some subtle changes...

I've really been thinking about how I market myself and what I need to do to get better exposure lately. This stems from a lot of things, not the least of which is that I would really like to make my art and craft my full time job. I've read and own a few books on the whole "cottage industry" and making a living, etc., etc. but recently picked up The Handmade Marketplace by Kari Chapin. I must admit, I may have judged the book by its cover on this one because it was a work of Emily Martin's of theblackapple, who I am a very big fan of, BUT, then I actually perused the book in the store and knew that I needed to have it. It was perfect. Chapin's skills as a writer made someone like me, who is not exactly into the business aspect of things, get really excited about reading about what I needed to do. Chapin also recruited lots of great people to participate in her book in interviews, Q&A's, and lots of pointers. I won't go on to name them, but chances are if you are involved in selling your work on etsy you have heard of a good portion of them. At any rate, I didn't mean for this post to be a book review, but seriously, I recommend this book 100%. My only complaint about it might be that the number crunching financial aspect is only touched on, but, she does recommend some great books that do a better job than she probably thought she could have done. That wasn't the point of her book, so no need to complain about it not being included.

Anyway, this book really inspired me to try to get my ass moving. I purchased a domain name quite some time ago, have a website designed with the help of my mac here, and just really haven't felt like I could go live with it. I'm not completely happy with the site that I designed and I want to get a logo design for Bricolage Studios before I go much further with it so it sits unused. In an effort to fill in for this much needed aspect of my business, I'm using my blog. I have created some "pages" for my blog which you can find at the top below my banner. I have moved my festival and show schedule up there and have also added some information about teaching in its own tab. I put and sort of artist statement under the heading of "About Bricolage Studios" some time ago but never really acknowledged it.

So there you have it. Some subtle changes on the blog to fill in until I can finally get my crap together and have a real website. Part of me wants to just keep the blog and the shop and that is it though... we'll set how things pan out.

Time just seems to be slipping away so I'm really busy trying to get fiber picked and washed so I can dye it while fretting over my solo exhibition at a local coffee shop in June. You may have guessed that I don't actually have anything finished for that yet... More on that later though, I plan on documenting the process here on the blog because I am really excited about this brand new body of work that I will be starting.