It may not be the cover of the Rolling Stone, but I was tickled to have one of my paintings, Sarah and the Orca, used as cover art for the December 2010 issue of Common Ground magazine. Holla!
Common Ground is a Canadian publication in its 28th year with a focus on health, growth & wellness. You can find it all over the place at little coffee shops & restaurants, though if any member of my family has wandered in ahead of you, the stack may be quite slim. 
It’s been far too long since my last market. Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed taking a wee break, but it felt excellent to dust off my inventory sheets in preparation for this weekend & get back to making impossible TO DO lists. No matter how many hours I devote to prepping for a market, I’ve still never finished everything on my list. It doesn’t help that the list keeps growing, of course. From simple things, like designing new tags or printing little bio sheets to go with each print, to big ones, like creating an entirely new product (brooches, anyone?) – there’s always something else to do.
Today was spent making new Scrabble tile pendants & assembling the lockets that I sealed a few days ago. Any jobs involving resin are bumped to the top of the list since it needs time to cure. Picking up business cards from the printer? Tomorrow. Trimming magnets & putting together postcard packs? Friday. Figuring out which original paintings to bring? Friday night. Late.
As much as I would love to stroll into a market on a good night’s sleep with my entire table set-up perfectly organized & stored sequentially in air-tight containers on wheels, I also know that I wouldn’t have done a single show yet had I waited until I was completely “ready.” My table will never be perfect, but I come up with new ideas, tweaks & generally think I get a little better with every show I do. And that’s exactly why my TO DO list never gets any shorter!
If you’re in the Vancouver area this weekend & want to see for yourself, you can find me here:
Saturday, September 25th
Autumn Shift Festival
outdoor street fest sponsored by Blim
Main Street between Broadway & 12th Ave
12 to 6pm
This free, fun, family friendly event will feature live music, improv and comedy acts, a merchant’s market, a farmer’s market, local artists, great community participation and lots of exciting activities for children. For more info check out the Mount Pleasant Business Improvement website.
Sunday, September 26th
Rocky Mountaineer Train Station
1755 Cottrell Street
12 to 6pm
My mister & I have been enjoying feeling like kids again as we ran around the PNE, Vancouver’s version of a county fair. Mini Donuts, ridiculously expensive lemonade, the Super Dogs – so much fun & so much nostalgia, even though we didn’t grow up here. I think every city has some version of the fair & all of our favorites were there.
Aside from digesting 9000 calories, as an adult I have to say wandering around & enjoying the shows was more my speed than riding rides. I watched a horseshoe demonstration where I stood with my jaw dropped as a lady pounded nails into a horse’s hoof. Even though both my parents grew up on farms, I’d never seen this done before & was SURE the horse was going to kick the hammer lady at any moment!
There must be farming in my blood, however, because now that Vancouver has passed the urban chicken by-law, I’m pretty stoked to get a little coop for our backyard. You can keep up to 4 chickens & apparently they lay roughly 6 eggs per week. How cool would that be?
I loved the Indian Runner ducks too. These guys need their own painting, I’m pretty sure.
Since I hadn’t been on a roller coaster in at least 3 years, we decided to splurge on the ride passes. What I didn’t take into account was:
a) I’m old.
b) It was already 5:30pm by the time we started riding rides.
c) The lines were really really long.
A $40 ride pass only amounted to 8 rides for us because the lines were long & (see point A), we’re old. After 3 or 4, we were ready for a break. And honestly, if we hadn’t spent the money on the passes, probably would’ve been quite content to quit right there. The historic wooden roller coaster? Kicked my ass. Not only did it scare the crap out of me, it felt really dangerous to fly out of my seat & left me with a huge bruise across my thigh. I do not understand the appeal.
My favorite ride was a new one – Crazy Beach Party. Looking at the cheesy artwork as we queued was entertaining, the ride was smooth & gave your stomach a little flip, but never in that “I AM GOING TO DIE!!!!” sort of way. Loved it.
