Nicolette’s Design Diary

One cool thing about show downtime is that I get to catch up on my reading. I’ve always done a lot of reading, but most of what I read these days are often business books and art-related magazines since I like to keep up on what’s going on in the art world. Most of the mags I read are craft related publications like The Crafts Report, AmericanStyle, American Craft, Lapidary Journal. My most favorite mag is Ornament, which focuses on jewelry, wearable art, tribal and ethnic adornment, and beadwork. If you’re at all interested in any of these topics, Ornament is a fabulous magazine to pick up.

Today I was reading the spring issue of Ornament and saw that they did a story on one of my favorite jewelry artists, Thomas Mann. Thomas Mann has been a contemporary craft artist for about 30 years. He creates mixed media jewelry and craft art using a variety industrial materials like plastics, found objects along with gemstones, and silver to develop jewelry with romantic themes and images he calls Techno-Romantic. He’s one of the first mixed media jewelers I’ve ever encountered and his work partly influenced some of my earlier jewelry pieces.

The Ornament article reviewed Mr. Mann’s latest exhibition at The Bellevue Arts Museum. Thomas Mann’s studio is based in New Orleans, and like all New Orleans residents, his life and business was turned upside down by Hurricane Katrina last year. Like most great artists, he turned his experience into art and the result of his experience is a series of artworks called Storm Cycle“. The art series is made up of 20 framed wall panels made with photographs, found objects from the actual debris from New Orleans, and text with each panel dealing with an aspect of the physical and emotional aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Each panel also includes a detachable brooch that you can actually remove and wear, a feature that brings the artwork beyond something that you merely hang on the walls, but something that you can take with you.

Storm Cycle is more than a personal account of the aftereffects of the Katrina disaster, but also contain observations and commentary on the corruption that hindered the recovery of New Orleans. The article describes one piece called Blue Roofs, a panel made of blue roofing tarp, plexiglass, and an aerial photograph of buildings with roofs covered in blue tarp. In the text of this particular panel, Mann describes how while FEMA paid for strong high quality tarps, the middlemen who actually acquired the tarps bought cheaper, lightweight tarps and pocketed the price difference. The difference in quality resulted in tarps flying off buildings and leaving damaged roofs unprotected.

The Storm Cycle exhibition ran at The Bellevue Art Museum through May 21, but it will be traveling to other museums throughout the country. The next exhibition date will be in New Orleans itself at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art from July 28th to September 3. If you’re interested in seeing the full schedule of the Storm Cycle exhibition, visit Mr. Mann’s website for more details. While I would love to jet off to go see this exhibition in person, I guess I’ll have to content myself with getting the exhibition catalog instead (also available at Mr. Mann’s website).

[tags]jewelry, artists, jewelers, Thomas Mann, Hurricane Katrina, exhibitions[/tags]

In a previous entry, I wrote briefly about some of the projects that I’m working on this summer. One of them is a podcast called Crafting Voices. If you’re not familiar with the term podcast, it’s simply an audio program that you can subscribe to and listen to on a portable MP3 player like an iPod or a Creative Zen. If you don’t have a portable audio player, you can just download the podcast audio file and listen to it on your computer.

Crafting Voices is a hour long podcast that focuses on American craft and those individuals who spend their lives creating, promoting, and collecting American craft. The idea for Crafting Voices is partly inspired by one of my favorite NPR programs, This American Life. For those of you who never heard of This American Life, it’s a weekly program by Chicago Public Radio that focuses on stories of ordinary people. Some of these stories are funny, some are sad, some inspirational, and some are downright strange. Each episode has a theme, and all of the stories in that episode is related to that theme.

I’ve been wanting to do a magazine or a radio program about other artists because many times people don’t know what life is like being an artist, or they’re always surprised that one can actually make a living as an artist. One of the great things about doing craft shows is that you bring back stories, stories of other artists, stories about funny things that happened at a show. Many of the artists that I’ve met at a craft show always have an interesting and fascinating backgrounds and I relate these stories to my family and friends.

