An Artist’s Life

18 February, 2020

Learning things takes time.

beckarahn2020-02-18T14:19:31-06:00An Artist's Life, Spoonflower & Fabric Design, UpcomingClasses|Comments Off on Learning things takes time.

Tutorials that say that a project is “quick and easy” are kind of a pet peeve of mine. You see entire pages of results on Pinterest: quick, easy, no-sew, only 2 steps, 5 minutes to make, 30 second hacks. It’s not that I don’t think there’s a place and a need for quick and easy projects, but I think that’s often all you can find: the quick and easy solution to a problem that might not be so quick and easy.

I’ve spent the last week or so putting together some new classes. I know how to do that planning part, but I needed to set up a new way to take registration payments and to link them together with the event and to post them as a draft event on Facebook. None of those are “hard” things to do, but they were all things that I needed to learn something about. Square recently updated the way they do their web shop. So I needed to learn the new system. It was super confusing, but I finally have the basics figured out. My event calendar needed an update and I spent a few minutes figuring out how to add a link for the class cancellation policy to every page so I didn’t have to copy and paste it in every time. I got the events posted and then spent many minutes tapping around on my phone trying to figure out how to accept the invitation to co-host the event with my FB page, because although I found the “accept” button in the browser version on my laptop, the button didn’t work. But I digress…

The thing is, it feels good to learn something like this. It’s a sense of accomplishing something. I spent the time and I figured it out. I grumbled, I muttered some words under my breath, I was frustrated a little, but I got there. And now I know. And I can do it again.

This is the problem with the “quick and easy” solutions. There really isn’t a sense of accomplishment. You are done before you ever had to dig in and mutter curse words and figure out the solution. When I was thinking about writing and designing these new classes I am teaching, this was something I kept thinking about.

Often, I am invited to do the lecture or the intro class for a group or organization but I almost never get to teach the thing that digs deeper. I love teaching those, don’t get me wrong; but I am always asked to do the “quick and easy version”, which has a low cost and a low time commitment, but can accommodate the most students. I haven’t been teaching much lately because the only opportunities I had were teaching these same “quick and easy” classes over and over. Which is great, but I felt like I was starting to sound like a broken record. At least in my head. I know that I was only getting people to a tiny taste and not actually getting them to the feeling of having learned something.

However, sometimes cool things just fall in to place and I got an opportunity to try something a little different. A dear friend of mine wanted to try opening up her new studio to guest instructors and basically said “tell me what you want to do.”

Taking a class is a leap of faith. You go in with an expectation and anticipation, and you trust that you will get that thing or idea or concept to take away at the end. Teaching is also a leap of faith; trusting the students to come along with you for the ride. And for these classes that I just wrote and redesigned, I am taking a leap of faith with my students too. I tried to think outside of the box on these a little bit and think more about what would make them great classes and less about what would make them “quick and easy”.

So I upped the expectations on a few of them. I’m requiring students to do a little work ahead of time like uploading a file to me, so we can have a cooler experience during class working with actual printed fabric. I created two hybrid classes that have both an in-person and an online component. One session focuses on the hands-on “technology” parts that students want help with and the second online session they can do on their own time in their own sewing space to finish the project. I realized that a majority of the students who take classes from me come to class with a beginner skill level when it comes to digital design, but they are not beginners when it comes to sewing. So I made classes that matched that. Hands-on in-person work with the digital/technology stuff paired with independent lessons in the stuff you don’t need the detailed help with. This hybrid format also makes it easy to commit, I hope. You only have to fit one class session into your busy schedule, but you get a whole other half of the class to do on your own. It’s kind of like a two-for-one deal.

Will these work? I don’t know yet. I hope so. I talked to a bunch of other friends of mine who are teachers and they had varying degrees of optimistic skepticism. But just like any new product or idea, you have to prototype. You have to try it and see what happens.

Check out the new classes here

12 December, 2019

Speaking at the Middle School Career Fair

beckarahn2019-12-12T13:24:37-06:00An Artist's Life|Comments Off on Speaking at the Middle School Career Fair

I spent this morning at a middle school being one of the guests at a middle school career fair. It’s part of a program that the local school district is doing to help kids see what kinds of things are out there and to help them get an idea of what classes they might want to take when they get to highschool and have more choices. A good friend of mine is the art teacher at this school and she invited both my husband (a software engineer) and I to come and talk to students.

