Status Report

Anchorage is earthquake country and this state was a rockin’ this week! The temblor at 4:00 am this morning was a 5.4 magnitude that woke us up and the earthquake on Tuesday was 4.9 but located just 15 miles north of Anchorage –making that one feel much stronger. Tuesday I was meeting with my friend Ann C. about my new pattern designs at the Midtown Kaladi Brothers Coffee and we thought a huge semi truck had hit the building when the earthquake struck. The guy next to us lost his fresh, HOT, Americano all over his wrist! We are all fine but my pets have been on high alert –especially Bunny Foo-Foo who just may wear out his thumping leg! My meeting with Ann was to give her a proof set of my new Quilted Wall Art Patterns I have designed to be “pattern tested” by a group of talented and experienced quilters she recruited. Ann has been so valuable helping me to transform the designs into a list of materials needed as well as the difficult part of writing and editing the instructions. For me, the design part has been fun and fairly easy but writing the step-by-step instructions was very difficult, especially to boil the process down to be easy to read, concise and accurate. Ann says I’m what you would call an “intuitive quilter.” I know what I like and I figure out how to do something by working backwards –as I told her when she admired my “partial seam” borders on “Raven Says Hello!” I’d never heard of the common term “partial seam" but I knew

what I liked for that pattern and just figured out how to sew the background. Explaining how to do that never occurred to me –though essential in pattern designs! For now the first five patterns I designed are all in the hands of my pattern testers.

Hopefully, if all goes well I’ll get their input and edits, make the revisions and off to the wholesale market they’ll go by the Holiday!

In NC the Clay and Blogs Show opens Friday! My piece was shipped and waiting for the opening. In Anchorage, Katie’s new Gallery space is on track and scheduled to open next Friday also for an October First Friday Grand opening. She’s got the band lined up, furniture installed and artwork starting to be delivered and moved. My boys were there last week installing her very cool art hanging system. In addition to some new wall sculptures I’m working on, I’m finishing an original counter wrap for her. I’ve got the metal custom cut and I’ll be welding ornamental leaves and branches on it and installing on Monday. I nearly caused a

major news event yesterday though as 50+ mile an hour winds whipped through Anchorage, and of course that was the day I needed to fit the 10 foot piece of metal on the counter. Getting the huge hunk of metal from the back of my truck across the sidewalk and into the Gallery turned the metal into a shiny galvanized SAIL! My finger tips bent backwards and holding on for dear life, the lunch crowd inside Cake Studio next door were treated to the sight of woman vs. metal and WONDER MAMA prevailed –though today, all my fingers are killing me but at least my pride is in tact –and so are Katie’s new windows!

Be Brave

Art making requires a certain amount of bravery. I feel to truly create art, an artist pushes their medium of choice. I was reflecting on Katie’s color bravery and how brave an artist needs to be to put their art out in the public eye for all to see (and critique) and for me, hopefully sell. When I started Blogging I was taken by how many potters share their firing schedules, or glaze recipes and bravely share their wins and losses. I also noticed how brave Linda Starr was in her clay work. Linda was trying different clays, finishes, textures and even barrel firings, publishing the good with the bad, publishing the truth. When I worked in clay I found I wasn’t brave enough to attempt new things. I wanted a “win” with every firing, a “sure thing.” I seemed to always have silly rules to what I could make and what I couldn’t make. That’s not true art making or pushing clay beyond the expected.

I’ve said before that I feel Clay is a fickle friend, even though when I work in the medium of clay I feel closer to the earth and art making. Unfortunately, what has restrained me is there seems to be no “sure-fire” –pun intended, guarantees to the making, glazing and firing cycles. For me that’s been the beauty of it and the angst of the medium of clay. Clay has taught me that patience pays off and also that potters are some of the most information sharing Bloggers I read. I’ve also confirmed that artists who choose to work in clay are some of the most underpaid. Working in clay is usually never about money –except how much supplies can cost, or how crazy shipping costs are to Alaska! Working in clay seems to be a passion to those who dedicate their art making to living the “potter’s life.” Opening the kiln after a firing (and forcing myself to wait until a proper cooling temp was reached) always seemed like Christmas morning and the added bonus was opening a kiln after a glaze firing and seeing the glazes sparkle like jewels in a cave. I even love seeing other potter’s kiln peek shots on Blog posts, I become giddy wanting to hold those warm pieces in my hands. While I may have the desire for clay, what’s been missing is the bravery. It’s been a difficult decision, but it’s time for me to move on from working in clay, give it a rest until I am able to more freely experiment, lift my self-imposed rules and be CLAY BRAVE.

My last firing included a large sculptural Raven, one of my fish heads and a mask -and it was SUCCESSFUL!

Let it Snow in 99587

We were right. While we knew Anchorage was getting walloped by snow, it DUMPED in Girdwood! This is a picture of our street. The trees were so heavy with snow they formed arches for us to drive under! There was so much snow we couldn’t get up our stairs to the front door (do you like my $1.50 wreath I bought at the Thrift store this week hanging on the front door?!) without shoveling a path. Thankfully Bob with his front end loader had visited our house and the drive was clear. Over a foot in the last couple of days has left our neighborhood looking like a heavily frosted Gingerbread village and with four-wheel drive it’s lovely.

oXo

For my friends in Anchorage wanting some FRESH art, my friend Katie Sevigny just told me that she and the Upstairs Studio Artists at 406 G Street, between 4th & 5th Ave. -the stairs are located next to Pils Deli. are having an open to the public studio sale this Sunday from 3:00 pm to 7:00 pm. For more information give Katie a call at 258-ARTS (2787).

