My First Rejection Letter...I'm Legit!

"We regret to inform you that we were unable to include you in the 2010 show...Please understand the selection process becomes more difficult as the number and quality of applicants increases.This letter should not be seen as a reflection of your talent bust as a reflection of the level of intense competition this year...we encourage you to apply for next year."

I had no idea that rejection letters could be so supportive and somewhat life affirming! 

They said it would come. Its part of the journey of becoming a selling artist. Just one of those predestined bumps in the road that you prepare yourself for beforehand. Over the last few weeks, I've been sending in applications for the local Fall Arts/crafts Festivals for later this year. Expecting that I would not get into all of them,  I applied to this one, and this one, and this one, and this one.


I've been reading and soaking up all the amazing information in this book, The Handmade Marketplace.  It has a WEALTH of information for people like me with creative biz aspirations.  The book really outlines the process of applying for, getting into, and running a booth at an art/craft show.  It also talks very frankly about the fact that everyone WILL get rejected in the beginning, learn from it and move on.


My rejection letter came yesterday.  I was actually expecting this one.  This is the festival that I applied to on a whim, because it's the biggest most prestigious show in my area.  It was a good exercise to go through the application process. I did have to fake a booth set up pic for them, since I hadnt even done the first festival yet!  They may have not thought that was the best representation for their show - the obvious inept one table set up.  I cringe at this picture now that I have actually done a real tent set up.  No wonder they thew my app out!  Anyway, I am crossing my fingers and saying my prayers for the other applications that are out there right now, being judges and scrutinized.  As much as I expected to NOT get into this last festival, I REALLY WANT to get into the others.  They are a better mix of arts and crafts and more casual, more suited for my style, my artwork, and my level of expertise in festival booth running.

I should know by the end of June, so send some positive thoughts my way!!

lessons learned, lessons to come...

ok so, first time doing a craft fair come and gone.  it was so much work to put everything together for this show, which was then compounded with the hours needed to set up, man the booth, break down, etc over the weekend.  Needless to say, i am exhausted.  All I want to do is sleep and catch up from the last two weeks of late night painting and early morning book assembling, but being a mom of a two year old comes first and so hello 8am wake ups and refusing to take a nap marathon play day.  This has given me lots of time today to reflect on the experience this craft fair.  I have been trying really hard to dwell in the positive.  There is a great potential to slip into the latter, as the festival was terribly run, poorly advertised, and the other vendors that I was told were all arts and crafts - turned out to be about 60% wholesale sellers of crappy manufactured items like knock-off purses and perfumes - it looked more like a county fair or street sale than an arts and crafts show.  Over the two days that I was there, we saw about 100 people come out - this after we were told from the promoter that 8-10,000 were expected.  Things didnt start out well for me either, I was running late for my Saturday 7AM set up, thankful we had prepped the tent, tables, and shelves the night before on site, then arrive to find my tent had bucked under the weight of the rain from the night before, bending one leg until the metal tore and rusted (can things really rust in under 12hrs?), the tables were turned over and muddy, and the shelves were swollen with water and coming apart (they were really cheap shelves).  My 6 hours of sleep was starting to make it all unbearable and I fought back tears as my sister, lovely German friend and I scrambled to repair, clean, and assemble everything before the festival opened to the public @ 9a.  The redeeming factor in all of this was that many of my wonderful Gainesville friends came out to the fairgrounds just to see me and give support.  It was a huge part of healing my disappointment over the weekend, and helped me see that I gained more than I lost. 

What I lost was just $, sleep, and time.  What I gained was valuable insight into what it takes to run a craft booth, set up in time, engage customers (the few I saw), fix issues on site, and improvise in meager conditions.  I did make a few sales, which was inspiring and exhilarating.  I have sold my journals before, but usually online or to friends, and it was a real treat to have a stranger love my work and want a piece of it to inspire them at home.  I met several wonderful people and had meaningful conversations about art, creativity, and the healing nature of freeing yourself from that inner voice that stifles our ability to experience true joyfulness in creating something from the thoughts we hold within.  So I really really want to thank those people who know me that came out to support me, those who just met me for the first time and encouraged me by loving my work, and most of to my family (and those who are like family) who stood beside me and lent a hand into the late nights getting my books finished, showed up to help me set up, run my booth, and break everything back down at the end of the day.  You all are so dear to me and I couldnt have done this without you.