We were there with representatives from the Marine Corps, nurses, a sports photographer, a midwife, a theater lighting designer (another friend), firemen and my table neighbor who has her own event photo booth business. The students had a list of questions to ask us about what we studied in school, what a typical day of our job was like or how much money we made. I thought it might be fun to write about some of the conversations we had.

Almost all of the kids I chatted with asked me about my degree. It was on their list of questions. I don’t have a degree in art. That really surprised them. I told them that really you don’t need to have a degree in art to be an artist, you just have to really love making art. (My degree is in education, with a specialty in middle school math. You should have seen the look on their faces when I told them that.) With one student I talked about how art is only a part of my job and that being an artist for me means that you also have to be able to communicate by writing and talking about your work, you have to make budgets and make sure you get paid, you have to run a shop and figure out how to sell your work. It’s like a bunch of mini jobs in one. We talked about how I get to be my own boss and my boss said I got to come be at the middle school this morning instead of sitting at my computer.

We talked about how making art wasn’t something I decided to do as a grown up, but it was something I’ve been doing since I was their age. I only figured out how to make it a job when I was a grown up. They did the math and figured out that meant I had been making art for more than 30 years. And they were totally blown away by that. We also talked about how I make art every day. Just like other people go to work at an office every day. That’s what it means when it’s your job.

The best demo I could show them was to hold up the original piece of painted cardboard that I made this velvet jacket from. That’s it in the photo up above. I didn’t realize what a great side-by-side comparison this was, but I could totally see them see the connection between the two and their eyes get big.

With one kid, I talked about how my very first job was making art. I did bulletin boards for teachers at my elementary school. Then I hand illustrated the newsletter for an organization that my mom belonged to. My first “real” summer job was as a costumer for a summer theater. Looking at it now, it seems completely obvious and inevitable that I would be an artist “when I grew up” but it totally didn’t seem that way to me when I was a middle schooler. I don’t know what I wanted to be then. I think I used to say I wanted to be an author.

I learned that when the Marine Corps brings rifles and swords to their demo, you will be upstaged no matter how cool you are. But I could also see the kids who spotted my table full of brightly colored fabric and made a bee-line over to me. Those are my people. I knew we’d find each other.

18 November, 2019

Surviving the holiday season as an artist = kindness

beckarahn2019-11-20T09:29:01-06:00An Artist's Life|Comments Off on Surviving the holiday season as an artist = kindness

It’s the beginning of the crazy holiday season for artists, crafters, makers and other creatives and I just wanted to give a shout out to all of us who are heading into a busy couple of months. There are art shows every weekend, holiday concerts to play, events and end-of-year fundraisers and all of them are piled up in the next few weeks.

I had a show on Saturday, which was great, but on Sunday I spent most of the day feeling like I’d been runover by a truck. The show was awesome, but there’s a lot more that happens than the 6 hours you see me smiling in my booth.

I spent the week leading up to the show making things. Every artist I know does it; you frantically make inventory up until the night before because you feel like you need just those few more things. I waited impatiently for things to arrive: the packaging for my coaster kits, the ink cartridge because my printer was low, the business cards that I didn’t realize I was almost out of. I posted to social media. I sewed velvet keyfobs, packaged new stickers, made some new scarves, assembled kits, and added stickers and price tags to things.

Wednesday, I ran to the bank to get change. I updated the firmwear on my card reader gizmo. I charged my backup battery. I double checked the sales tax rate and the settings were all right and updated a few items in the checkout system.

Thursday, I took the tags off all of my scarves and ironed them. They get a little creased after sitting in storage between shows, so I gave them all a little fluff and press. Friday, I organized everything so I could pack it into the car. I double checked my inventory against Etsy to make sure I wasn’t going to accidentally oversell something I was low on.

Saturday I got up at 5am to get everything packed and the car loaded. There’s an elaborate system of what order to pack everything into the car so I can see out the back windows, everything fits and nothing gets damaged. The grid wall displays I use weigh approximately 11-million pounds so it takes a lot of trips. This venue had a small flight of stairs so every bag, box, grid and display piece went up 8 stairs and back down again at the end of the day. (No need to go to the gym that day.) It takes me about 2 hours to get everything carried in, set up, signs hung and ready to go.