Speaking of art, I was delighted to see Emily Carr University had put together an exhibition of container art. Each artist was given a truck container to do with as they saw fit & though some were definitely more successful than others, it was amazing to see art included at all. Tens of thousands of people who would probably never set foot in an art gallery were exposed to contemporary art being created by local artists. Awesome.
I don’t want to be too critical here, but I will say this – when you have a container & free range to make an art installation that thousands of people are going to walk through, the most successful exhibits are ones that are specifically designed for that space. There were a few that seemed to take their existing work & slap it up on the walls, creating a very small, cramped, badly lit gallery. Not very interesting, not the best way to display your art & totally uninspired.
The best thing I saw? Kids’ reactions to the art. I expected them to run into each one, check it out & run on to the next one, kid-style. That was definitely happening, but I was amazed at how many little dudes really stopped in their tracks & LOOKED. Pondered. Tried to figure out what was going on or what the point was. I saw lots of kids being dragged away by bored moms & that made me really happy. (Well, not happy that the moms were bored, but taking kids to the fair looks like a fucking nightmare, so I can’t blame them for wanting to leave their brains in Managerial Safety Mode.)
What made me less happy? Seeing the display of essentially free art prints being given away with a donation of $1 or $2 to some charity. Thank you for devaluing my entire profession, assholes!
Was the art terrible? Of course. Was it still insulting to see my life’s work be given away as a free gift when donating less than bus fare? Absofuckinglutely.
(Note: Yes, I’m swearing a lot this blog post. I’m still *that* annoyed.)
Part of why this annoys me is the way artists are constantly called on to donate work to fundraiser auctions & the like. Once you donate something, be it an original or a print, the barrage of requests begins to snowball. I’ve spoken to several other artists who have had the same experience & none of us are considered “well known”. I’m sure lots of other industries get similar requests & yes, I’m happy to support the charities that I believe in, but at some point it’s just not feasible. Also, please do not patronize me with the adage, “But it’ll be great exposure for your work!” Great! Tell my landlord I’ll be paying rent this month with “exposure”. I’m sure that’s totally cool.
By a long shot, the most ridiculous fundraiser for which I’ve been asked to donate something was this: a lowly gaming company was in desperate need of funds to re-do their patio, where I presume the employees hang out. Quick! In the time it takes you to read this sentence, a struggling computer programmer may have to sit outside & smoke on a patio with cracks in it! CRACKS!!! Please donate now.
Um. No.
Brrrr! The Car Free Fest was chilly on Sunday, but I was delighted to see that the clouds didn’t keep folks away. I saw plenty of familiar faces and really wished I’d been able to wander around more. It’s tough when you’re a vendor working on your own; you’re pretty much stuck behind your table the entire day. Fortunately I had plenty of lovely customers plus tricky gusts of wind to keep me busy.
I did as best I could to change up my table display so it would be more weather-friendly, but alas, when the wind suddenly changed direction? I was not prepared. My new locket display sits sturdily on an easel & then was bracketed by two other heavy wood pieces so there was no way it was falling over. Until the wind switched things up & a strong gust came from behind knocking it to the ground along with all of my lockets! I scrambled to get everything picked up & carefully inspected every piece for damage. Luckily only one necklace showed any sign of trouble & it was a really minor fix (a charm fell loose). Phew!
And also – yay! I try to product test my lockets by wearing one myself (constantly), but to be honest, I’ve never really tried to damage the shiny resin that seals my artwork. I’m interested to see what happens after being worn for long periods of time & I hope that the precautions I’ve taken will keep the work from yellowing or fading for a very long time (so far, so good!). But I assumed that hitting the concrete would be sure to cause at least minor scratches on the resin, which is essentially a plastic. I hope that my customers aren’t planning to drag their lockets around on the driveway, but it’s still nice to know that they can withstand being flung to the ground, if necessary.
