Display changes

       Each year after the Christmas season is over and inventory is done , the gallery where I have my

work does a clean up and rearranging. . This is a great practice and we all get energized by it.

       Last year part of the cleanup was a plan to transition all the fiber displays onto rolling units that

could be pushed out of the way when an event was being held at the gallery. This meant that I needed

to come up with a plan to move the items from my stationary display near the front of the store onto

some sort of rolling display back near the back door.

      The stationary display was about 3 x 8. My rolling display had to take up less space. I've long

contended that fiber looks better when there is a mass of it , unless it is extremely upscale stuff. The

display space in the other gallery I was part of was very limited and I sold very little there .

      There was one thing I did learn from this experience. I had to provide my own display equipment

for the slat wall in this gallery and was sent to a local display store to look for it.  This place was huge

and full of revelations. One of the most useful things I saw there was grid wall display.While I've

always seen this at craft shows and thought it looked a bit cheap , I figured if I massed enough

crochet on it the grid wall would be covered. And I was desperate . I couldn't think of any other

display option that would roll . Here is what I wound up with -

     This worked for awhile . It did get rolled too close to other displays and sometimes it would

capture part of the other display in the crochet , but it did sell.

    The next time my rent was due , however , the gallery owner offered me an entire 10 x 10 space.

This was something I've always wanted , but there were very few of these , so I never thought it

would happen.

     Now I knew all about grid wall , so I got some more. We agreed that some more homey touches

would be good. I'm sure a completely hand made display would have been better , but it would have

been too time consuming. Here's the  result -

I have already added more to this and moved some of it around. I like the flexibility of it.

Play with the Display

Craftspeople obsess about their displays. Every Artist or craft person I know has several display options tucked away somewhere because , not only do we like options , we are never satisfied. I have two craft mediums that I exhibit currently , so that means more displays. There are two different displays for shows , and I have work displayed in two different stores , each with it's own display. It gets confusing.

My Stained glass displays evolved over the years. First there was the home made deal. The studio plumbing was revamped and I made display racks from the old copper pipes. These lasted longer than I would have thought , but when I eventually found a custom stained glass display made from aluminum, I went ahead and replaced the copper with this. The new display was really versatile and sturdy. It is no longer being made. Stained glass is less popular , and I suspect the metal in the display is costing much more. The original price was $1,200 . I could probably get quite a bit for the aluminum. And the copper display might bring in even more. Here's the aluminum one :

Very versatile. You can use as many segments of it as you want , in many different configurations. The only problem was that each section is 3 feet wide and either needs to ride on roof racks or inside a large enough mini van.

Last year , though , I quit doing stained glass at shows. I now only have it in one store , as I am phasing myself out of it. The display it's on in the store is pretty amazing. Also home made. I have no photo of this , but it's basically some wooden rails suspended from a high ceiling.

When I transitioned my shows to all crochet I just used the same display and adapted it. It worked really well , but there was still the drawback of the rails and sections being 3 feet wide and six feet long. Here's a photo of the same display with crochet.

Looks pretty good , but part of me wanted something that would go into my Honda Fit.

Then there are the store displays. I have work in two stores. In one , I brought my own display for the crochet. The stained glass was displayed as described above. The crochet display was really just some room

dividers with rails adapted for crochet. What I like about it is that people can walk around all sides of it and the majority of what is there is easy to reach and touch.

In the other store I have only crochet. I am required to display this on a two foot section of slatwall , six feet high. There is some shelving below the slatwall. I have been struggling with this display because it is not what I'm used to. I'm thinking I need to approach it as a place where there are just a few precious pieces of work that I change out from time to time. What has sold there so far has been fairly high end. The other store has a bunch of work where everyone can touch it. This display seems more geared to just looking :

best tools in the studio

The studio was built in the mid 1800s. Very little insulation ; none in the floors. There's a heater in the main room , but it won't heat the whole studio. Nothing will heat the floors. So I don't go to the studio without these tools:

Yes, they are quite dirty. They are for the studio only and have acquired a patina of flux , solder sparkles , and studio dust. I got them on sale for almost nothing and the line has been discontinued. I really regret this. The sheepskin lining is much thicker than what I see for sale now. They are made to fit wide calves and come almost to the knee. I don't care about fashion.

Once I've been in the studio long enough for the cold to creep around the edges of even these , it's time to go a few yards back to my cozy house with the wood heater .