Staying upbeat, friendly, chatty and saying the same “Hi, let me know if you have any questions” over and over takes a lot of energy. I love in-person shows and getting to chat with people about what I do, but it takes a lot of stamina to do that for an entire day. (I talk about that in this post about an introvert’s guide to surviving an art show.)

Do I get to wander around and see the show? Nope. Hardly ever. I saw a couple of friends and we waved at each other and flashed thumbs-up from across the room. I hear there were food trucks, but I had an apple and some granola bars at my booth and my thermos full of tea. I had awesome booth neighbors and we chatted when things were slow.

At the end of the day, packing up also takes about 90 minutes and then another hour or so when I get home to put it all away in the garage and my studio. And today I re-organize and re-inventory so I can update my Etsy shop, order anything I am low on, and do minor repairs (tags get ripped or dirty, something needs a thread trimmed or fixed before I put it away again.) At some point I will enter everything into my bookkeeping system.

I always post a thank you online to the people who attended and organized any show I do. I’m going to add an additional thank you here to the people who were kind. A little kindness to yourself (like sleeping in that next day after a show) is important. But also, remembering that every artist you see at a show has busted their tail feathers to get there. We are tired and probably didn’t get to eat any lunch. A little kindness like laughing at the zipper bags and telling me how much you love the sheep pun, asking a question because you want to learn more, or saying “I recognize your stuff!” is what makes all the difference.

14 August, 2019

Learning New Things (e fare limonata)

beckarahn2019-08-14T11:13:16-05:00An Artist's Life|Comments Off on Learning New Things (e fare limonata)

I spend a lot of time applying for things: grants, scholarships, projects, exhibitions, sales, training sessions, residencies. As an independent artist, I don’t work unless I find the opportunities, so I am always on the look out for something. About half the time (at least) you apply and get a “no thank you”. That’s pretty much expected.

This summer, I had a lot of “no thank yous” that all happened at once. It’s not anything that I am failing at, it just happened that the things I was proposing and the things that appealed to the grantors/jurors/evaluators weren’t on the same page. Evaluation panels are funny that way and really change with the personality of the people sitting on the panel and what fires up their excitement and enthusiasm.

I try not to overbook myself by applying to too many things that overlap, because you never know when you will have the opposite problem – a whole lot of YES – and there is only one of me to go around. So that meant that I had a whole lot of time on my hands this summer set aside for projects that weren’t going to happen.

So I decided to learn something new.

I started by brushing up my origami skills. This is related to one of the things-i-applied-to-but-didn’t-get. I subscribed to a YouTube channel of a designer I like who writes great tutorials and I practiced. I’ve talked about my long love of origami before on the blog, but I don’t practice enough. So I’m trying to fold something new at least once a week and trying to memorize a few simple ones.

Next, I decided to learn Italian. A friend had been talking about the app DuoLingo and I thought I’d give it a try. It’s actually a lot of fun. I’ve always been pretty good at picking up languages and it’s not often anymore that I have something that is completely new to learn. Why Italian? Why not? I have been to Italy once and I would like to go back. I learned French as a kid and it’s enough related that I think it makes it easier to pick up. Duolingo has LOTS of different languages you can pick from (including Klingon) and it works like a game. Sometimes I am saying things out loud, translating from one to the other, writing, reading. Some of the phrases are silly. I am still pretty beginner (I’ve made it through Basics, Phrases, Food and Animals) but it’s so nice to have something on my phone that feels productive. The lessons are super quick and so I can do one while sitting and waiting somewhere and it’s a whole lot less unpleasant than surfing Facebook some days.

Then, I decided to take some classes from the MN Center for Book Arts. Back when I worked as an arts admin, we collaborated with MCBA on all kinds of things, but I had never taken a class or participated in anything they do. Wow, have I been missing out. MCBA does all kinds of things with paper – papermaking, book binding, surface design on paper, printing. I love paper. I’ve never done any of these techniques. I didn’t study art except for a couple of “Art for Elementary School Teachers” required classes in college that were lame, so I haven’t had the opportunity or excuse.

