Digging a Hole with a Teaspoon

You have heard the expression of a death by a thousand cuts. This idea is similar. Digging a hole with a teaspoon is slow and you don't really see the progress you are making until suddenly you look up one day and wonder, "How did I get here?"

This is a lesson in not doing as I have done. Heed the warnings.

The problem is, you may, like me, not see how bad it is until the hole is much deeper than you intended. I am talking about pricing. Specifically underpricing. The biggest part of the trap for me, was the idea that "people won't pay more than $xx for this." And I let that idea guide my decisions for too long, even while seeing warning signs along the way.

Cranes. Of course. I seem to live and breath cranes. Cranes to sell. Crane to memorialize. And in this case, the intersection of the two was part of what made me wake up. Let me begin by saying I had increased my crane price three times in the last few years. The wholesale price had doubled over that time.

But....and this is a very big but....the product I am selling today is not the same product I was making and selling then. At first the surface design was fairly simple. And they were not sold in any special packaging, But, I added the packaging and informational inserts, and increased the price significantly. Sales took off. I was a happy camper.

Then, I started playing. I started to do more involved canework on the surface of the cranes here and there. And the customers loved it. "Send more of those ones with all the detailed patterns. Everyone loved them!" I would be pleased with the feedback, but also sigh a bit as I realized it would be more work. Soon that was nearly all I was selling. Meanwhile, the price had only gone up by about a dollar, but the labor was about fourfold more. Folding cranes for the Crane Project put into sharp focus for me just how long it was taking me to make these intricately patterned cranes. I saw what I had been trying to ignore.

Initially when I would ship the cranes across country, I could ship to California or Washington state, Priority Mail, for only about $6 or $7. I offered free shipping. I figured I could easily absorb that into the price structure. Last summer though, the Post Office revamped their price structure, and suddenly it was more than double that cost to ship across country. Ouch! This spring, the prices took another big jump. I had added a shipping surcharge to crane orders west of the Mississippi, but it was not going to be enough.

Then, the breakage started. I had shipped for two years with not one crane breaking. Now, changes in clay formulation have presented challenges. I have had to revamp my packaging, adding further costs. Not to mention the credits or re-shipments I had to make each time a broken crane was reported.

Can you feel my pain?

I had no room in my price structure for all of these problems to converge. But converge they did. With six more crane orders still to ship under the old price schedule, I knew I had to take action. It was time to begin to fill in the hole, and the teaspoon was not going to work. It was time to put things back in order quickly.

My prices have nearly doubled for the intricate cranes that everyone wants. If they want to pay the old prices, they will have to purchase the "Elemental cranes". Solid colors, to represent the five "elements", air, water, earth, fire, and metal. In between those prices I have cranes with crackled leaf.

I am now shipping FedEx Ground, at a much better rate. And I seemed to have solved the problem of breakage for now.

The reaction is unclear. But, in the end, I could not continue on the path I had been traveling.

Lessons, summarized:

1. If you add to your product, acknowledge that. It is a different product. Change the price. Rename it if you need to. Not all cranes were created equally, but I was pricing them as if they were. Some of you will be saying, of course. I would never do that. I hope you are right. But sometimes we do things that don't make sense, because they will be "easier".

2. Don't undervalue your labor. I was doing what I hate. I had gotten myself into a place that all I was doing was covering the costs of my materials and overhead, so I could make more cranes. Don't do that. It does not respect you. If you find yourself saying, "people won't pay...." Stop. If half the people will pay the new price, I will have the same dollar business, for half the work. I can definitely live with that. Too many people have also told me stories of raising prices, and losing their "high maintenance" customers. Another potential benefit.

3. Sometimes we need to re-evaluate suppliers. I had gotten comfortable with shipping my work by Priority Mail. I knew the drill. It was convenient. I didn't want to have to research alternatives. But in the end, I have a good service, for a much lower cost. And, my husband has a FedEx center right near where he works. I don't even have to leave home!