Image from A Survey of Print Permanence in the 4×6 Inch Consumer Digital Print Market
When I was researching printer ink longevity for selling my artwork, I thought the process they use to test each paper was interesting. They basically stick a sample print in a box & expose it to insane amounts of light for a month or two, then calculate the amount of fading. They’re able to extrapolate that data to figure out how long the print would last when exposed to an average amount of light. (I’m not sure how they get that figure, but they’re assuming some daylight, some tungsten light every day. I imagine the practical difference varies dramatically. A living room in Vancouver is going to get wayyyyy less UV exposure than a condo in California with floor to ceiling windows.) Three estimates are then given on how long a print will take to show signs of fading when: under glass, under UV-protected glass or in an archival album only exposed to light while being periodically looked at.
Obviously as someone who sells her artwork, I find this interesting, but also the geek in me finds it really cool. The printer technology that’s out now hasn’t been out for very long. There really hasn’t been any way for consumers to know if the claims that various brands of ink & paper are “archival” quality is true or not, so reading these reports has been an eye-opener. Nobody wants to just “wait & see” with their wedding photos, right?
Before this gets too (much) longer and boring-er, two things I was surprised by:
1) If you have a good quality printer at home, the photos you print may have a longer archival rating than the ones printed professionally at Costco or Walmart. I know printer & ink technology has come a long way, but I was really surprised by this.
2) If you want your photos or whatever else you’re printing to last more than a few years, don’t buy generic ink. Those ink cartridge refill places? Super cheap, but the ink is horrible for archival purposes. If you’re mostly printing papers that are going to be tossed (recycled) anyway, then this wouldn’t apply to you. But if you’re printing family photos or anything you think you’ll want to hang on to, the testing has shown that the standard rating for those cheapo inks is 5 years or less. Apparently you *do* get what you pay for.
You can download all of the tests from Wilhelm Imaging Research if you’d like to read more.
I’ve been so up and down over the last few days that I’m sure my mister thinks I’m on crack. Why’s that, Miss Kris? Well, I’m going through what I’m sure a lot of small business owners lose sleep over – investing in inventory. Here’s how it goes…
I’m starting to plan new goodies for the summer markets (and my shop, of course), which is always lots of fun. I’m not sure which part of my job is the most fun actually – sketching and crafting up new ideas, pushing the paint around or coming up with new ways to send my characters off into the world (think pendants, magnets, stickers etc.). They all allow me to flex my creative muscles in different ways and they all remind me how much I love making art for living. Yay! (<<< that would be the crackhead high)
This week I’ve ordered:
This is on top of all of the frames I just bought for my solo show (plus some extra ones, just cuz they were awesome).
Typing that list out? Made my stomach do flips.
While I’m super excited about new products for the shop and for the summer markets, holy mother of god is it scary to spend that much money!!! Especially without having any clue how long it will take me to sell enough of those things to make it back. This would be the part where I come down from the excited high of NEW SHINY STUFF and start to panic. This is the crash.
Fortunately (unfortunately?) there is no rehab for this particular issue. I don’t have buyer’s remorse, exactly. I run a business. I need to sell things to make a living. All I’m doing is investing in my business, investing in myself, really, by purchasing new things to sell.
The nervous part is not knowing *which* things are the ones that will sell. And nobody know this.
When it comes to painting, I try to shut off the business part of my brain & paint what makes me happy, what inspires me. I do have a vague idea of which paintings are more popular than other ones based on print sales and comments from customers, but I mostly design new products based on which paintings *I* like the best. If I’m going to be the one sitting behind a table on a hot Sunday afternoon, I want to be 100% in love with everything on my table. I know I can (& probably should) try to imagine what other market demographic borgs would want, but really? As long as I would buy it myself, I think I’m good.
So, what to do?
Breathe.
Trust that I’m on the right path. I love what I’m doing, I love the work I’m creating and other people will too.
Yes, it may take time to turn a profit on the new purchases, but that’s OK. All businesses go through this part – investing in supplies, new equipment, new products, packaging. I’m growing & not all growth feels good. It feels scary to step out of your comfort zone & try something new, but what’s the worst case scenario? I’m stuck with 600 AWESOME buttons! If they’re a complete dud this summer, I can always give them away as little “thank yous” with new orders.
One more idea? Pour a big glass of wine before I open my next credit card bill. 
photo: Arlo Bates
