Our first stop was at Michael and Terri's in Vallejo. We got there in the early evening. Terri fixed us a nice dinner. While it was still light I went around their yard taking pictures. Their yard was on the Vallejo Garden Tour this year. It's freakin' adorable. Terri's been doing ceramic sculptures and she has many of them placed around the yard. She made a really cool mermaid sculpture that spills water into a tub of fancy goldfish. Plants in pots (reeeally cool pots) are everywhere. She has the nicest collection of succulents I've ever seen. When we were on our way home we stopped by for another visit. I collected a nice bagfull of cuttings. I hope they take.
After dinner Jim, Paige and Michael jammed for a little while in his studio. I had a very nice talk with Terri. It's always inspiring to talk to her. Heh, as I write more about this trip that's a word you'll see me use again and again. My friends inspired me this week.
Then we headed for Lorraine's. It was late when we pulled up so we didn't visit, just a quick hug hello and then to bed. Lorraine had to work the next day so we drove around Santa Rosa a bit, dropped Paige off at Natalia's and then went to Dave and Nancy's. Had a nice (though short) visit with them and then went back to Lorraine's. Danny had gotten some two-fer coupons from a steak house so we went there for dinner.
Wednesday morning Mary came to Lorraine's. We went for a walk and then Lorraine had to go to work. We took Mary back to Napa. Jon came home shortly after we got there and we had a most excellent visit with them. Jon grilled some steaks, brats and peppers for dinner. Afterward we drank wine on the back deck and got nicely mellow. Mary really got going. The girl was full of all kinds of creative and helpful ideas on how we should market our business. And since we were all nicely buzzed the conversation was loud and animated and just plain fun.
We spent the night. The next morning Mary called work and told them she wasn't going to come in until 1. Jim burned some cds while Mary and I went to Papyrus to drop off some samples. Lindsay did her Lindsay thing and kept her nose in her laptop. Then we left Napa and headed for Dave and Nancy's.
We took a detour through Sonoma. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant and poked around some of the shops. I dropped some paper samples off at one and had a very nice chat with a girl whose family had a gallery store. She told me about a friend of hers who was struggling with her art business. She sent samples of her work to some big magazines, three of which ended up doing articles about her. She got thousands of dollars worth of business from that. Hello! I can do that!
That night we had dinner with Dave and Nancy. Brian joined us. Nancy grilled some ribs and pineapple which we had for desert with vanilla ice cream. Deeeelish!
More later.
9 comments:
Expose your art self! The bucks will start rollin in!
* I also need to take my own advice *
You know, I'm not the only one around here who can teach art to people. We can develop a workshop around the stuff you do, too.
Waddaya think of that?
Errr, I don't think my art is well, good enough. More like craft over art. And oddly I hate the idea of trying to sell myself. Isn't that wierd?
Virginia- Bullshit. I always told myself the same thing. And I know what you mean about selling yourself. For a very long time I felt the same way. But how do people react to your art? Positive, right? I know I was blown away by the beadwork on that doll you were working on when I saw you at Jean's last 4th of July.
Doesn't it seem to you that anyone could do what you do? It's just beading, anyone can learn that. But that isn't the way it really is. No one can do what you do.
So you have something to offer people and they'll be happy to pay you to teach them. If you take one of your projects that you've done a few times you can develop it into a workshop. I'm really seeing that now. It's not the artwork you're selling, it's information.
Dean- Home Depot offers free classes on how to do tile. You could start with something small and simple like a patio table. The steps are basically measuring, cutting, adhering and grouting. You just have to think it out more carefully when you're doing something like a kitchen counter. But I know you can do it because you're smarter than me. (I?) I tiled my shower and it turned out just fine. (Tip- If the grout color is close to the tile color it will hide your mistakes.)
If I can get my workshop thing going I can come to Austin and do them there. But you can bet your ass it won't be on how to tile Dean's kitchen counter.
hahaha, I knew I was gonna get yelled at.
LOL, my friends give me good comments but none of them would really buy my beading stuff (totally wrong style for all of them), none of them are interested in doing beading so I suppose some of my negativity comes from not having a viewable market.
And when it comes right down to it, my beading is fairly rudimentary. Am working on improving it but it's slow going.
You might want to see if you can come up with a design that can be completed in a short time and can be presented in stages.
Hey, have you ever heard of felt sculpting? My friend, Nancy, showed it to me when we were up there. You take a wad of wool and poke at it with a special needle that felts it together. You can get all kinds of shapes and it holds together really well. I could see you making a doll and adding beading.
Hmmm. Might be a bit hard on your arms.
Anyway, if you ever felt like jumping into the workshop thing I think it's something we could have fun with. Har! Like I'm such an expert! We shall see.
Yeah, felting seems like something I'd really like to do. Immediate gratification kind of thing. I love the textures of felted wool. Too bad we live in so cal!
I looked around riv for plain ole wool and couldn't find any to save my life.
I might just watch your workshop experience and see how it goes. Nothin like letting someone else dip their toes in the water first.
I'll bet you can find all the wool you want on the web.
Oh yes, I'll do the workshops and get the bugs worked out. Then I'll involve other people.
Hey, I found a mosaic book at Costco. Lots of really cool designs and easy projects. I'm thinking that would be a great workshop.
Yeah, tons of it on the web...gotta wait til I have a job. At this rate of job hunting it will be cold weather and felting will be right in time.
There is a great fiber store in Encinitas (The Black Ewe or The Black Sheep or something like that) where I remember seeing wool roving.
Some stores at Venice Beach always has cool felted wool things for sale.
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