Crafting a Beautiful Life

I have been struggling with insomnia for a little over a week now.  I wake up like clockwork at 3:30 a.m.  I do some thinking and then I try to discipline myself to do an exercise a friend told me about that really does help me sink back into sleep if I work at it:  I subtract 7 from 100 until I fall asleep.  It is so boring, inevitably, I drift off before I can reach 65.  It helps that I am terrible at mental math. Scientifically speaking, it works because it accesses the dull, logical part of my brain, not the part that is feeling everything. 

Last night while I was in the thinking stage, I thought maybe I would just write a bit about what my life looks like these days because it is changing.  It always helps me to come back to my blog and see how much things have changed in my life after a certain amount of time has past.  I'm blogging this for my own benefit more than anything.

So this is how I am spending my life right now:

Three days a week I get up and go the gym. In January, almost inexplicably, I started running for the first time in my life. I will be writing more about that soon.

On Mondays and Thursdays, I spend a couple of hours at Stacie Bloomfield's office, otherwise known as Gingiber LLC headquarters.  Stacie is an enormously successful and incredibly hard-working Etsy seller who has grown to the point of needing some contract labor to help ship her orders.  I have so enjoyed this and learned some things that I will be writing about too.

On Tuesday nights, I am leading an Experimental Collective focused on using used items to help others.  So far, we have watched "The Story of Stuff,"  an excellent overview of consumerism in America.    I will definitely write more about this as we physically disseminate a huge pile of "stuff" that has been donated by Vintage Fellowship for the exercise of learning to be better consumers, better donators, better philanthropists, better citizens of the world.

I am currently a tenant in two flea markets: my booth at the Fayetteville Trading Post is being used by the Experimental Collective to generate cash for our experiment, but it does have quite a bit of my stuff in it still as I am phasing out this booth from my sole responsibility. I also have a space at the 410 Vintage, where my idea was to sell off some of my large mosaic projects.  So far, it hasn't been a big money maker.  I'm going to give it another few weeks and see if it takes an upswing.  Flea markets take time, though, and I'm not sure I want to keep spending it there.  The jury is still out on this.

I am still operating my Etsy stores selling vintage in The Classic Butterfly and mosaics at The Mosaic Butterfly.  These are still a big part of my life and a great creative outlet. 

I also spend a portion of time at Heartwood Gallery where I display my smaller mosaic works (because of space limitations.)  I really enjoy working on displays in the whole gallery and that seems to be my best contribution to this collective of artists.  

Another small side project right now is assisting my good friend Holly Shacklett as a substitute helper in her organizing business.  She has a business partner, but sometimes she needs some extra hands, and that really satisfies a part of me that like to make a real, tangible difference. 

Robb and I have begun to collaborate on a podcast.  This tool for promoting his book is a really fun way for us to open the conversation up to other people to tell their stories of transition and transformation.  So far we have interviewed two really interesting guys and continue to work out the kinks of technology.  This project really excites me because it allows people in on something that Robb and I are good at....talking to one another about the things that we have devoted our lives to.   I will definitely be writing more about this too. 

It seems at times that I am too busy.  But the truth is, that these things take up as much time as I let them.  Recently, l came to the conclusion  that my life was missing a big rock in my big jar of pebbles.  It's easy to fill up my time on Facebook or Pinterest, hovering over my online stores and the promotion that is necessary for them, and other really secondary things. I have made some big realizations in the last month thanks to my activities. Doing things has helped me learn things that I wouldn't know otherwise.  I look forward to sharing more about that soon.  But for right now, these are some of the things that I am devoting my time and energy towards.  I am really fortunate to have the freedom to weave my life this way, but it has also been very deliberate.  Exploring what you want out of the life you have been given is important work. 

Things I Love - Jeanne Oliver Designs

Awhile ago, whilst bumbling around Etsy, I came across this print and had that immediate, emotional response of finding something really meaningful.  We've been on a little quest as a family for some time now, finding art that looks like us. We created a gallery wall of our Dopplegangers. 