4. Things will change. At some point something you depended upon, and thought you knew will change. You will have to figure out a new way of doing things. I tried to avoid dealing with these issues for too long. I wanted them to go away. I did not have time. (Can you hear the two year-old tantrum welling up?) Once I decided on a plan of action, it was actually less stressful than trying to pretend the problem was not there, or that it would go away on it's own accord. It is not easy to own up to it, but I really did not want to have to deal with this. But being in business for yourself, there will be things that you have to do that you do not want to do. Unless you have employees, there is no one to delegate responsibility for these tasks. So buck up, and deal! And remind yourself how much you are happier doing what you are doing now...in spite of these kinds of stresses. And if you are not, then maybe a bigger change is in order......

Deadlines

My daughter and I were having a conversation the other day about working. She told me she could never be an entrepreneur. She could not imagine working so hard. I love it when someone makes an observation like this. It makes me pause and step back from what I am doing everyday, and see it in a new light.

I do work a lot. Every day. All seven. Too many hours by most any standard. But, for the most part, no one is making me work so much. No one but my own drive and desire. We recently had someone here doing some work on our house, and I commented to him about the hours he worked. He did this as a second job. His weekends, and long evenings were spent in a second job. He quickly questioned my comment in light of my own behavior. He had observed my workaholic tendencies as he spent time in our house. Once again, I had to step back and look at things from another point of view.

As my daughter and I talked, what I began to realize is that the "work" part of what I do is often around deadlines or drudge work that needs to be done. That is the part that most feels like work. But it is only a fraction of the time I spend "working". In comparison, I probably spend less time per week in these tasks that feel like work, than my husband spends at his job in a week. Most of what I do, I enjoy tremendously and so, feel pulled to spend the time doing it.

As I juggle several deadlines in the coming weeks, I am feeling a bit more overwhelmed and under more stress than I normally do. As I work towards these deadlines, I wonder if this is where the line between doing this as work, or as an avocation may lie. As a job, deadlines are regularly popping up on the radar. Show applications. Dates to ship work. Submission deadlines. Deadlines for running an ad, or doing a mailing. With a deadline we can't always follow our muse into the studio. Sometimes we have to shift our focus to the task that must be completed.

But, deadlines may also serve a purpose. A reason to push a piece further. A reason to get the photos taken. A reason to create a body of work. Without deadlines, sometimes things will drift about, to and fro, perhaps never getting the final focus and push to move it to completion.

Are you able to follow your muse at will? If so, do you sometimes find that it is hard to maintain focus or commitment? Or do you find that other obligations are your biggest challenge? Does the idea of the commitment of deadlines keep you from moving from a passionate avocation to an artrepreneur? Are deadlines a spur to move, or a roadblock in your life?

