In the perfect summer weather of a lazy Saturday afternoon, a woman stops by a booth at the Des Moines Arts Festival.

“Did she make any more flower vases?”

A look of hope and a smile accompany the question, as she is answered.

“No, sorry.”

On Friday, Jill Anne Benedict, who graduated from Iowa State with a bachelor of fine arts degree in May, had seven flower vases on the wall behind her. Many of the bright yellow and turquoise vases had disappeared by early Saturday evening. One remaining vase, with flowers curled over the edge, has a small white sticker labeled “sold.”

On a table nearby, a certificate stood reflecting the sun. The certificate says Benedict has been selected as “Best of Show” for the Emerging Iowa Artists category.

Benedict says she is honored by the award, but the response she is getting from other artists and festival attendees is also rewarding.

“People are coming by so excited,” she says.

Benedict has a few pieces left of the couple hundred she says she brought. For six weeks she worked day and night to produce the volume of work she toted to Des Moines.

Much of her time was spent in the ceramics studio at Iowa State, she says, with another ISU graduate, Tammy Kopecky, also chosen to show at the festival.

“I think the studio is just big enough to [fit two people],” Benedict says.

The two spent practically every day mixing their own glaze and clay, producing items as fast as they could.

“I tried to make as much as possible,” she says.

Kopecky and Benedict spent much of their six weeks with Andrea Hovan, a photography graduate. Hovan stored many of her materials in the ceramics studio, she says.

“Last Saturday was the last time [Tammy and I] slept at our houses,” Hovan said.

A refrigerator and microwave were brought into the studio, and the three women often ate while they worked, Andrea says.

Small joys were found for both Kopecky and Benedict in the kiln where their pieces were fired.

“Every time you open the kiln, it’s like Christmas all over again,” Kopecky says.

Despite the hard work and little sleep, all three artists have found success in showing at the Des Moines Art Festival.

It was nice to get the feedback from the public, Kopecky says.

“If you’re in the studio every day, you don’t get a lot of contact [with the outside world],” she says.

Sales for Kopecky were extremely successful, she says. Out of about 200 pieces she brought, around 50 were left Saturday evening.

Hovan says the chance to show her art at the festival was something she would not have been able to achieve on her own.

The booth fee and studio space were donated to the artists by Iowa State and the festival.

Hovan did not do as well sales-wise during the three-day festival, she says, but she received many offers for commissioned pieces and got to watch passersby experience her art.

Her art, which is photos of old signs found in Iowa layered with a piece of Plexiglas and a black and white transparency of the photo on top, seems to move, depending on which angle it’s looked at.

Hovan says she was once told people only look at a piece of art for an average of three seconds.

“People notice the picture moving, and try to find the angle,” she says. “[That’s] the best response.”