SO NICE !

Multi - Medial

Years ago in Art school we were taught to work in lots of different medias. The portfolio we submitted covered six different types of art ; two types of three dimensional sculpture , and four types of 2-D work , including the photography used to submit our slides ( are the images submitted digitally these days....I know we've switched to that for art shows ).

Working in all these different areas put me outside my comfort zone , but I'm glad it did. It's come in handy. And allowed me to work in two different craft media at once , which may have doubled my profits.

There's glass :

painted glass tree - stained glass frame

And there's free - form crochet :

And sometimes there are other things:

These are wet - felted fairy nests. We needed some more fiber stuff for a show at the gallery. It gave me a chance to play.

More stuff for the fiber show. Here I yarn - bombed a child's rocking chair and added wings to it . Not sure why.

This guy is a needle - felted greenman tapestry I made for my booth at the Renaissance Faire . I had a hard time keeping the cats off this as I worked.

Then there's my only venture into public art. This is the Mirror Wolf . Part of the Raleigh Red Wolf Ramble . Yes , that's a whole bunch of individual mirror placed on him with adhesive. And yes , I'm out of my mind to have done that.

But you can see I haven't been bored.

 FIRST DAY of " RETIREMENT "

  Everyone advised me to sleep late and wake up with nothing to do. Set the tone for your future. Leave the slate blank. Oh , well ; I blew that. I got home from my last day of work at midnight. Got up at 7 A.M. and went to the Carthage , N.C. Tractor show. This is a world class event.

And while I'm really not that into tractors , I'm into art. And old stuff . And I'm curious about things I know little about.

 It turns out that this show has about a dozen very large buildings full of vintage heavy equipment. Much of it runs and is being driven around the large property that houses all this. Steam powered,coal powered, diesel , gas . From the size of a small house to toys .

It was such perfect weather  Here's the link ......http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.edervillenc.com/&sa=U&ei=NvleVK__OYeeyATS4ICABQ&ved=0CBQQFjAA&sig2=7ZlnlEGzH8cLG49n9PcwKg&usg=AFQjCNGzGZB12E9whf_47pPW-iIkGM2Msw

As if this wasn't a full day , we had to balance all this yang with some yin by going to a great gallery in Seagrove , N.C. Not far from Carthage , Seagrove is a pottery destination. I do not have the official count of how many galleries are in this area , but it is huge. We specifically went to visit the gallery of a friend of a friend :http://www.potteryroad.com/waltons.html

 I'm an official pottery addict. I've been on pottery probation for countless years , but I found things here that I had not seen before and just had to have. The gallery displays it's wares on a big collection of vintage stoves and other antiques.https://www.facebook.com/potteryroad

There were plenty of choices for Christmas presents and I found the perfect bowl for a serving of salad.....just the right size with deep enough sides that would keep the salad contained. 

Just a wonderful first day of freedom.

It's always possible

kiln - carved glass

This blog is about never giving up your art. I have been earning money as an artist since I was twelve. There were many years when it was not enough to support me. During a bad economy years ago I started another career and kept my art going as well. Now I am retiring early from the other career and going back to just art.

Over the years of doing art and craft shows and being involved in exhibitions and galleries , I have met and been friends with many artists.  Very few of them have been able to make a living on their art alone. All of them have been able to make things work in other ways.

During the 1990s when craft shows flourished and most folks had extra income to spend on arts and crafts , I heard a good bit of talk about artists losing their integrity if they had outside jobs . One customer who was also an art critic asked me if I felt I would be able to elevate the level of my work if I had no other job. Good question.....but the answer surprised us both. It seemed that the pressure of my time limitations pushed me harder to create. I used mental down time at work to problem solve my designs and come up with new ones. I looked forward to getting into the studio each day and this created a balance.

painted and fused glass tree with stained glass frame

What I hope to convey with this blog is a can - do attitude to doing art all your life. I have heard many of my fellow artists say they should just give up since they can't make just their art work as a living. But....There are endless ways to keep doing art.

You may not get rich , but usually there is money to be made ; anywhere from enough to live on to enough to keep buying new supplies ( and for many of us that is enough ). But the most important thing to remember is that art is not just a living from the financial point of view ; it is a living spiritually as well. And if you factor in the possibilities of the internet it is a very good living sometimes. But....never give up. Always keep your soul alive .