Asking

Can you ask for what you need or want? I don’t mean ask in the hypothetical sense, but really ask.
When I met my husband, it was love at first sight. We hit it off immediately. Within six weeks, he made a hypothetical proposal. Not the most romantic proposition, but he clearly wanted to know where he stood before he took the risk of asking for real. “Hypothetically” he asked, ”if I was to ask you to marry me, what do you think you would say?” Finding out what someone is likely to say before you ask the question makes it much easier to decide if you want to take the plunge for real. If the answer looks iffy, it is safer to avoid asking for real.
So what does this have to do with being an Artrepreneur? Well, let’s say you get people to your booth at a show. Or you get a gallery interested in your work. Can you close the sale? Can you ask for the order, or, do they walk away saying they have to think about it? And as they walk away, are you left saying, “What did I do wrong? Why didn’t they place the order?”
First, ask this. Did I ask for the sale?
Or, did I find out what the obstacles are to placing a sale? Did I ask, “What else do you need to know about my work to make a decision? Is there any questions I can clear up for you?”
At this moment, you are asking them to move from being on the fence, to making a choice. You are giving them a chance to voice their objections, if they have any. They may have a few issues that remain in their head. But, given the chance to verbalize these objections, they may, given a bit more space to talk, continue to talk themselves right out of their objections, and right into an order. If they had been able to leave the booth first, to think about it, the next thing they think about might be the work they are considering by another artist. You and your work are out of sight, out of mind.
The response might be, “I just want to be able to think about it a bit more. I think I have all the information I need”. At this point, you could thank them, and ask them to be sure to contact you if they have any questions.
Or, is it possible to create a sense of urgency? “This product line has been doing very well. I just introduced it, and already it is selling very well. As I receive more orders, my lead times will get longer. I know you are excited about this work, and I would hate to see you have to wait an excessive amount of time to get it for yourself.” Then wait. They may still move on. But, this new piece of information might just be the thing that helps them make a decision.
Asking for the sale is difficult. It is like asking for a date, or for another’s hand in marriage. We are risking rejection. So, we need to feel a degree of confidence to do that easily and comfortably. If we feel unsure about our work, our prices, our ability to satisfy the expectations of a potential customer, those words may not be able to comfortably fall out of our mouth. We rationalize our hesitancy by saying we don’t want to be pushy.
If you read through these scenarios, and say to yourself, “I couldn’t do that.” Maybe, you need to stop and ask why? Why not? Is there something about your work that feels uncertain? What is it? And, what can you do about it? How can you feel more confident about the work that you are putting out there so that you can comfortably have this dialogue with a potential customer? Answering this question may be what is needed to help eliminate the roadblock to asking for the order.
If you still feel like you can’t do it, ask yourself this, “Could I sell someone else’s work?” Think of another artist whose work you admire. Could you sell that work? Could you comfortably tell someone what is wonderful and unique about their work, and why they would want to own a piece for themselves, or place an order for their gallery? If you can, then your ability to sell is not where the problem lies. You need to fall in love with your own work. You need to believe that someone would want own your work, or carry it in a gallery. When you get to that point, these scenarios will naturally happen.
If you believe in your work. If you know your prices are fair and reasonable. If you know the customer loves the work. If all of these things are true, there is no reason in the world that you should not ask for the sale. You can deliver a value to the customer in return for the money they are spending. But, if you do not ask, do not assume that having good work is enough. Sometimes it is, but sometimes, people want you to ask!

Does Being in Business Make You a Better Artist?

I am teaching a class at the Synergy conference in Baltimore next month, called "Should I, or Shouldn't I?" The class is about how to decide whether or not you should try and make money with your craft. In preparation for that class, I sent out some surveys to various artists to get a sense of how being in or out of the business side of art has affected them. What did they learn? What did they wish they knew? How do they make money with their art/craft?

I received an e-mail back from Elise Winters that was full of insight. One of the things she said that has had me thinking all week is that is that sometimes artist believe that they must be in business to be taken seriously as artists. It is Elise's belief that sometimes, the business can become a diversion to developing as an artist.

The subtitle of my blog, "the collision of business and art" implies that there is not always a comfortable alliance between these two worlds of commerce and creation. Many firmly believe that you cannot be true to your art, and be successful in business. I guess I would like to believe that there are no hard and fast rules in this regard. In fact, while being in business did not make me a more authentic artist, it did help me develop as an artist in other ways.

For one thing, it got me in the studio on a regular (daily) basis. And I absolutely believe that you must spend time in the studio to develop you skills, and to develop your voice. Neither of those happen without time in the studio. You can hone other skills, like your powers of observation, without being in the studio. But ultimately your hands need to connect with your medium. You need to be able to know intuitively the limits of your medium. You don't learn this by reading about it, or by spending a few hours a week creating. You learn it by getting your hands dirty.

