the shows

"Things With Wings"  opening last night at the Three Graces Gallery, Portsmouth,NH.

A bit over two and a half years ago when I started this blog I had just begun to sew in earnest. I was making all sorts of things, but soft toys seemed to be what excited me most. 

After sewing for a few months a local baby store began selling my bears and I was thrilled, but when they sold out, that was it - I just didn't want to make twelve more of the same toy. 

Then I started selling pieces at Indie craft stores and high end gift shops and that was cool because I could make one or two of each  pattern and they didn't expect a dozen of the same thing. 

And I did some local craft shows, and quickly learned that I really don't like doing craft shows. The most popular item on my table were the sock monkeys and I began to feel so angry that out of every creative thing I'd made the sock monkeys, which were really nothing special to me, were flying off the table.  No more craft shows for me.

In March of last year I had my library show and got a taste of what it was like to put pieces on display in a gallery-type setting and it felt so good, and nearly everything sold.  When the show came down at the end of the month, I was a bit at loose ends.  What to do next?

And then I realized that I wanted to be free to make things that didn't take just two hours to finish, or six hours even. Things that were really complicated and would be unsalable unless in a gallery (do you remember this crisis?  the "gallery or gallery gift shop" crisis?  if you do, bless you that you've been readying my blog so carefully and for so long!), but I didn't have any sort of gallery lined up to show them in.

I figured I would plow ahead anyway and I held on to everything I made in the hopes of building up a body of work to show at some later time. 

And last night that time came, and it has only just begun.  It really was incredible to see things I've made hung on two different galleries' walls in the same night, in two fantastic shows.  I feel now like I've figured out where to go.  Doing this is what I should do now.  I'm an artist.  Hurray!

"Ode to Cornell - What Would Joseph Do" juried show opening last night in Salem, MA.

One more picture from the shows here.