First I took a “sampler” class where we got to do half-days in several different labs – papermaking, screenprinting, bookbinding and letterpress. A tiny taste, but fun. Then my husband and I signed up for a woodtype poster making class on a 1840s press. I ordered some woodtype from eBay just to play with. It needs to be cleaned but I have a couple of complete alphabets to play with now.

Then I did a two-day Japanese papermaking class. That was completely fascinating. I kept finding so many parallels and questions about working with the kozo (mulberry bark) fibers vs working with wool, which I have used a lot. The sheets of paper we made were very strong and thin; so translucent you can read text through them. We started from the inner bark and did all of the processing by hand – soaking and beating the fibers with a 2×4, pulling it apart, dipping the sheets. I loved every minute of it and I had an amazing instructor. I have plans to scan some of my sheets and layer them over some of my fabric designs. Can’t wait to try out those textures.

Finally, I took a paste paper class, which was a little less stellar (I had a hard time with the instructor’s teaching style/preparation) but gave me some ideas to explore at a later date. (If anyone out there knows anything about paste paper, especially the more traditional methods without acrylic paint, please DM me!)

I’ve decided to do the “Book Arts Certificate” program at MCBA, which is a required set of classes (like a grad school program) that gives you an endorsement in book arts media/techniques. It might open up some teaching or other opportunities for me. Who knows.

The biggest thrill of the summer has been that I had sort of forgotten how much fun it is to be a beginner at something and to learn something totally new. In fiber arts, I rarely find a class/workshop/retreat that I am even interested in. My skills are too advanced for the “sewing retreats” and more advanced classes are really hard to find. I get so tired of the “quick and easy” attitude that everything needs to be less work to be fun. I want to be challenged in a class. It feels good to have to think and ask questions.

What’s the last thing you learned that was totally new to you? Did you love it or find it frustrating? What do you think I should learn about next?

18 June, 2019

Intention and Expectation: Attending the Americans for the Arts Conference

beckarahn2019-06-18T09:21:25-05:00An Artist's Life, Everything Else|Comments Off on Intention and Expectation: Attending the Americans for the Arts Conference

The Americans for the Arts (AFTA) conference was held in Minneapolis this weekend. It is a national conference for art administrators primarily to get together and talk about funding, sustainability, data, evaluation, and innovation and do it in a room with other people who get it. I love being an artist, but I was really good at being an arts administrator. Art is something I have to do because it is part of who I am and I can’t not do it; being an arts admin was something I was called to do by whatever little voice in your head it is that tells you that you need to do this because you can make a difference.

I left my arts admin job about 5 years ago. It was an organization that I deeply loved, a mission I believed in and a community with a lot of untapped potential. I worked way too many hours and there were some parts of the approximately 1 million cobbled together parts of my job that I was less than wonderful at, but by and large it was a good fit. I did good work and proud of the projects and connections I got to be a part of.

But something changed. There was a transition in leadership. The board of directors decided to shift the values and culture of the organization to follow a different path. It wasn’t just “things change because of new leadership and people hate change” but a bigger organizational shift that included altering the mission statement. I’ve been on enough boards of directors to know that I don’t know the whole story about why and how that came to be, but I do know that suddenly I was part of an organization that wasn’t a good fit anymore and was moving in a direction that I wasn’t really excited about. And I didn’t have a voice in that change. So I needed to leave.

I don’t talk about this much. Mostly because it has taken me a long time to process it. On my last day, I turned in my keys, walked out to my car and sobbed in the parking lot. It was emotional and complicated and I couldn’t really articulate anything except the gut feeling that I needed to move on. I still think it was the right choice. It doesn’t make it less hard.

So what does this have to do with the AFTA conference?

This conference was really designed for arts admins. Everyone asked me “who are you with?” and looked quizzically at the big blank space on my nametag where my org name would be. It made me a little nostalgic. It’s hard to be an independent artist. This conference, like many others, had a couple of afternoons of concurrent sessions. You get the agenda and read two or three sentences and try to pick which of the five different topics to go to. This is always hit-or-miss. I’m not an arts admin anymore, so I felt a little like an odd duckling. I got a scholarship to attend this conference because I wrote an essay about making more connections as an independent artist and how I thought these sessions would be valuable to me as a board member of the orgs I serve. (Thanks McKnight Foundation!) So I picked topics that I thought were a good match for those goals.