It also forced me to pay attention to details. Details that are often referred to as finish. Present your work to a gallery owner, or at a craft show, and the first thing someone does is pick it up and start turn it this way and that. Inspecting the finish. How does the back look? How does it feel? How does it fasten? What types of materials are you using? It is easy to ignore these details when you are starting out. Stopping work on a project before attending to these details. Hoping no one will notice that glob of glue on the back that you used to attach the pin back. Under the scruntiny of another person's eyes, you will look more critically at your own work.

But business can become a trap. You can find financial success with work, and get stuck in that style for too long. Long past the time that the public interest has peaked, and your own inspiration has faded. You may find yourself looking too much to external sources of inspiration....fashion, someone else's success....rather than internally to your own creative well spring.

Time spent building a business can be time out of the studio. If you want to create "art" for "art's sake", selling your work can be a distration. But financing that pursuit might be a bit more challenging.

In my own case, I had been looking around for what I was going to be doing in my life. I was half-heartedly trying to enter the world of children's book publishing. So when polymer clay fell into my lap, and I fell in love with the possibilities of this medium, I was soon thinking that I wanted to figure out how I could do this as a business. I had already run a business. I had a business background. I didn't know what form the business might take. But I knew that eventually that was my goal. Perhaps as someone who has a degree in business, and not in art, it was more comfortable terrain.

But first, I had to learn as much as I could about what I could do with this material. At one point my husband referred to this time, and money, spent on experimenting and learning as my art school tuition. I guess you could say I was "home schooled in art". A business professor might have looked at this time as one of research and product development. I probably dove into the world of commerce prematurely. But, as many have said before me, I would rather regret the action taken, than the opportunity passed. And once I dove in, I learned far more than I would have continuing to work away on my own. Even if what I learned was that I was not ready for prime time yet!

It is a delicate balancing act, juggling commerce and creation. And each person has their own tipping point where things go too far one way or another. We must know what our own motivations and goals are before we know if we are in balance.

If your in my class in Baltimore, I have much more wisdom from Elise and others to share. I hope I see you there!

Dogs and Cats Can Work

One of the easiest ways to build a market for your work is to target pet owners. Things with a dog or cat theme have a built in potential market. I have daughter who adores animals. Anything with a dog on it is something that gets her attention. But, like all good things it can be overdone, or done poorly. And not everyone is a sucker for all things dog or cat.

Sometimes, an artist takes a twist on this concept, and comes up with something new and engaging. I have to share the work of one such artist. We had seen his work at a local gallery several times over the last few years. His name is Michael dePierro. My daughter, the animal lover, fell in love with his wall sculptures of dogs and cats. She has wanted one ever since. When we first saw these sculptures, they were of specific breeds, and our dog is a one of a kind....otherwise known as a mutt! I recently saw dePierro's work again on Wholesalecrafts.com and saw that he was doing custom pet sculptures...dogs, cats, and even horses. I decided this would be the prefect thing to get my daughter as a gift for Christmas.

The first picture is one of the pictures I sent dePierro of our dog. The next picture is of the wall sculpture he created of her. You can just imagine the smile on my daughter's face when she opened the gift!

It was wonderful to support another craftsperson by purchasing his work. But even better, is to have a place like this blog to show many more people a bit of his work. He has taken the idea of making things with dogs and cats, and made something unique and special.

Couldn't you see a variety of dogs and cat wall sculptures in a vet's office, decorating the walls?....and taking orders for them through the vet's office! What better way to have your work seen by your potential customers.

The idea of dogs and cats as a theme in craft work may seem cliche and tired. But, as dePierro has shown us, it is possible to take any idea and make it engaging. People love their pets. And dePierro has captured the spirit of those animals in his sculptures. Talk about making work that has a story....!

I hope those of you who celebrate Christmas found special and unique handcrafted items under your tree. And most of all, I hope that your day was one filled with love, laughter, good food, and good memories. And, if it was a bit more stressful than all that, I hope you found at least one moment of connection with a person, a pet, or nature that reminded you of a blessing in your life. Hold onto that memory, and take it out from time to time to enjoy. Those are the gifts we can give ourselves at any time.