CaFÉ Help: If you’re an Alaska artist (other artists may find this site informative as well because it is a National data base of Artist Opportunities) interested in participating or applying for % for Art projects, don’t miss this teleconference! The Alaska State Council on the Arts has just started using the paperless CaFÉ online application process for Calls for Art and other art projects. *This is not to be confused for applying for the Municipality of Anchorage 1% For Art Projects which is still a paper application process.

CaFE Teleconference for Alaska Visual Artist

Tuesday December 22, 2009 12:30-1:30 pm

Or

Tuesday December 29, 2009 5:30-6:30 (repeat of Dec. 22)

The goal of this teleconference is to familiarize Alaska artists with the CaFÉ online application form and the application process for ASCA’s % for Art projects.

Please RSVP:
By phone to ASCA at 907-269-6610 or 1-888-278-7424 or e-mail andrea.noble@alaska.gov <mailto:andrea.noble@alaska.gov> before 9am on Monday December 21, or Monday December 28 (for the repeat offering of this session). You will receive the conference code when you RSVP.

Our neighbor's car waiting to be dug out after a "light dusting" of snow in Girdwood where "We HEART Snow!"

xOx

It's A Wrap

Whew. The rain held off most of the day and the G Street Artist Fair is over for the summer. Yesterday morning started off s-l-o-o-o-w. I admit I had an uh-oh moment when by 11:00 I hadn’t had a sale –this is in contrast to the last show in June where I had tourists wanting to purchase my work before the fair and my booth were completely set up. But the day turned out good sales-wise, down a bit from the June Show but considering the weather and end of season tourism, all good. This kind of up and down day gave 

me time to think about my artist friends who were new to the event with their inventory questions. Another important consideration of my Show/Fair inventory is always what are my plans for the residual or left-over work? I’d like to not have this issue and sometimes there are not enough pieces left over, but this time I had more than I thought I would left. Oh well. My production estimates were good on the Wind Salmon, steel Garden Ravens and Outdoor Chime Sculptures but I didn’t sell one of the ornaments! Last time I didn’t have enough of the less expensive ornaments and made extra… so much for the “creative crystal ball!"

I also should have had better signage because we needed to use the tent walls to block the stormy weather (sorry, the booth images aren't very good because I was still setting up). I had a smallish sign I hung outside the tent wall to tell customers who was inside the booth. The rain had beat up my potted flowers that I like to have embellish the booth and could only bring the Irish Moss pots –they were the only ones that weren’t slug bit and weather beaten! I try and always have a plan for where leftover works will go. There are usually a few phone calls or e-mails after an event where customers want a piece they saw at the show and regret not buying it, or they are buying as a surprise gift etc., so I usually hold on to all my left-over work for a few days. My plan for the leftover work from this show was varied. Lucky for me, Carol and Vicki from Bad Girls of the North will have another booth at the Alaska State Fair this month and requested a lot of Ravens and some of my fun Dog pieces. My larger wall sculptures (which only a couple of them sold at G Street yesterday) will get to go Half Moon Creek Gallery here in Anchorage, which really needs new work from me. Lastly, my artist friend and entrepreneur Katie Sevigny wanted to buy wholesale a few leftover pieces from me to have in her hip, downtown Gallery, Sevigny Studio.

After re-thinking my not-too-savvy booth components (or lack of) I decided to weld up a new display for my Garden Ravens. It worked great and I think it will also help Vicki and Carol to better display my Ravens at the State Fair. For good sales, the inventory, booth design, pricing and marketing are essential to compliment the actual ART. There is an aRt to the successful selling of ArT at special events, festivals and fairs. As an ARTtist I feel I need to be a super-woman mix of talented-original-being, *gracious* salesperson and wise businesswoman to make a decent, full-time living as an ARTist. Not only do I need to look at new ways to display my work more efficiently and attractively to help with sales, I need to stay on top of technology. For the last show I needed to upgrade (my old terminal which the bank said was no longer "compliant" is on the left) the technology of my merchant services equipment, which is a whole other facet but probably one of the MOST important. My booth neighbor, Shara of Octopus Ink Clothing has a booth each weekend at the Anchorage Downtown Market and had signed up for every G Street event as well. Yesterday she and her boyfriend were running both booths simultaneously. Without power to our G Street Fair booths, I had to manually run my credit card sales and input into the new terminal when I returned home last night, which costs me more by not swiping & capturing or even doing store & capture at the 

moment of the sale. Without power to the booth, Shara uses a battery powered terminal and another artist I know has bought a terminal that uses a satellite phone (the terminal was VERY expensive) to completely capture and approve all of her credit card sales. There is even a merchant credit card transaction App for the i-Phone I might look into but then I'd have to first get an i-Phone...(I'm sayin' it's gonna cost me 'mo money, 'mo money, 'mo money). Anymore 80% of my sales are purchased with credit cards and I can't afford not to accept credit cards. It’s also time to consider what my fair and show schedule will be for 2010 and it’s clear that if I’m going to include more festivals and fairs, I will need to upgrade my booth and get on top of the whole new merchant technology –oh, and make some more ART!

PS- Linda, these are the light strip bars I zip tie to my grid wall panels when I do indoor events with power. They are similar to the lighting

 I use in my studio. I think I need to buy a couple more for the November 6 & 7 Bad Girls of the North Show. *This year the Anchorage venue has moved to the Millenium Hotel.