I’ve been playing around with the idea of doing a podcast for a couple of months when I hit on the idea of making Crafting Voices. Just like This American Life, each episode will have a theme and the stories will match that theme. In Crafting Voices I will interview artists, gallery owners, museum curators, show promoters, craft collectors, anyone who has a hand in making, creating, or promoting American crafts. With these interviews, I hope to create a better picture of the story behind American craft. I’ve just finished developing the companion web site to Crafting Voices at www.craftingvoices.org and the pilot episode should be available on August 15, 2006.

[tags] Crafting Voices, artists, crafters, art galleries, podcasts, iTunes [/tags]

Crossing the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel on a weekday in late afternoon can take you about 20 to 30 minutes on a good day. Fortunately, the Hampton Roads area is lucky enough to have two NPR stations and late afternoon is when All Things Considered is on.

This afternoon while sitting in bridge-tunnel traffic, I listened to an interesting story about what might be some of the oldest jewelry in the world. Apparently, archeologists found some ancient beads made from shells in Israel and Algeria that may date back as far as 100,000 years. According to scientists, the act of making beads and decorations is a sign of what they called a “cultural explosion” in human history. If you have RealPlayer or WindowsMedia on your computer, you can listen to the story here.

[tags] jewelry, beads, National Public Radio [/tags]

Making art is not a hazard free occupation. There are a number of injuries that artists can be subject to from poisoning from toxic chemicals and injury from power tools to repetitive motion injuries. Because much of my work require a lot of repetitive hand movements, I’ve gotten into the habit of wearing support gloves while I work. I even wear these gloves during shows as I often custom fit bracelets and necklaces for customers on-site. I get a great many comments about them. “Carpel tunnel?”, someone might ask. Or, “No wonder you have carpel tunnel, look how intricate these designs are!” I usually reply that I don’t have carpel tunnel and that the gloves are just preventative, but sometimes I have to repeat my myself so often I just stop explaining. One of my craft colleagues joked that I was using the gloves to get some sympathy sales. Actually, I’ve been getting more advice on carpel tunnel surgery and the proper way to get chiropractic adjustments for my back and shoulder that I know what to do with.

But sometimes you run across injuries and hazards that you don’t expect or anticipate. Lately I’ve been having a lot of pain and stiffness in my left knee. Other than a daily workout and show set up, I couldn’t think of anything that could be causing the pain in my knee. A couple days ago, my husband James pointed out that the way I sit while I’m working could be the thing that’s was causing the pain in my knee. When I’m making jewelry, I usually sit cross legged or with one leg (usually my left) tucked under the other. Which means that I spend hours working with my left leg in a bent position which strains the ligaments and tendons in my knee. After a visit to the doctor, I’m wearing a knee brace to prevent me from keeping my knee bent during the day and a light Ace bandage to stabilize my knee at night. It’s a hard habit to break, the brace makes me realize how often I sit cross-legged while working. James laughed and said that I’m the only person he knew that could injure themselves while sitting down. This actually isn’t true, many people cause pain in their backs, necks, and shoulders by slumping in their chairs while at their desks. That’s one reason why Aeron chairs got to be so popular.

Now when I’m getting ready to work, I feel like I’m suiting up for a round of hockey instead of preparing to make some necklaces and bracelets. Yesterday I spraying acrylic on some new paper beads and was going outside wearing my NIOSH saftey respirator, my knee brace and support gloves. James looked at me and said, “Who are you, Darth Vader?” He can always be counted on to make a funny comment.

[tags] jewelry, carpel tunnel, repetitive stress [/tags]

Just checked the calendar today, and realized that today is my one-year anniversary. Last year on January 25, 2005, I was laid off of my full time job as a web designer and began my profession as a full time jewelry designer and business owner.

Looking back made me realize how long it really took me to transition from unemployed to self-employed. The actual act didn’t take long at all. The last day I walked into the office, my boss met me at my desk and asked to talk to me in his office, a half hour later…I packed up my few belongings and left that office forever. In that instant, my part time occupation of business owner and jewelry designer, became my full time profession. But it took even longer for my mind and heart to fully realize what had happened.

For the first week, I was in total shock. Even though I had been unhappy and had dreamed about quitting and taking my business full-time, it’s still very disconcerting to walk out the door as an employed person one hour and walk back in unemployed an hour and half later. I had been working since I was fifteen and had never left a job where it wasn’t on my own terms. It was strange not having a place to go in the mornings. I spent more time daily with my co-workers than I did with my own husband and all of a sudden, those familiar faces were gone. After the shock wore off, my husband and I discussed what should happen next. For him, there was no question about me running my jewelry design business full time. The writing was on the wall he said, this layoff was just a sign that I needed to go ahead and pursue my dream. (I had in fact gotten a wholesale order for some jewelry on the day I got laid off…talk about signs!)