Press Kit; Where to Begin?

I have talked about having a press kit in the past, and how helpful they can be to getting publicity for your work and your business. But, I have not gone into detail about how to put one together. There more than one way to approach this, so feel free to apply your creative genius to the concept. I find by the time I get around to putting one together, I have do not have the creative time or energy to go beyond the basics. But don't let that hold you back!

The first step is to gather together copies of any publicity your work has received. This could be articles or announcements in your local paper, or features in national magazines. They all qualify. Sometimes a publication will provide you with a .pdf of an article, which is helpful for reprinting, or they may offer you additional copies of a magazine for a reduced cost.

If you do not yet have any articles about you or your work, don't worry. Your press kit will help that happen eventually, and we all start at zero. But, if you do, it shows that others have deemed what you are doing "newsworthy". When an editor sees that you have numerous articles, it can be a cue to look further.

Head off to Kinko's, Staples, or your nearest copy center, and make copies of the articles, or at least the first page of the articles. For some magazine articles, I have copied a two page spread onto a single page. Smaller articles might be able to be combined onto a single page.

If you happen to be at an office supply store, look around and see what you can find to hold your material for your press kit. You can get jazzy and have custom printed folders. Or you can use a standard, two pocket folder, and perhaps attach a postcard to the front for image. Get several, because you will be sending out more than one.

I put my press clippings, and press releases (future post), into the right hand pocket. I arrange them in chronological order, with the most recent in the front.

In the other pocket I add visuals. Postcard(s). A CD with several high resolution images. The CD should be packaged in such a way that it will not be easily damaged in handling.

Next, I include tear sheets or sell sheets. A sell sheet or tear sheet is a one page flyer that shows images of your work. I have one sheet per collection, or line. It is not necessary to have every style and every colorway of your work shown on the sell sheet. It is a way for someone to get a quick overview of your work. They can be used to announce a new line of work.

The sell sheet should have your logo, and it should have contact information. You can have dimensions of your work under each image. It is primarily focused on visual information. A collection of sell sheets with a separate price sheet can serve as a catalog for prospective wholesale accounts. By the way, I do not include a price sheet in with my press kit. But, you might include the wholesale and/or retail price range somewhere in your kit.

Next, you want to include your Artist Bio and Artist Statement. Recognize that you are not writing a bio or statement that you must live with for the rest of your career. We grow and evolve as artists, business people and human beings, and our Bio and Statement should change over time with us. I can't begin to tell you how many times I have re-written mine.

If you are not comfortable with writing it yourself, get some help. Find a friend who is a good writer, or hire someone. Look on Craig's List or DoMyStuff.com. Nothing is impossible.

I put those in behind the sell sheets on the left hand side.

Finally, I insert a business card into the space that is usually found on the left hand pocket. That is it. Nothing too extreme or too difficult. Yes, it takes time. But think of publicity as advertising you could not afford. On that basis, it is time well spent.

In a future post, I will write about press releases, and about where to send your press kit and/or press releases. But this should keep you busy in the meantime.

Cleaning Out the Closet

Maybe you are one of those people who never seem to accumulate too much stuff. You quickly dispose of the old whenever the new arrives. I am more likely to suffer from "stuff creep". I go through periodic purges. Clearing out the accumlated stuff that begins to feel like it is suffocating. It feels great to re-establish order, and to give breathing room to the things that are most important to me.

If you watch Tim Gunn's new show, the first thing they do is get in to the closet of their client, and sort out what to keep, what to give away, and what to throw away. The same thing happens on the show Clean Sweep. People with rooms that are scarily filled with too much stuff (my studio??) are purged in the same process. This clearing out always comes with some anxiety. The emotional attachments to our stuff can even confound us, as we refuse to let go of that special "whatever", that the rest of the world sees as having little to no value. But this prepares the ground for the transformation. The new and improved. The metaphorical rebirth.