After about 5 minutes in the first session I chose, I was sure I had made a big mistake. The presenter was charismatic, but instead of diving in to her topic, she told stories about her family and she had someone from the audience sing for us. It was a presentation outside of the box and I was a little restless. I wanted things I could write down in notes. I fiddled with my tea cup. I felt irritated when the conversation veered off into something spiritual. It wasn’t what I expected.

And then I had to shake myself. I was an an arts conference. Learning about art. Which by definition is outside the box. And should make you a little uncomfortable maybe. I was so caught up in taking notes to help me write the final report for the scholarship, that I sort of forgot that I was there to talk and think about art. This session was more like a collaborative performance with the audience than a lecture and I was totally missing it.

So I took a deep breath.

And I listened.

I couldn’t write a summary of the session for you if I tried. And I only wrote down one sentence in my notes but I ended up coming away with things I am thinking about a couple of days later.

“When you come in, leave the gate open.” That’s the quote I wrote down. Her story with this quote had a different intention perhaps, but my take was this: When you start to explore something new, invite people to come along. Leave the gate open so they can follow and explore too. It’s a way to think about inclusivity in what I do. How do I leave the gate open for the next person to come in?

The second story that she shared that stuck with me was about a gallery opening where the attendees were more focused on taking selfies with the art than being with the art. She realized that the way she was talking about the work (promoting/press releases etc) was attracting a specific kind of audience with an expectation of how both the art and the viewer should interact. And that wasn’t the community or culture she was trying to build. So she stopped sending press releases. She didn’t dig in to this idea much deeper but it got me to think about the idea of not only curating your work, but curating your audience as well. Creating the culture and community that you want to be a part of. That’s something I want to think about more.

At another session, with another captivating presenter, I was 100% in the moment until he had everyone stand up and hug three other people. I understand the message he was trying to demonstrate about connections and community but there was no way I wanted to hug a bunch of complete strangers sitting around my table. (Haven’t we learned anything about touching people without their permission?) There was no way to gracefully opt out of that assignment, it was awkward and super uncomfortable, and it certainly made me feel differently about that session.

Finally, at the closing session another presenter had us write on a piece of paper and then take it and construct a paper airplane. I don’t remember what we were supposed to write or what the message of the activity was (apologies to the presenter) because I got caught up watching the other people at my table. I folded my very favorite paper airplane right away without hesitation. I do a lot of paper art, so it was easy and I didn’t even think about it. The person to my right teased me about being too eager to throw the plane. “You did that too fast,” he said. Next person around the table made a functional plane, but he had a lot of extra creases in the paper from overthinking and re-doing. The woman across from me taught a lesson to several others so they would do it the “right” way. One or two people looked puzzled like they’d never folded a plane before. One argued about the merits of folding the wings diagonally vs horizontally. One woman folded hers quickly and quietly but looked a little like she was embarrassed to admit she knew how. I was completely fascinated to see how many ways that this random group accomplished the same basic task and their reactions to it.

What do all of these experiences have in common? I think it was all about intention and expectation.

First was a mismatch between the presenter’s intention for her session and my expectation about what it was going to be. I could have left the session being irritated and grumpy that it wasn’t what I wanted it to be, but I chose to change my expectation.

Next was about realizing that when you do things in an expected way (traditional press release) you will probably get an expected outcome (traditional attendees). If your intention is to change the way something works, you have to change the way you talk about it.

Third was an intention by the presenter to break down a barrier and make people feel included. However, the intention completely backfired by making me (and others) feel uncomfortable and dreading the expectation of more unwelcome interaction. (spoiler alert, he had us tell each other “I love you”.)

Finally, the intended message of the closing exercise ended up having a completely different meaning for me based on my own take on the process involved.

As an artist, these are awesome things to think about:

Will the participant/viewer understand what I am intending with this piece or process? How can I help them know what to expect ahead of time?
Am I communicating the outcome I want to have happen after they’ve seen/interacted with this piece?
Are the ways that I am creating or teaching putting up barriers for someone to interact with the work?
Am I open to the other ways that my work can be interpreted and what can I learn from that?