So I got to work, booked some local shows, got more wholesale accounts and went about the task of building a full time business. It took friends and some family members a bit of time to get the fact that I was going to do the jewelry thing full time. Through the next three or four months, I had to tactfully turn down the many job leads well-meaning loved ones threw my way. Strangely enough, my mind took even longer than my family to catch up. When people asked what I did, I said that I used to be a web designer and that I now made jewelry. When family and friends needed some help during hours in which most people would be going to work, I volunteered because “I didn’t have a job anyway”. The very last time I made a comment like this was in the late summer just as I was preparing for a two day show over the weekend. My twelve-year old god-daughter had volunteered to help with the preparations and with the actual show. When I made the comment about “not having a job”, she looked at me and said, “But you do have a job. You’re running a business.” Funny how it took a twelve-year old to point out the obvious. After that, I made a concerted effort never to make that statement again.

As I write this, I realize the moment that my mind finally caught up to my heart and reality. James and I was at his boss’ annual Christmas party last month. After the usual round of introductions, one of the female guests asked me what I did for a living. Without a beat or hesitation, I said “I’m a jewelry designer and I run my own company”. Within ten minutes I had a small crowd around me as I explained my jewelry and talked about the local retailers that carried my work. By the end of the evening I had passed out almost all of my business cards and for the first time I felt like what I had been since January 25, 2005.

A jewelry designer and business owner.

[tags] jewelry, craft shows,downsizing, small business [/tags]

These are the remains of a postcard I sent to a customer that the U.S. Post Office inadvertently destroyed and sent back to me. Apparently, when the post office accidently mangles a piece of mail beyond recognition, they send it back to you in this neatly packaged window envelope with an apology on the back.

While it’s a nicely worded apology, the whole thing leaves you a bit nonplussed. While you’re obviously po’d at the fact that the post office shredded your mail, yet managed to return the pieces back to you in this nice envelope in pristine condition. Though you have to appreciate the fact that they took the time to retrieve the pieces and return them to you so you won’t wonder what happened to that missing electric bill.

I’m not quite sure what disturbs me the most. The fact that this is a postcard that I sent over two months ago or the fact that this is the fifth envelope I’ve received in the past three months.

Once an artist has their slides all gathered for their application, the real work begins. The labeling of the slides. With the show applications, anywhere from 3 to 5 properly labeled slides depicting a representative sample of artwork and at least one slide of the show booth is required along with the application.

However, every organization has their own ideas about what a “properly labeled slide” looks like. Unfortunately, none of the these ideas actually agree. Just today, I’m filling out two applications and “properly” labeling my slides. One application wants me to put my name on the top of the slide, the medium category I’m applying to (in this case, jewelry) on the lower right hand corner of the slide with the slide number immediately under it, and a red dot in the lower left corner of the slide. The other application wants my last name only on the upper left corner of the slide, the medium category I’m applying to on the lower center of the slide, a red dot on the upper right corner of the slide, and the slide number on the lower right corner of the slide. On an application I did two weeks ago, the instructions were to have the slide number and my full name on the upper center of the slide and an arrow depicting the bottom of the slide drawn on the right side of the slide. An application that’s due in two weeks just wants your name on the bottom of the slide and a black dot on the upper right corner of the slide.

Don’t get me wrong. I completely understand why I have to label my slides. Juries handle hundreds, even thousands of slides in a jury session. They have to have a way to know whose slide goes with who’s application. And the purpose of the red dot is to know to indicate how to load the slide in the slide projector so you won’t be viewing the slide upside down or sideways and waste precious jury time adjusting slides. And if your medium is abstract art, it’s sometimes tough to know which is the right side up without some identifier. But after following 10 different instructions on how to label your slides, you start to wish that everyone can come to more of a consensus on how these slides should be labeled. Or at least have everyone agree on just where that little red dot should go, or at least that it should be a little red dot and not a black dot, or an arrow, or a label that reads “bottom”. The one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that you don’t use self-adhesive labels and that the labeling should be done with a permanent marker. That pretty much guarantees that I will have to remount all of my slides once I get them back, since the next time I want to re-use this properly labeled slide, it will be improperly labeled, in permanent marker, for someone else’s application.