It started with a book Dr. Carter gave me years ago that included free prints from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  The red-haired bushy-goateed man made us laugh because it looked like Robb. I stayed late at a hot, Michigan auction waiting for the antique print of the boy with with the broken brim, who looked like Vin to me already years ago.  The story was that the family who's things were being auctioned had lost a little boy years ago. His classmates had pooled their money to buy the print for the family because they said it looked like the boy.   Then Mattie did a self-portrait in second grade that ended up on display at the Art Center of the Ozarks. And when I met a fellow Etsy artist at a show a couple of years ago, her diminutive print of "Spice" was my Charleigh.  In Jeanne Oliver, I found mine.

And a word to the fellas.  If you struggle to identify meaningful gifts, look only to your significant other's Etsy favorites.  It's a little gallery where you cannot go wrong. You stroll in when you have time, pick anything, and become an instant hero.  Trust me on this.

Captions Welcome

Found her at the flea market (where I swear, I buy more than I sell, but I digress...) She will be in the Etsy store soon, but I am looking for just the right description of her facial expression. Your witty captions are welcome.

New Bouquets

Not sure if these will go into the Heartwood Gallery or if I will add them to the Etsy store.







This one is my favorite.

Barabara's Gardens

When I did the Jones Center Craft fair, I met some wonderful people. One of them was Georgia, the new owner of Barbara's Gardens, a local garden center in Springdale. She invited me to sell my wares in her shop, and even featured my work in her tv commercial!

Growing up, my dad owned a local garden store and I spent many happy hours dusting and stocking shelves of garden supplies and dead-heading plants. There's a smell about it that I just love. I feel really at home there and it's no surprise that I would gravitate to outdoor mosaics. I have three more pots to create sitting on my work table and I'm just waiting for an idea to pop into my head.

So if you are in the northwest Arkansas area and are looking for some garden inspiration, rare plants, dirt, compost, statuary or even a garden related gift, stop by. It's on 71B in Springdale, kissing the border of Lowell.

Gather Up the Fragments

My sea-shell encrusted chalkboard is featured in this months' issue of Arkansas At Home Magazine, which is available in stores now. You can also see it on the internets here under "Cottage Industry."

I'm in Love

Of all the things I love about china mosaic, my favorite thing of all is the backstamp. I've made three pieces so far devoted entirely to the joy and wonder I feel when I turn a plate over and see an inky mark under the glaze that tells me where this thing came from, how old it is, who made it, and by extension, the journey this piece has been on to get to my little studio.

I finished my third piece tonight and sat down to wonder if anyone else shares my strange obsession. It turns out, they do.

I give you, "Made in England" by Emma Biggs. I just found her website, but I'm pretty sure we could be best friends.

Of Men and Angels

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal."

Arkansas at Home Magazine

is doing a story about Arkansas Etsy artists. Their editor contacted me yesterday to tell me that they love my products and would like to include 3 examples of my work in their story for the June issue.

See how cool I'm pretending to be?

Mattie and I have been jumping up and down and squealing. And Vin told me I was quote, "impressive."

If you were here, I'd shove you with an Elaine Benes, "GET OUT."

Hope

On Friday, the girls and I spent the day shopping together. Mattie has a flair for hats and Charleigh is always an easy-going retail buddy. The thrift stores on our circuit are all fans of Charleigh and many of the managers know her by name. We did lunch and Mattie ran the ipod, and we had a lot of fun.

The best score of the day was when we found a stack of old prints and frames. I paid just a dollar a frame and 10 dollars for two prints, (which turned out to be three prints when I disassembled them.) These are all at least 100 years old, I estimate.

The most interesting was this print, which was signed in each corner in pencil. Signed things are always a good bet. I may have balked a bit at spending 10 dollars on a print, but my instincts about the picture told me to go ahead. I rarely examine things closely in the store. I just get this fluttery feeling around my heart that tells me to buy something. So I bought it.

After a bit of research, I found out that this was painted by a Victorian artist named George Frederic Watts in 1885 shortly after the death of the daughter of one of his close friends. The painting is entitled HOPE. It is one of his best known works and is indicative of the Symbolist movement. The girl is sitting on top of the globe, blindfolded, wearing rags, playing a harp which has all but one string broken. You can feel the chill from the mist at her feet. Some people find it gloomy.

