This little painting is what I worked on on Day 12. My goal is to make affordable art for the two sales I'm doing this holiday season. They're both small events, so I really need to be the one people choose to buy from if we're going to have Christmas this year. I keep fighting with myself, because I want to be true to my self - but I need to sell, too. Then I get into that dilemma of trying to make what sells instead of what makes me happy. Agh! I guess that's the eternal dilemma for artists, isn't it?
Day 13 was a bit of a bust, artistically. I went to a huge arts and crafts sale called Best of the Northwest with Rexy, Rexy's new little boy "friend," and his family. (More on that later.) I had gone to this years ago and thought it was a little lame, but this time I was surprised. There were some great artists there and if I'd had the money there were many things I would have bought. One thing that I found completely amazing, though, was the number of people who not only weren't on Etsy - but had never even heard of Etsy!
What?!?!?! I felt like I was late to the party by not opening a store until April of 2007! And I already knew about it from 6 dozen people by then.
Then I felt kind of sad. These people who haven't even heard of it are probably living in sort of an artist-vacuum. Meaning that they probably don't have a lot of artist friends. I know that can be a lonely place. Even when you have other friends. Years ago, gosh - probably 25 years ago - I used to do a lot of writing. I didn't know any other writers and my circle of friends didn't include any dedicated artists. No one with a drive to create. I was out one night with my oldest friend and a new-ish acquaintance (What was that guy's name??? I really am getting old.). I don't know what we were talking about, but I mentioned a poem I had written during the course of the conversation. My friend laughed and started to give me a hard time, but then the new acquaintance popped in with, "Oh, I write poetry, too!" and my friend immediately shut up (that guy was pretty cute - and had an Australian accent.) I had the most amazing feeling of being understood.
I also at that moment realized how trapped I was in my past and that people from my past were invested in the image they had of me. I started to notice that any deviation in dress, or occupations, or life choices from what people considered the "norm" was threatening to some. Very threatening, in some cases. It had never occurred to me before that my friends and family didn't necessarily have my best interest at heart, that they might actually be trying to shield themselves from a scary unknown. Believe me, I didn't have a Sunshine Susie upbringing, but this was still news to me. Somehow I'd missed that lesson.
Wow, that was a huge digression! Anyway, suffice it to say I was completely surprised by the number of people who said, "Etsy? What's that?" at an art show.
Of course that didn't take the up the entire day, the rest of the day I helped out the DH with a small vintage bicycle event he was hosting. What I also did was stand up most of the day in the boots I haven't worn since last winter. Ouch! By the time we got home I was good for nothing but lounging about on the couch (and the computer). Today, wasn't much better, either. We had company today and I had a school fundraising meeting (that I accidentally showed up for an hour early!) and in between, what did I do? Why, lounged about on the couch! However, since I did show up for the meeting an hour early and had some time to kill, I roughly sketched scrawled some ideas into my school notebook.
(I said roughly!)
Anyway, consider this the official renewing of my Art Every Day Month vow. See you tomorrow.
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