Although this was an arts conference, we didn’t talk very much about art. We talked about strategic planning and troublesome board members, HR issues and theories of change, data and consulting firms. But my takeaways from the sessions and the things I am thinking about the next week don’t have anything to do with the topics of those sessions.

It did what great art does: It made me think. I had a reaction. A mismatch of both expectation and intention, maybe, but an experience I took something away from nonetheless.

10 April, 2019

Five years at the American Craft Council show

beckarahn2019-04-09T23:04:19-05:00An Artist's Life, Everything Else|2 Comments

This year was my fifth year exhibiting at the American Craft Council Show. If you don’t know about their shows, here’s a little nutshell. The American Craft Council is located in Minneapolis (formerly in NYC) and they are an organization that promotes fine craft. They put on a conference, host lots of talks and small events, and publish two magazines that “champion handmade”. Each year (for the past 30+ years) they put together a large craft show in four different locations: Atlanta, Baltimore, St Paul and San Francisco. Each is a juried show with 200+ artists working in fiber, metal, jewelry, wood, or glass.

I started with their Hip Pop emerging artists program. That’s an image of my 2017 booth in its cardboard glory. (I actually think the cardboard popups are awesome and I think my work really popped against that kraft paper color.) Hip Pop is also a juried program but allows artists to share a booth with other emerging artists. The booth fees are lower (because of the limited space) and some of the display/lighting is included, so it is a way for new artists to try out the show and see if the audience is a good fit for their work before investing in a full both space. Once you have juried in as a Hip Pop artist, you can return to the shared booth for 3 years and then “graduate” to a full sized booth for the next two. I just completed my fifth year, so next year I will need to re-jury into the regular artist pool.

This year’s show just finished on Sunday and I was talking to someone about how it went and did I make enough to cover my costs. This is something we talk about as artists a lot. Some rough math in my head said “yes! It was a great year” but then I got curious about what the numbers said. One of the cool things about Square (in addition to it making credit cards super easy to take at shows) is that there are all kinds of reports I can pull up from the last 5 years and I can look at all of my data.

Talking with my neighbors, we all felt like Friday was a little slower than normal this year. I felt like Friday was usually my best day of the show and I think that’s pretty true.

This shows the percentage of my sales for each day. Thursday night is basically a cocktail party for the Craft Council donors; it’s always a pretty slow night for the artists. For the last three years anyway, Friday sales have been over half of my total. I think this probably tells you something about the typical audience that comes to this show; I tend to see adults with more flexible time and perhaps more disposable income. Saturday is more families and friends coming in groups. Sunday this year was more when I saw kids and some more age and gender diversity coming through. I definitely sold different kinds of items on Friday vs on Sunday.

This shows my sales for each category of item. The big difference you see here is the jump between the Hip Pop booth (2015 – 2017) and the full sized booth (2018-19). My sales nearly doubled when I went to the larger booth size. I wasn’t sure that would happen and I was pretty nervous. But so far that has worked out for me.

Loop or infinity scarves are my signature piece and I have had those at every show of the five years. They are easily my bestseller. The rectangle scarves, larger wrap scarves and skirts I have had in various forms every year, but I haven’t always had space to display very many of them. You can see the skirts especially are really variable. I didn’t sell any in 2017 (even though I had them there) but lots more in 2015 and 2018.

Miscellaneous was my catch-all category for things that I didn’t have every year. It included bow ties in 2016-2018, neckties this year, and some dresses in 2017-2018. I tried out different things to see what would work. Ties are always pretty popular. I did new neckties for the first time this year, but decided not to bring the bow ties because I didn’t have very many and I just ran out of time to restock. Dresses are a challenge because there is no good way for people to try them on; my 10×10 booth just doesn’t have enough space for a changing area.

The size of the total bar represents my total income for the year. Last year was a pretty great one. This year felt like attendance was maybe a little low (I don’t yet have official numbers, so I am not sure.) and I was in a different part of the room than I have been before. I am not sure how much of a difference that makes.