This post is not about cleaning out my studio...at least not directly! That will be happening over the next few weeks. What it is about is my work. It is time for me to move out the old, and make room for the new. Over the summer, and into the fall I have had so many new ideas that I have started to explore, and begun to bring out to the market. All the while, I have been carrying on with the work that I have been doing for the last few years.

At first, I could not imagine letting go of the "old". Old is relative, isn't it? But as the new work began to emerge, my interest in doing the other work waned. It seemed to slide to the bottom of the list. I have not made a new vessel in the last several months. I had a jewelry order to fill this fall, and as I made the pieces to fill the order, I realized how infrequently I had been doing this work in the last few months. Between crane orders, I was working on two new lines.

First the pods. I have had so much fun exploring the possibilities of this line. I still have lots of uncovered terrain. For awhile, I would wake up each morning with one or more new ideas churning away in my head. The ideas are still spilling out, just not quite as fast and furious.

Then, late this summer, and into the fall I began working on something that was so loose and undefined, that I questioned whether I was wasting my time whenever I worked on it. But there was something about it that I liked, and so I continued, without any real sense of where it was going. It began with pins, and then beads. I had no idea what I was going to do with the beads, but I liked them. So I made them here and there. Accumulating several hundred of them. In the last few weeks, I have begun to play with those beads, and I can see that there is something there for me to explore.

Back to that closet. The older work is like the clothing in the back of the closet. Taking up space. Worn less often, and with less enthusiasm. It feels crowded. It feels like it is time to clean out the closet. Let go of the old, and usher in the new.

I was up late last night. I had begun to try and put some of the new work on to my website. I was going to just load the pictures onto a page, but not make them accessible yet. But as I looked at all the lines of work on my website, I knew it was time. Time to shed the old, and make way for the new. I am calling my newest work "Shibori". The surface design reminds me of shibori fabric in some ways.

I have more work to do on the website, and developing these new lines. But the old is heading out. It feels good to be moving forward with this new work, and not feeling tied down by the work of the past. Lighter. Freer. And it feels a bit overwhelming to think of all the work I need to do as I move this work out into the world.

I will be doing a show at the Fitchburg Art Museum on the weekend of December 8th and 9th. It is a little show. Inexpensive. I plan to use this as an opportunity to clear out some of the old inventory. Marking things down to make way for the new. The emotional attachment I felt over the summer as I considered this possibility has begun to evaporate. And in it's place is excitement, and lots of possibilities.

Never Say Never

Never and Always are dangerous words. There is no wiggle room. And in life we need wiggle room. Room to learn, to adapt, to change our minds a bit if we want. But with absolutes like never and always, there is no room for change.

Back when I decided to make my passion for polymer clay into a business of some sort, I knew I had something with my polymer clay cranes. I knew they were unique, and the political environment of the war helped fuel a demand for them.

But I had this fear. I didn't want to be making cranes all the time. I would go crazy. I could "never" do that. Or so I thought.

Fast forward a few years and now the cranes are a mainstay of my business. They are a good source of cashflow at a time that the craft market is very tight. I have gotten better at folding them, but there are still more rejects and seconds than I would like. I have developed packaging and a product insert that have increased sales significantly. But there still is a certain ambivalence.

Even so, I am getting ready to make a commitment to produce cranes for a catalog. There are no guarantees of the volume this will represent. If they take off, I could be making an awful lot of cranes. And, I will be making them in a few set patterns, not each one different than the last. A few years ago, I would have been horrified at the idea of this. Now, when I look at it, the benefits outweigh any potential tedium.

First, more studio time. As much as I love being in business for myself, what I love even more is being in the studio, working with the clay. Even if it is going to be making a design repeatedly, it will help fund the continued growth of my business. And having less worries about money always does good things for the creative spirit!

Efficiency. I would rather sell a carton of 27 cranes, all in one shot, ....or three cartons, or five......than spend time, money and energy trying to sell those cranes myself at a retail show. Somebody else sells and promotes the work, and I just have to make it and ship it to them to distribute. One large sale, rather than 20, 50 or more small sales.