I do not.

I find it curious that this image came into my life at a time when I was really listening for it. While listening to Rob Bell's Lenten teaching when he talked about how when things are at the there very worst, that makes a crack, a space, for hope.

As I further researched, I learned that this painting has been an inspiration to Barak Obama; According to the curator of the Watts Museum...

Most recently and dramatically is the influence that it has had on the next President of the United States of America. The painting inspired a lecture by Dr Frederick G. Sampson in Richmond, Virginia, in which he discusses at length Watts’s Hope. This inspired the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who was present at this lecture, to give a powerful sermon in 1990 called The Audacity to Hope. This was attended by the 29-year-old Barack Obama, who at the time was in his second year at Harvard Law School and president of the Harvard Law Review. Here the President first saw Watts’s painting and was deeply inspired by the sermon which provided the title for his second autobiographical book. Obama’s Hope is one rooted in a deep faith in the American Dream, ‘the true genius of America’ he writes is ‘a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence of small miracles.’ If Watts had never painted Hope who knows…

A copy also hung in the prison cell of Nelson Mandela.

I think that says something about the strength of the image, don't you?

My copy is a nice lithograph by a good firm in New York City. I suspect it dates to the early 1900s. The pencil writing is likely just for identification, not a signature. If you know something about this print that I have not been able to find online, I would love to hear about it! Can you make out the words or numbers above the pencil name "Watts?"

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree

Mattie painted this with tempera paint at school. I popped it in this frame I found while out and about the other day and liked the effect.

Wanted

For the next couple of months, Barbara's Gardens, where I have a number of my mosaics on consignment, will be closed to get organized under the new manager. I hadn't had much chance to think about what I would do with my pieces during this time, other than hope they sold on ETSY.

I just got a call from the Heartwood Gallery. They had an artist leave the gallery and needed to fill that space. The owner called to say that the jurors had met and wanted me to be the replacement artist!

I don't have enough work just now to fill both places, but if I shuffle a bit, and get into the groove, I know I can have plenty for both places by spring. I had just been praying this morning about my frustrations with the house and all the stuff I have piled up in here and the claustrophobic feeling it sometimes produces. But with a goal to work toward, I can easily find the motivation to keep materials coming in and product going out.

Housel Silhouette Pictures

I found a couple of these in my travels to and fro and really liked them. When I started to research the name, to my absolute delight, I found one of the original handmade success stories. Kaye Housel started making silhouette pictures for a school fund raiser back in 1946 and now, there are three generations of silhouette makers in her family. I think you will enjoy this story.

Just a Heads Up

I spent most of yesterday prepping the show items to go into my Etsy store (which is currently set to display my homage to Betty Draper). For those of you who were interested, the black cabinet and faces mirror are available!

War Eagle Craft Fair

I had just a half hour to visit the last moments of the craft fair at War Eagle. This is the largest fair in the state, and brings people from Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kansas, and more. As you can see, the picturesque setting alone is worth the visit!

Notes from the Show

I'm not sure I can even pick a spot to start telling you all about the show....Thank you all for being so interested and supportive. It was a great experience once I finally got going. Getting there was a ton of work, but considering the fact that I had just 10 days to get ready for it, I think we did all right. I signed up for next year already so I could have the same booth assignment, which would be fine by me because my "neighbors" to the right of me were just darling and I want to be able to see them again, they were so cute. Honestly, I made some good friends with some of the other vendors and they were incredibly supportive of me. In fact, when I sold my big mirror...my biggest sale....the other vendors applauded. Wasn't that nice of them? It was like being queen for the day.

Well, Becky, I didn't sell it all, but I did sell about a third of my pieces including the big mirror, the orange letterbox, and the small round table you see in the pictures. I passed out over 75 business cards, got two custom orders, three offers to teach classes, one offer to put my stuff in their place on consignment, and another connection with a non-profit organization. I also have a date to grout over the memorial plate of the house of 85 year old twins who live in town and hate the fact that their house has somebody else's name on the foundation. They said I looked like a clever girl who could make it "right" for them. I suspect I can fix it in such a way that the next owners will be delighted to uncover the house's history!

