I’m officially back in the studio! I get to spend several days a week there now, unless I’m not feeling well, or have other things that need my attention. I’ve recently just been working on mending and UFOs. As I post this, the box above has been completed, and I’m back to working on another, larger one, which I started before we ripped apart the upstairs. It’s been sitting, abandoned under my work table, except for those times when Marbles (my studio kitty) used it as a kitty bed. It was finally pulled it out the other day! Here’s a photo:
I have my mom’s steamer trunk, but I use it for storing blankets. I took all of the drawers out, and one by one, they will be upcycled and sold. This is the one I’m currently working on. This photo was taken back when I was deciding on what color to paint it and choosing fabric to line it. These will make good storage bins, and all but one of them will fit under a bed. The shallow ones can also be used as pet beds (just put a waterproof liner and cushioning in, and there we go!) They are a good size for a cat or a small dog.
For this one, I settled on painting it brown, and I’m lining it with a striped fabric which I happen to like very much. My husband says the fabric will look dated, but I think it’s a good combo. As I write this, I’m just about ready to do some touch up on the paint, add the clear coat, and line it!
**
After having finished up some mending and an eye mask I was making myself, I have turned back to this bag. (I went with the brown fabric for a lining!) If I’m able to continue to work steadily, I should be able to finish by the end of the coming week. After that? Who knows?
**
I have an online show coming up in August and an in person show in early November. The first one, I’m not feeling too sure about. The organizer doesn’t seem to fully have a handle on what they are doing, but I’m keeping an open mind. I’ll be sending my photos, descriptions, and prices to them soon for my “booth.” It seems a lot of extra work, when they could simply feature one photo of my product and use that as a link to my online shop, but I’ll follow the instructions, and we’ll see how it goes.
I’m looking forward to the one in November. Western Mass loves our artists, and it will most likely get good foot traffic. It’s also a show that’s been around for a few years, I think. I was hoping to get into a local street festival, but it doesn’t look like it’s happening this year.
**
As for progress in rebuilding my online presence, that’s moving right along. I work on that at least once a week. I was hoping to open a second Mercari shop, so that I could keep my art and my vintage items separate, but they make it very hard to open a second shop. At the end of my attempt, I found that I can’t open a second shop at all, because you can only register a phone number once with them. Like most people, I only have one phone number, so that’s not an option. (I don’t have a job with my own phone number, and I would never use a work number for that, anyway.)
The shop is named for my vintage business, but I’m distinguishing my handmade from my vintage and resale by using the name of my art business in the item titles. Mercari also has pretty good categories that you can use, to I always tag the stuff I have made with “handmade.” The look, to me, is kind of cluttered, but Mercari has been pretty good for me, so I’m willing to put up with that.
**
This is where I am right now. My writing has been sporadic, because I’ve had a lot of sick and tired days this past month. I’ve worked hard to post here consistently, but my other writing projects are just on hold. There will be, of course, times when I don’t publish here, because I’m not willing to churn out filler. I prefer to only post when I feel I have something of substance to share. The internet is a noisy place, and I’d rather not add to that.
I did recently do a poetry reading! I read two of the poems from one of my upcoming chapbooks at a friend’s Summer Solstice gathering, and they were well-received.
As I was deciding on which two to read, I realized that the manuscript from which I pulled them needs work. There are a lot of poems in there that I just don’t feel are good enough. I’ll be searching through my archive for pieces to replace those. If I get lucky, I might even manage to write something new! I have one, big document where I have compiled all of my poetry. I simply draw from that to create the volumes I want to publish.
I haven’t done any research on self-publishing options this year, as I was planning to, but I will be starting very soon. I just haven’t felt ready. I still hope to complete that and make a decision this year and get the process going in 2025. I will need to do a fundraiser to help cover my costs, as well, but if I’m lucky, I should be able to ship next year! (Fingers and everything else crossed!)
Except for the period back in the late 90s and early 00s when I was very, very prolific, writing has always been a challenge for me. I love to do it, and I feel that I’m average-to-decent at it, but sitting down and doing it and coming up with ideas has always been a challenge for me, even going all the way back to high school and college. It’s just hard. Writing is hard. I think that means that it is the most important thing that I do, even if I only touch one other person’s life.
Happy creating!