A couple years back, one of the national organization for artists, I forgot which, wrote some standards on slide labeling and are trying to get art festival organizations to adopt these standards. Lots of luck, I say. If they can accomplish that, their next job should be negotiating peace in the Middle East.

Once slides are properly labeled, the application is filled, the all important issue of fees must be addressed, for of course no show worth doing is free. Some organizations merely charge a fee for renting a space at the show. Some charge a fee for the space and electricity. Still others also charge an administration fee or a jury fee that is non-refundable. There is somewhat of an industry-wide conversation on whether administration or jury fees should be charged in addition to what an artist has to pay for the privilege of participating in a show. Booth fees are refundable in the event that an artist does not get accepted into a show. Administration and jury fees are not. So if an artist does not make the cut, they’re basically SOL and are relieved of anywhere from 25 to 50 bucks. If you apply to a number of shows, as many artists do (I myself will be applying to over 20 this year), and perhaps half of them have some sort of application fee, you see what the complaint is.

Some artists openly refuse to do show that charge administration fees. I myself don’t apply to shows where I don’t think I have a reasonable chance of getting in whether it charges a jury fee or not. For me these tangle of fees, presents the more pragmatic problem of bookkeeping. Jury fees are usually due upon receipt of the application, whereas your booth and electricity fee is due upon acceptance, which may be months down the road. That means two checks per application…perhaps three if you must pay for the electricity separately…all of them due at different points in time because in many cases you need to postdate your check and include it with your application. Other times, you include the check for your booth fee and the organization promises not to cash it until you are accepted, or until a certain deadline is past. That means you have dozens of potential check bombs worth hundreds of dollars floating out there in the ether, just waiting to go off at the most inopportune time. Yikes! I’ve had to develop a small database to keep track of all the checks I’ve written for my shows. And artists don’t have the steadiest income stream in the world. So close monitoring of your checking account is a must for at least the next four to five months to avoid…well, you know, highly flexible checks. Trust me…I’ve learned the hard way.

That done, apps are checked over and packaged for a trip to the post office. Then you wait. You wait for the reply. Are you in? Are you out? Are you relegated to waitlist limbo where due to space restrictions you’re not exactly out, but also not in? You’re basically waiting around like a vulture for another artist to drop out so you can take their space. Most artists I’ve spoken to said that they are usually accepted to anywhere from 40 to 70 percent of the shows they apply to. It doesn’t matter if they’ve done the show before. Like Heidi Klum of Project Runway says, “One day you’re in, the next day you’re out.” In order to keep a full schedule, a lot of artists overbook their shows. That is they apply to two or more shows scheduled on the same weekend to avoid holes in their schedule. If they’re accepted into both shows, they pick the better one and cancel the other. The only danger is if you don’t cancel your show in time you may not get all of your booth fee back or any back at all.

I don’t want anyone to think that I’m being a diva about the whole application process. I love doing shows and I respect the jurors and organizers who work hard to maintain the quality of the shows. The application process and the mosh pit of requirements is one of those idiosyncratic elements that is mostly a result of the fact that the art and craft festival industry doesn’t have some sort of centralized list of standards and requirements that they all have to follow. While this is great for allowing organizations to do their own thing, and trust me, I wouldn’t want it any other way, it also makes life a bit, ummm…interesting for the working artist. It’s just nice and stress relieving to poke fun at the minor annoyances that makes one want to pull their hair out every year. And I thank you allowing me to vent…

…now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to figure out where the little red dot goes on this slide…

[tags] jewelry, craft shows,artists, crafters, Project Runway [/tags]

Around this time, all artists who show their work in art festivals and craft shows are all tuning up for an annual ordeal. Every day, envelopes from art organizations containing prospectuses, calls for entry, and applications appear in mailboxes. And as the applications mount, artists gird themselves to get through a complex and conflicting tangle or rules and requirements to book their shows for the year.