This show was put on by the hospital auxiliary, who also run one of the thrift stores that save their broken wares for me. Many of the volunteers came down to see my booth and what I do with their broken odds and ends. They were so excited to see what I do and have two more boxes of broken goods for me.

On Friday and Saturday, I brought a shallow box and a set of teacups to make decorative mosaic balls and some small trays as a demonstration. I think this brought more people into the booth than might have stopped otherwise and I actually sold a small tray as I finished grouting it. It was not yet dry, but the lady was very happy with it. This also passed the time.

Saturday proved to be a much better day for sales with 7 items going out that day. I was pretty happy with the outcome overall, but the other crafters told me that this year was quite slow in comparison and that they hoped I wasn't too discouraged to try again next year. They cited the economy and also the weather being so perfect all weekend as factors. This is a huge crafting weekend in our area with the biggest show being an outdoor one at War Eagle Mill. It usually rains at least one day of this fair, sending people to the indoor shows. Since it remained fine all weekend, the other crafters thought this might be a factor for the slowness.

With a year to prepare instead of 10 days, I have lots of ideas for next time. I learned a lot about the way the shows work and have some ideas of things I would do a little differently. All in all, though it was really fun to have face to face contact with people and see their reactions to my work. It was especially interesting from where I was sitting to see people stop and look at the small items in the green flower-box on the front of the orange door.

The van is not even unloaded yet. I have about a thousand things to do, not the least of which is getting my etsy store back in order. I am looking forward to getting my house and yard in order, catching up on church work, emails I haven't had time to read, and the like. I intended to sit around and do nothing today, but I might be too anxious to get things settled back into normalcy. I'm especially looking forward to having a nice meal with my family tonight. I've eaten all of my meals in the last 5 days off a paper plate, or perched on my lap, or in the car. It will be a novel treat to eat off a plate instead of smashing it for a change!

quick update

One more day of the show, and I (and about 50 other vendors) are hoping that business picks up tomorrow. I sold just two things today around 10 a.m. this morning and then the day went on 'til 8 p.m. Yesterday was pretty good, though. I had a great time networking, however, today. You never know how things will play out when you are able to connect with other people....your ideas plus their ideas....it gets interesting.

I got sick on Wednesday night and lost my voice, not to mention the craziness involved with getting the show together with more ideas than time to execute them. When Thursday morning rolled around, Robb got ready to leave for work and tried to kiss me goodbye and I just cracked....like a fragile little egg. I just burst into tears and begged him not to leave me. And you know what? He took a vacation day and stayed with me. He took the kids to school and got me coffee throughout the day and just generally was my hero. I feel so spoiled and a little ashamed for falling apart, but I was just so freakin' tired and spent and, as we say at our house, frail. I must have told him ten times how much it meant to me to have him be there for me. It was just one of those moments...

Today, my girlfriend Jasmine came to sit with me and help. She helped the day go by so quickly. It made the day very enjoyable, even without making much by way of sales.

So we'll see what happens tomorrow. All total, I have sold 9 out of 40 pieces. I won't feel too badly if it's not all gone because it will be good to have some stuff in my Etsy store. I've met some wonderful people and I have so enjoyed the display and merchandising part of selling that I don't usually get to do with the online store. It's fun to see people's faces as they study each piece. I've gotten a lot of offers to teach some classes, which I will most likely do, when I can. This is the kind of craft you don't mind sharing your tips about since everyone makes it differently.

Enjoy the photos, Mom!

My First Show-The Official Recap

 
 
 
 

Friday night found me with just a few more details to finish up on my last minute ideas, the car to load, and the house in a total mess. Robb was wonderful, though, and as I priced, he attached the tags and packed the boxes, and then the van. With everything loaded, including touch up paint and my tools just in case, I was much too amped to settle down and sleep. To calm my jitters, I found myself cleaning for the first time in a while...vaccuuming, cleaning toilets and folding laundry that had been piling up. Finally around midnight, with the help of a very funny comic, I was able to drift off to sleep.

