My booth Saturday evening June 10.

Same booth after the storm on the morning of June 11.

On the morning of Sunday, June 11 a powerful severe thunderstorm, packing nearly 70mph wind gusts and hail, raced across the Twin Cities metro area.

Along with about 150 other artists, I had my photography booth set up at Art on the Lake in Excelsior, MN when the storm hit. While I own the strongest heavy-duty tent available for outdoor art fairs, one that has withstood its share of bad weather, it was no match for this storm.

The good news is that I arrived on site about an hour before the storm hit and was able to remove and secure a number of my most valuable pieces into the safety my vehicle. Miraculously, the vast majority of artwork that remained in the booth through the storm survived unharmed. It could have been much worse! Several artists at this event lost much of their equipment and inventory and my heart goes out to them.