Every year, hundreds of artists apply to a variety of craft shows and art festivals. Just about any show or festival that’s worth attending choose the artists that exhibit at their show by using the jury system. A panel of one to five people review artist applications and slides to determine who is chosen to exhibit at a festival. Jurors review images of an artist’s work, information from the application and any other material to help them make their decision. This process helps to ensure the the quality of an art festival or craft show. Unfortunately, it can also make for a minor headache for artists, one that grows with the number of shows that they do throughout the year.

As one might expect, not all applications on the same. All the applications require the same basic information of course, your name, the name of your company if you have one, what kind of medium you work in, address, phone and the like. But once you get beyond the basics, all bets are off. Some applications require an artist to list all the states in which they had a current sales tax id number. Some applications require artists to list details about their public liability insurance policy (a type of insurance that covers injuries, and accidents that may occur in a booth during a festival). Some shows won’t even consider artists that don’t have liability insurance. Other organizations may require an artist statement describing your creative process in addition to the application. Some organizations may also want an artist statement…but in 25, 35, 50 words or less. Some organizations require artists to submit a resume of show they have participated in in the past. Other shows forbid the submission of any artist statements, marketing materials, or resumes of any kind. And don’t forget the self-addressed stamped envelope, so the organization can mail out the artist’s rejection letter for free. Or an organization could just want two 37 cent stamps, never mind the envelope. Oops, it’s 2006…make that two 39 cent stamps, never mind the envelope.

And then there’s the slides….

Any artist who exhibits as shows has an entire slide library that’s dedicated to applying to art festivals. This library typically doesn’t come cheap. These days having a professional photographer take images of an artist’s artwork is not an option, it’s pretty much a requirement. A set of master slides of 4 different pieces of art can easily set one back at least $200 more if it involves groups of artwork or a model. Once the master slides are done, an artist must get duplicates made so they can send them out with their applications. The more shows an artists does, the more duplicates they’ll need to have made because once the slides go out, it will be at least two to four months before they’re seen again…if ever. I typically have at least 8 to 12 duplicates made out of each of my master slides, maybe more if I use a particular image for PR purposes. At about $2 to $2.50 a pop…well, lets just say that my local photofinisher knows me on a first name basis.

Typically, most organizations will also want a slide of an artist’s booth, fully stocked and set up. This is somewhat of a problem if this is an artist’s first show. In addition, some organizations require that there is no identifying information in the booth that indicate what artist’s booth they are looking at. That’s somewhat of a problem for me since I have large pictures of my jewelry as a part of my display and a big sign with my logo and business name promenently displayed in my own booth. Fortunately, professional photography for show booth images are not as critical…at least not yet…and artists can take those images themselves. At the first show of the year, I usually take photos of my booth in preparation for next year, remembering to make 8 to 10 duplicates of those slides as well.

Once all the slides and the requisite duplicates are assembled…the real work begins…

to be continued….

[tags] jewelry, craft shows,artists, crafters [/tags]

When you are an artist, you sometimes send your work out into the world with no idea of were it will go or where it will end up. But every now and then, you do find out where your creations end up and in many cases, it just goes to show how small the world really is.

Last week my husband James and I went to visit our old school, Radford University. Radford University is located in Radford, Virginia, a town in the mountains of the southwestern part of the state. It’s located right next to Blacksburg, Virginia which is the home of Virginia Tech. Radford is the place where we both met and we still keep in touch with some of our favorite professors, so this is a trip that we make every few years. We stayed with, Laurie, an old friend of ours and an alum of Radford who also happens to live there. The evening we arrived, we spent some time catching up and told Laurie about my jewelry and showed her some pictures of my recent work. She told me that my work reminded her of a pair of earrings that a friend of hers had bought as a gift for her. After we spend a little more time talking, she went to her room and brought back the earrings she received from her friend. Imagine my surprise when I saw that it was a pair that I had made!

It turns out that Laurie’s friend had visited Portsmouth, Virginia last year and bought the earrings at Riverview Gallery, one of my retailers! We had a good laugh and talked a little about how small the world really is, a point that I still think of a week after the incident. James once said to me, “Imagine, there are probably dozens, even hundreds of people in this world, walking around wearing your jewelry. Wouldn’t it be cool to walk down the street one day and see someone wearing something you made?”

Yep, it sure is.

[tags] jewelry, earrings, gallery [/tags]