ohio art

Two Days at Ransom Sage Farm

Collectors, Events, Gallery, Portfolio / By

(posted 12/14/2025)

Last weekend you might have heard I participated for the first time at Ransom Sage Farm’s Christmas Market on December 5&6, 2025. I aim to do at least one local event per year to show my work to northeast Ohioans since a lot of what I do gets sold on Etsy and sent all over the country.

My set up took place Thursday evening. It was cold and snow was everywhere, but thankfully we didn’t get more snow that entire weekend. Chardon is the queen of the snowbelt and could have been a real challenge for us all with any more snow than we’ve had in Geauga County the last few weeks.

The event hosts were very accommodating and open to the type of space I needed for my table and gallery screen. That makes a huge difference in my comfort level with any event. I had ample space on the table to lay out all my new encaustic ceramic ornaments as well as the traditional wood ones and many other small encaustic art pieces. My ever supportive husband was there to help me set everything up and clear out the boxes too.

There were many highlights I recall since I met so many people who were excited to see and learn about the medium. My cousin came with her two children, and I remember several other children who came up to the table interested to see the wildlife images in my art. I handed out many encaustic magnets to the kids who were buying Christmas gifts. I also gave some to beekeepers and other folks who were highly inquisitive about my work.

The most memorable moment I have made me tear up a bit: A man asked me why I named my business Wolf Pup Studio and I told him it’s an homage to my late father whose name was Rolf, which means wolf in German. He looked at me and said “I’m sure he’d be very proud of you.”

Overall the event went very smoothly and I had consistent traffic both days. I sold most all of the ornaments as well as many other art works, new and some old. Here are just some of the pieces that were sold.

Over 40 encaustic ceramic ornaments
Watercolor painting “Low Country Vibe”
Encaustic mixed-media “A New Perfume”
Encaustic mixed-media “Renewal”
Encaustic mixed-media “Stillness No. 3”
Encaustic mixed-media “Julia’s Little Things”
Encaustic mixed-media “Wings No. 2”
Encaustic mixed-media “Wings No. 4”
Photo encaustic “Moreland Meadow No. 7”
Encaustic painting “Golden Gingko”
Suncaustic “C’est la Vie”
Encaustic painting “Sand and Sea”

Dozens of wood ornaments sold as well. I was running low on ornaments by Saturday morning, so I set out many of the birds from my Birdtober series linked here. It was such a pleasure to introduce many people to the artform of encaustic. For an ancient process, it doesn’t have much mainstream exposure.

Speaking of exposure, I was also part of a news story done by a Cleveland videographer Friday night. Even though I was not so enthusiastic to to speak on camera, he was very patient and such a good editor that it turned out fine. The advertising worked because many people came in that morning and said they saw me on tv!

I didn’t have a lot of time to go see my neighboring vendors, but I do recall a few that stood out and/or came over to say hello:
Candle Disco
Elderberry Marsh
Freckles & Flux
Rachel’s Cookie Farm
True North Wood Designs
Jeez That’s Good
Abbey Blake Art
Sage’s Apples

Well I hope you all have a warm and safe holiday season. I’ll catch up with you early next year.

Lessons from Birdtober

Events, Inspiration, Process / By

(posted 10/30/2021)

I am happy to announce I have completed my final bird of Birdtober 2021, a chance for artists of Instagram to show off and/or improve their bird art skills for each day of the month of October. This challenge came from a super talented Texas artist who has my gratitude for the inspiration and education: Andrea Holmes, whose web site is linked here. She brought awareness to the TCA Texas Lights Out for Wildlife campaign, which encourages turning off non-essential lights from overnight during the four months of peak migration, September, October, April, and May. More information can be found at tcatexas.org.

If you are interested in purchasing any of my encaustic birds done on 3 inch wood ornaments, you can find the remaining few in my Etsy shop linked here. Encaustic is something that is far more interesting to experience in person. It has a glow, texture, and scent you obviously don’t glean online.

Here are the 31 birds, keep in mind the photos are in descending order:

Artist choices: 2. Painted Bunting; 9. Short-Eared Owl; 16. Oriole; 23. Piping Plover; 30. Cardinal

Thank you for looking! This ended up being a super rewarding challenge, and I will probably do another one next year. Here are some of the valuable lessons I took from the month’s work –

Work at art. I often create new pieces just as experiment or “playing” in the studio. It’s quite different in a good way for me to have assignments. I’m not often motivated to create lots of art, so this has helped me generate a lot more items to sell than I normally would in a month’s time. I think I should pay attention to that and set more goals for myself in order to bulk up my inventory.

Don’t rush. I didn’t make many mistakes, but I did when I rushed through the work and/or was not “in the moment” but thinking of something else. This proves the fact for me once again that multitasking does not work, and the ability to focus is a wonderful asset. Lists help me stay on track and not forget steps such as signing my drawings. Yes, I forgot to sign one before applying the wax – hopefully just one. I also forgot to paint the edges black on a few.

Be prepared. This was probably my biggest lesson learned. In order to post daily, I created a system to work on groups of birds, usually four at a time. The encaustic ornaments required several steps, including drying time for the paste, so it was always better for me to repeat each step four times in a row rather than work on the entire process at once. My brain is wired that way and I work efficiently like this at my day job, so it was easy for me to create a system and follow it. Giving myself the time to do it was the challenge. I had to look at my calendar weekly and plan which days were available to spend a few hours at a time in the studio.

Don’t compare. If you search the hashtag #birdtober or #birdtober2021 you can see the beautiful work posted by all the participating artists. I’m not the best and I’m not the worst. Where I fall in the middle does not matter to me because when someone looks at the work I create I know mine stands out as unique. Encaustic medium also gives the pieces distinction. I think most encaustic artists have their own unique style and process and that’s one of the reasons I love the medium. My pieces are truly one-of-a-kind.