Continued Radio Silence…

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything here - almost a full year! I’ve thought about it, but I just haven’t been able to do it. It’s been a rough year, although with some truly special moments. I’m going to be very raw and open in these next few posts, as I think it’s important to be real, for myself as much as for others. In short, I’ve been feeling very alone, lost and rudderless.

The year started out with so much promise. Got professional photos of my work taken to help with show applications. Applied to many shows, got accepted to some. First show was to be in May, at the same time Covid went through my family. With six of us, it lasted about two weeks. Some had it worse than others, and I definitely had it the worst. Almost put me in the hospital, and took me weeks to recover. Obviously I didn’t make it to the show. I still feel like I have the Covid brain fog, but I might just be telling myself that so there is a reason my brain doesn’t work right these days.

After I recovered, I was off to the races and was travelling every two weeks until the end of October. I did shows in Westhampton Beach, NY, Detroit, MI (where I injured my foot and am still trying to recover from it), Chautauqua, NY, and State College, PA. I stayed at a friend’s farm for a couple of weeks to take care of things on the farm as well as their daughter. I also made a couple of trips to Wisconsin with my kids to see my parents, took a family trip to North Carolina to go rafting with our raft guide son, as well as travelled to Florence, Italy (more on that in a later post). I did the show in Chautauqua, NY twice this year, and the second time is where the attack on Salman Rushdie happened - it was absolutely surreal and devastating.

Through all of this travel and the stress of shows, I became 100% burnt out. For three months I made nothing at all. I just couldn’t. I’ll be honest, overall the shows were very disappointing. Some artists did phenomenally, and some sold virtually nothing. Some shows were better than others (as is always the case - every one of them, every time, is a crap shoot). In general, jewelry seemed to do pretty poorly this year. By the end of the summer I had three more shows to do, and I pulled from them all. I couldn’t do it anymore. I was exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally. I was very sorry to miss the shows and not connect with my customers, but it was the right choice for my health.

Something that many people don’t realize is the financial expense that artists incur doing shows. There are application fees (averaging $40 or so, and nonrefundable). There are professional photographs of both your work and your booth set up (if you want to actually be competitive when applying to the higher end shows). There is the expense of setting up the booth itself - the professional tent (especially with the increase in severe storms, it’s difficult to trust a pop up tent), everything that goes inside, the posters, jewelry displays… Once you are accepted to a show you are required to pay the full booth fee. For the shows I attend, this ranges from $350 to $650. This is non-refundable. You get Covid, your car breaks down, crap happens, your money belongs to them. Then there is the travel to a show - gas, food, hotel… This doesn’t account for the time spent at the show (for my longest show this year, over the course of four days I spent 35 hours in the booth and then an additional 15-20 hours setting up and taking down). My estimate is that I need about $1500 from a show just to break even. It’s all a gamble. Bad weather? Poor advertising and attendance? Attempted assassination? Canceling a show for health reasons? It all adds up to large losses. This doesn’t even begin to cover the emotional expenses - for an artist to show their work, it means opening up their soul for others to see. It can be elating, and it can be crushing.

During the craziness of this year, I’ve done a lot of soul searching. I’m still searching, but I have come to some realizations. I’ve thought a lot about my priorities. Obviously, above all else, my family comes first. And with most of them still living at home, it takes a lot of time. And that’s ok. I enjoy traveling, and there are some things about shows that I really enjoy, but shows are a huge expenditure of time, money and energy. For sometimes nothing in return (except an injured foot for the next six months). I’m going to focus on other ways to sell and market my work. I could make lots of little, inexpensive pieces that I know would sell, but I want my focus to be on pieces that really mean something to me. My focus always has been, even if I never admitted it to myself, on technique. Not sales. I want to find those customers that are drawn to the meaning behind my pieces and the techniques used to create them. It’s become so much easier these days to make things using modern techniques and machines - casting, pressing, stamping…. And while these techniques have always been around, it’s much more recent that they were used in the mass production of pieces. I’m not interested in mass producing. I’m interested in creating something beautiful with as few tools as I can, as traditionally as I can.

In part of this soul searching, I’m slowing down. I’m doing lots of introspection, taking time for self care. I’m not giving up on my business. I absolutely love what I do. But, my business will be changing. Maybe my product will be changing. I think it will, and I’m excited about where these changes might lead.

This post is raw and unfiltered, but I think it’s so important to be honest about personal struggles. So often life behind the scenes of social media is not as idyllic as we are lead to believe. Often the life of an artist is not as idyllic and productive as it may seem. And, truthfully, we often don’t know the struggles going on inside those that are close to us. Everyone struggles, everyone goes through difficult periods that require some reevaluation. I think that’s more normal than our society cares to admit. Let’s be there to support one another, and to share in the excitement at what is on the other side of the struggle.

I’m excited to share with you about my trip to Florence, where I had the opportunity to work with a master goldsmith for a week (not to mention eating great food and drinking in the beauty that is Italy). I’m also excited to share a new direction that I am taking. I don’t know where it will go, but I’m excited to find out. I’m giving myself time for discovery, removing the pressure of sales and shows. If you see something you love, please don’t hesitate to contact me! But for the most part I’m going to simply be sharing my journey.