Our Lucky Charm

Steph Davies is not only a wonderfully talented artist but she's also one of our "lucky charms," so to speak. Her art exhibitions are always visually engaging and they sell well. This Friday night at 7:00pm Steph will have what I think is her 4th show at Stumpjack, and she's had a boat load of solo and group shows throughout Chicago and Milwaukee.

Being a fellow who believes in karma and maybe even superstitious connections, I at least partially credit Steph for giving us some momentum to make it through last year. Hers was our first art exhibition of 2010 and it was such a positive experience and gave us such a nice push and plenty of good mojo for everything that followed. So, hoping for much the same good, lingering vibe for this year I asked Steph if she would do the first art show for this year too.

Steph is always working, always creating, always stretching her creative muscles, and she's got some great new work to show everyone.

Matt Davies, Steph's husband...well, we've sung Matt's praises as a folk musician so many times already that I'm not sure what I can say to add to it. If you like traditional, heartfelt and honest folk music you'll love Matt's work. My standard Matt Davies line is that the man could sing the phone book and make it sound cool. Matt will be performing while you enjoy Steph's art on the walls.

Be here, Friday (the 21st) at 7:00pm...you'll be glad you came out.

Saturday Night:

After Becky Markvart reminded me a couple weeks ago that the night she was scheduled to perform here was also the same night as the Packers play-off game against the Falcons, we decided to reschedule her performance. This Saturday night (the 22nd) is the night. She'll be kicking it into gear at 7:00pm with a whole bunch of new songs. We'll have some drink special too...not sure what it will be yet but we'll put it up on facebook before Saturday night.

Friday night with Marty & Pat (& sometimes Kim)

Weekend nights when we don't have any musical performances scheduled are usually pretty quiet. We generally don't make any money by being open on those evenings. But they're also some of my favorite nights of the week or month. The night usually consists of the trio of Marty (Suettinger), Pat (Sheahan) and myself sitting up front shooting the breeze, enjoying a few drinks and watching the traffic or very infrequent passers-by (Two Rivers, unfortunately, is not a town with a lot of foot traffic, no matter what time of year it is).

Occasionally other friends join us (Alex, Becky, Mike, Doug, etc). Last night it was Kim, who also had the good hostess awareness to put out a small plate of gouda and triskets. Marty often has some new techno-geek-thingy to confuse us with, and either he or Pat will inevitably take a picture of what we're drinking to put on facebook (below).

"Cheese & wine night at Stumpjack" ~ Martin Suettinger

Merry Christmas!

We sincerely hope that 2011 is a wonderful year for you in all respects. Thank you for your friendship and for hanging out at our coffee house when you can...for some of you it's a weekly thing, for some a summer-time visit, for some it's when you're passing through, and for some who live far away it's mostly online. We thank and love you all.