Bright and early, I pulled out of the driveway with a minivan that felt even more like a loaf of bread than ever. Arriving at 6:45, all of the shady spots were already taken, and I wondered, "WHEN did they get here???" A fellow crafter loaned me her extra tent and she and her husband helped me set it up. I am looking forward to getting one of these for myself as I know it would be super useful on many occasions.

So set up was done by 9:00, my girl H had arrived bearing some kind of culinary wonder called a sausage roll, which consisted of meat wrapped in a donut, fellow artists flanked me with abstract paintings and hand-blown glass, and a few middle-aged women strolled by with friends or husbands, not knowing we were all seeing bulls-eyes on their chests. And then we waited.

I made a quick pass through the other tents to see what else there was to see, but lets be honest....we're all starving and don't make very good customers to one another!

Next thing I knew, I sold my first piece...the green mailbox. It was a sweet couple who admired all my pieces and claimed all my prices were wonderful. And just like that, I had covered my entrance fee and had actually made a profit! It was a miracle! More miracles ensued as the cherry lazy susan disappeared, followed by the miniature bouquets, the large floral bouquet, the teapot and a rose tray, and the brass and copper coat hook. All the pieces got lots of love and admiration from various people, and the black cupboard was by far the favorite of everyone. At one point a member on the board of the Community Creative Center gave me her number and asked me to consider teaching a class. Business cards were tucked away, with explanations about the wonderful world of Etsy and how to find my shop online. The buyer of my decoupage traincase inquired, "Where will you be next?" I shrugged, "I don't know...this is just my first show..."
"This is NOT your first show!!!" she demanded, giving me the courage to inquire post haste about where I might look into showing next.

A lovely family with teenagers arrived, and I heard them before I saw them..."This looks just like Vanessa's kind of stuff!" It was our friends from VF and how we laughed that apparently, my style is unique!

The owner of the gallery stopped in to check on me part way through the day and was drawn in to look carefully at my stuff. Having been denied once, I was careful to really polish each piece to the standard they had set for me. While looking intently at the cupboard, he declared, "We're going to need to find you some space in the gallery." This to me, was the biggest success and one of my major objectives.

At the end of the day, though it had been slow, I was able to report that I had sold a third of my pieces. I felt like that was important too, to let them know that my work was well-received. Indeed, people were very receptive and always interested in the details about each piece. That was super-gratifying.


All in all, if 100 more people had been there (it was a slow day for everyone) I think it would have been crazy. As it was, it was a perfect first experience. Not so busy as to be overwhelming, but profitable enough to make the work seem worth it and not a total waste of time. I will be looking to be a part of any other show I can enter, while at the same time, I've got some great new things to add to my etsy shop.

The Short Answer

I know SOME of you are very interested in hearing the details about the art show, and I am anxious to put up pics, etc. for your enjoyment. The short answer as to how it went is "good." I spent all of Sunday in hard-core ministry, yesterday at the Tulsa Zoo, and today....well today included the arrival of the effects Hurricane Gustav, a dead car battery, the farmers' market, the library, the vet's office, Sam's, Aldi and Walmart, where I got a phone call that Vin had thrown up at school...I am, quite, frankly, so tired, if you look at me funny, I'll burst into tears. By tomorrow, I will probably be much less hormonal, and much more able to put actual sentences together without....

I look forward to that.

Yup it's official...

I'm crazy.

The truth is, I never actually finish any of my pieces until they are ready to go out the door. I usually post them to Etsy before they have backing or details, sometimes without sealer and other stuff that doesn't show. It's this weird thing about me, but I saw Ty Pennington on Leno one night and he said he was going to have a T-shirt made that said, "Why finish something when you can start a new project?" That's me!

So yeah, I've got my pieces 95 percent ready to go, and I'm waiting for grout and sealer and glue to dry and so I think to myself, "Self, you've got a little grout left...what can you whip up?" And so I started another mailbox and a decoupage train-case. Why wouldn't I?