The window of opportunity does not stay open forever. Eventually the political tide will shift, and the demand for peace cranes will fade. Someone else will copy what I am doing. This is my chance to take advantage of a unique product at a unique time.

Once again, I am about to make a leap of faith. Into the unknown. I don't know if this will be a blip, a boon or a burden. It may be a bust. Or it may lead to me hiring someone to take on some simple tasks. Only time will tell, and I know I will learn alot! Stay tuned.......

Things are More Good than Bad

After my post the other day about the poor showing I had at the Providence show I have had several conversations and emails friends who were a bit concerned my bad news.

It was a bad show. I am not going to take that back. But all in all, I am continuing a fantastic, and perhaps sometimes, too fast ride. I only started working with....perhaps I should say playing with....polymer clay four and a half years ago. I am still very new at my medium, as well as new at the business of craft. In that very short time, I have received more recognition than perhaps I deserve for my work. But I am loving what I am doing, and no matter how much success or recognition I receive, I have not doubt that I still have much to learn. I like to think I have managed to cram about ten years of experience into the last four years because of the time and energy I have put in the studio, and into growing my business. But in reality, I am still growing, and learning.

This morning I was listening to a Story Corp story on NPR. Story Corp travels around the country, and records the stories of everyday people, told by those people. This morning was a story by Tom Morgan. He shared his heartache at removing the life support equipment from his father. He also shared his life lesson from his father, and that experience......

Asked if he had any regrets, Morgan said he could list a dozen.

"But I always had the theory that if you don't try it, when you go to the grave, you'll say, 'I could have.' When I die, I'm going to go to the grave and say, 'I did. I might not have done it well, but I did it.'"

Hearing that sentiment hit home with me this morning. I have no regrets about the bad shows, the ideas that went no where. I can say I tried. My regrets about any of it are only momentary. Each time I learn. And I would rather try, and perhaps fail, than not even give it a try.

I guess it is a philosophy similar to that expressed by Voltaire. I do not want to let "the perfect be the enemy of the good." If every t has to be crossed, and every i dotted before I try something new, I would have missed so much already. The secret for me is to not hold on too tightly to either the successes or the failures. I accept them. I learn from them. And I get up each day trying to do the best job I can that day.

Each day at a show, good or bad is a new day. Each day in the studio is a new day. Living in the past, good or bad, will only cast a shadow on this moment. The good can create too much pressure to live up to, and the bad can feel overwhelming to overcome. Living right here, right now, in the present, can help me move forward, and make the best decisions for where I am right now.

As a friend pointed out, I am in transition right now, juggling several product lines. That, in and of itself can be a challenge. But I came across this bit of advice on The Big Red & Shiny blog recently, given to an artist who had questions about developing a new line of work;

It is very common for artists to have several “bodies” of work at once. These artists should spread the different styles to different galleries so that they can maximize exposure without having the galleries compete. In other words, if you are painting vertical stripes, sell that work at the “Vertical Stripe” gallery, and sell the figurative work out of the “Figurative” gallery. The dealers shouldn’t mind that you are working with another gallery as long as the
work is different. Just make sure you can make the distinction with each of your dealers. Are you sure you want to totally abandon your already successful pursuits? Maybe you should work on both bodies until you can develop enough of a following with the new work to leave the old one behind.

And that is where I am right now. Developing various markets for my various lines of work, and starting to pare away a few. It sometimes feels like juggling a lot of balls at once. But it beats staying somewhere that doesn't feel like it is working, just because it is familiar.

I don't want to paint a falsely optimistic picture after having a bad show. But it is not the end of the world either. Part of this artrepreneurship is having resiliency. Getting up. Getting back into the studio. Getting your work out there. And doing the best job you can, each and every day. That is all you can ask of yourself, and the most that anyone can ask of you.