Finally, I actually got to the question of: did I break even? did I make any profit? This chart represents my total income for the show year (blue) and then all of the expenses (other colors) for the show. Materials included everything I needed to make the things that I sold at each show, plus a little extra to cover things like business cards, tags, stickers etc. Show fees included the pipe and drape and electricity for my booth. Booth cost was the fee I paid to rent my booth. Card fees was for credit card processing. I should note that this is a pretty prestigious show and the booths are not inexpensive. It takes a lot up front to be able to even participate and I want to acknowledge that. I didn’t count materials for things I haven’t sold yet. I had a lot more inventory there than I sold; you need that. It’s a big leap of faith that you will even sell enough to cover any of that.

I am pretty happy to know that every year my income exceeded my expenses. Not by a *lot* but by enough; those blue bars are all more than half. That difference is the amount I can pay myself for my time. As we were packing up, my husband asked if I thought I had made enough this year to pay for my time and I wasn’t sure. Wait, I can hear someone say. Aren’t you a business person? Shouldn’t you know all of this? Doing shows like this is only one of my sources of income, so I don’t usually break it down show-by-show but I look for balance among all of the things that I do. Sometimes I make more, sometimes I make less. It all comes out in the wash, as they say. But I was curious about this show specifically.

So I did the math. I always time myself when I am making a thing that I intend to sell. I know that zipper bags take me 7 minutes from start to finish. That’s the way I calculate my prices and it lets me know for sure whether I can accept a large order of something. I know exactly how long it’s going to take me to make 5 or 50 of them. So I figured out how long it took me to make all of the inventory I sold, plus about 8 hours of prep time getting other things ready for the show (ironing, printing tags, social media, washing tablecloths, running to get change), plus all of the hours I worked the show from load in to tear down. And I made $10.95 per hour.

To be honest, that’s actually more than I thought it would be. I am pretty excited about that. No, I am not going to retire on that kind of income, but even a smallish success is success! I know it’s more than I made from my first summer job.

There’s also the potential things that always come out of spending a weekend surrounded by my work and talking to people about it. I was asked to teach at a new venue. I had a possible wholesale order. I gained a handful of social media followers. And when I say handful, I mean less than a dozen, seriously. For every 300 people you talk to, 3 will actually sign up for your stuff. (I get it. I don’t sign up for everyone’s mailing lists either.) But those were people who were interested enough to find me and follow. That might mean that I will see them again at the show next year.

It’s also fascinating to me to talk to people about my work. Last year I had a lot of less than encouraging comments about how I used computers and if that meant that my work “wasn’t real art” (an actual quote from a visitor) and some negative reactions to the fact that I print on a lot of polyester (for many reasons, but those are for another post). It was almost exactly the opposite this year. I had really positive comments about how I was using a computer in really cool ways and many people appreciated that poly was so much easier than silk to care for/wash/pack for travel.

I sold out of infinity scarves in this brand new “Fair Isle” design (it was a Spoonflower design challenge entry from 2018), and two perennial favorites (Waterlily Mosaic and Tweed). For the larger rectangle scarves, I sold out of “Decadent” (another recent design challenge entry), which I thought might be too bold, but it was a big hit and Tweed again in that larger size.

I was a mentor this year to a couple of Hip Pop (emerging) artists. I wanted to continue to share some of my experiences from the show by writing this post because I feel like when I was brand new and thinking about applying I had no really helpful information. I didn’t know that Thursdays were slow or that no one would sign up for my mailing list and I wasn’t sure if it was just me. I didn’t know if I could sell enough at my $40-$60 price points to even make up that booth fee. I only sold 31 items that first year. That’s not very many when you think about it, but it was enough for me.

Overall I love this show. I LOVE the artists involved. They are the most supportive, welcoming and generous group you could ever ask to be a part of. Your mileage may vary, of course, but I have had nothing but positive experiences. It is an honor to be among such talented and dedicated makers; their craftsmanship is phenomenal. It is inspiring to be in that room. I think the Hip Pop program is brilliant and I enjoyed being a part of its pilot years. I am nervous that I won’t get juried in next year. (Hip Pop graduates don’t have to re-jury their first 2 years in a full booth.) What if the jurors think that the computer makes my work “not real art”? I’ll be holding my breath waiting for that acceptance email.