Be Delighted

"Oh my my my my, what an eager little mind!"

Auntie Mame

Monday, March 25, 2013

One down, about 25 to go

This is a finished work now. One long stitch at a time. Cross that off the list.
"End of Season"- 24"x36". Fiber arts. Please rotate head right. Photo is not co-operating.

Here was an early stage:
 And here are some close-ups:







Why is it finished? Because it has to be. I had a deadline. It was accepted into our local Arts Festival and needs to be delivered in early April. But then there are all those other projects just lying about in various stages of completion or my indifference. Welllll.....I do have another deadline coming up for a show in August. Oh but that's so far away. la la la, lets go check Facebook and see what's up on Pinterest.

And here's a shameless plug for my new Etsy account: www.Etsy.com/shop/artbyValya

Friday, March 15, 2013

The Business of Art

I'm taking a bold step for me and setting up an Etsy account to sell my art. Let me just say I'm the absolute worst at selling things, especially my own things. (the Girl Scouts would have literally kicked me out). I give a lot of things away. Oh you like that? Here take it. It's Christmas? Here, have some art. (friends, I do it gladly) And then every year at tax time I add up all the money I spent on art supplies, and framing, and entry fees to shows, and then add up my profits and.....hey, wait a minute! And do you know how many organizations ask you to donate art for fundraisers.....and then charge you to come to the fundraiser event?

One of my yearly horrors while teaching high school was, of course, the dreaded fund raiser. You would think that a school that was all about the arts would......oh but I digress into bitterness. Don't get me started about sports and pom squads. Needless to say I had about 200 teenagers in dance classes issued giant cartons of assorted candy bars and told to sell them. What could possibly go wrong? Surely they wouldn't leave them in the trunk of a car in the hot sun. Surely their ravenous relatives wouldn't eat them all and thank them for the freebies. Surely they wouldn't leave them in a classroom only to come back and discover them gone. Surely they wouldn't lock them in a locker and then just forget about them. And surely they would happily reimburse you for any candy lost, eaten, destroyed, unsold, or stolen. I was lucky just to break even with the candy company let alone raise that projected $1000.00, to split between 200 kids to purchase costumes for a dance concert. Let's see, two hundred goes into 1000........oh, $5.00 per student, eh? That'll buy a nice headband. OK, let's all bring a T-shirt kids, and we'll dye them and cut fringe at the bottom. It'll be cute. Trust me.


So....Etsy. Now for a catchy name for my online shop. Valya? Taken. Valeria? Taken. Valerina? Taken. Artemesia? Taken. Krasivaya? (Russian for Beautiful) Taken. Valociraptor's Art Attack? Surprisingly, not taken, but still.......maybe I'll just stick with my temporary name artbyValya.


 Oh God, I'll have to handle transactions. I'll have to mail people things and hope they're pleased. I'll have to market myself. Oh God.....did I mention dealing with people? I need a business manager. I need a website specialist. Where's my business manager? My webmaster? Oh that's right. She moved to San Francisco.