Oh and one more thing, I signed up for a eclass given by this wonderful artist Kelly Rae Roberts.  She is a fellow creative, a well recognized, selling, and established mixed media artist, painter, and author.  She is offering a 5 week experience to gain all her tricks of the trade, inspiration, and community to help fellow crafters and artists wanting to make their work into a business find their wings.  It is a perfect fit for me in my creative process right now, and I am super excited about what I can discover along the way.  Here is her website for more info if you are curious.  Kelly Rae Roberts

Anyway, be well and may you find blessing and inspiration in your day!

Starting over, again...will I ever get this right?

Hello world. If you are here through my previous blog, welcome and I apologize for my chaos. I am working out the kinks in my own system and hope that you can follow along as I get it right. I am tweaking both my intention and focus behind this blog and felt a new address was warranted to help me transition and let go. Its been a year of struggle for me to find my motivation and momentum to propel me into my dreams, but I have finally built enough disdain for my own waste of time dreaming and doing nothing. I am tired of dreams and ready for life. real life. the messy, put myself out there and allow myself to be seen fully even when it makes me very vulnerable. so here goes... sometimes its just best to start over again.

I have been struggling to find myself today. such a lame excuse for laziness, i know, but still... its like a have a sock in my brain, dulling my senses, clogging my neural pathways, making words come more slowly and ideas crumble apart when they are only halfway created. I have a creative-void in my heart. an inattention to detail, a lost of interest in interesting things. Adulthood does it to me, fills me with socks that is. Could I just get lost back in my childhood, when I knew nothing of expectation, responsibility, deadlines. or judgment of talent. I am 31, nowhere near childhood these days. Stuck smack into adulthood, feeling so small and ill-prepared, today I am a mother, a wife, a home owner, a pet owner, a daughter to aging parents, a sister, a friend, a mentor, a grad student, and where in all of that do I get the gall to try to be an artist? I have been waiting for transformation, but the adulthood keeps shoving more dirty laundry at me to clean. My husband, my partner, is supportive, loving, sweet, and totally doesnt get the Me that is the Artist. He loves to watch me create something new and artsy, but in the end if I try to talk to him about it, he listens, nods, smiles and says "thats great, hun", then moves on. I show him prints from the latest mixed media artist that I just discovered. It moves me, inspires me, makes me want to freak out making gloriously chaotic creations, but he apologizes and says he just doesnt like that kind of stuff = my kind of stuff = a section of my soul that he loves but will never completely understand. So here I am now, trying out the internet for size on my body, will it produce people from the unseen closets in webspace that "get me", share that head space for creating something beautiful from something unexpected and experience the same war with self that I feel, to keep the adulthood from smothering the artist within us. I am many things, and I am an artist. I have to be or something really important and beautiful will die inside of me. I felt it fading those years in between when newly married, swamped with grad studies, and then pregnancy swallowed me up. I am working to reclaim it now, but have a lot of cobwebs and lost socks blocking my process. I want to be creative in some manner every day, to bring my soul alive! To feed it and grow it back from the shriveled size that I have rendered it over the last 5 years. I started exploring art journaling, mostly because I felt less pressured to produce something incredible, but can still keep trying to. I make art journals to sell and fund my art supply needs, and hopefully to help someone else discover the smothered artist within them as well. I spent the last year seeking my own spiritual journey, along with my husband and young son, we traveled across the nation, seeking a mentor and community to guide us to our own awakening within our life journey as followers of Jesus Christ, but dont fit into the model of church that our nation promotes. What I found along the way was that it is my times of creating/making art that I feel closest to God, NOT in a church pew. It is in the times that I am surrounded by friends doing a collective art experience, and NOT in my singular prayer time. This is meaningful and must be paid attention to. Could it be that the ultimate Creator meant for us to be creating as well, both making art with our hands and bodies but also enjoying the art of others to inspire our own process!? This connects for me. This makes me believe in God and love Him even more. So I believe that if I keep trying, as clumsy and untalented as I feel, I will clear the dullness and find myself as my Creator intended me, in a beautiful mess of paints, paper, string, fabric, markers, and glue.