more comfortable. And Becca got me some UGGS, kind of a game changer on a concrete floor in winter. Winter is a busy time, I have the Easton Waterfowl Festival in November, then Christmas orders and then we have SEWE. I've known Burton Moore at the Audubon Gallery since when blogs were new and hip (around 2000 when I was a student at the College of Charleston). The gallery has been open on King Street for 28 years which makes it the oldest gallery in the city I believe. Anyways, this year was a special show, it featured all 3 McNair carvers for the first time!
If you made it down, you would know that it is a great show in a great town. We got in on Wednesday to get settled in and delivery my inventory to Burton. Thursday I was around town, went for a nice bike ride. Friday was the big day. I worked the phones at the Copley Auction sitting in between Steve and Colin and raising my hand to Peter the Auctioneer whenever someone wanted to spend hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. I left just before the end of the auction, because Friday was also the opening night of our show at the Audubon Gallery. I jumped on my bike and was down to lower King St. in about 4 minutes, a bike is the best way to get around town.
The Audubon show opening was well attended with friends old and new in attendance. The gallery looked spectacular, for the tenth year running. My Aunt Edie and her husband Kenny and my Grandpa Roberts came all the way down from Connecticut. Our friend Bonnie came in from Morocco! It was great to see everyone, and by the end of the evening, Burton had sold just about all of my work! Becca found us a great new Mexican restaurant called Minero that could seat us all (on SEWE and Valentines weekend!) on East Bay where I celebrated with some awesome authentic Mexican food and a Tecate Tall Boy.
On Saturday we met up with friends Mr. C John Sullivan and his friend Peg at a place called Two Boroughs Larder. It's a tradition now (2nd year). The food was still good, but the service was lacking. Step it up Larder! I still need to write the Yelp! review. I also need to figure out what a larder is. I spent the rest of the day cruising around town on the fixie, went up to the Marriott to see the other Auction, and the decoys up there. While I was doing all of this, dinner was being prepared. It started years back with a few Virginia Oysters and clams and some of Burton's ducks and venison on a small grill. Each year has kicked it up a notch, and this year took it to a new level. While Gordy wasn't there with a sandhill crane, Brad Hollon got started at around 6 am with "The Hunley" a smoker that shares a visual likeness with the fabled submersible. He smoked a wild hog that he and Burton had harvested. It was awesome, some of the best pork BBQ I've tasted. There was also venison tenderloin, duck breast, venison pate and sausage, amazing salads, Sewansecott oysters and clams, there was more, but I don't think that I got to try everything. I was essentially 5 meals in one evening. Oh, and fine wines and cocktails. Thanks Bonnie for giving up drinking for lent and getting us home.
Sunday was time to make the rounds and say goodbye. I spend a lot of my time in my shop listening to the radio and make a few phone calls during the day, but mostly its just me until Becca gets home. So its pretty quiet. I make up for it on SEWE weekend. Its an awesome weekend, but pretty exhausting. We were meant to stop in Chapel Hill to visit some friends on the way home, but had to detour around up 95 to make it back before and ice storm rolled in. We got back to Charlottesville just as the flakes started falling and it was good to be home.