The Gallery/Store front is done!! It looks great. It came together well. I have met some talented ladies who are putting some good work in the store on consignment. I am so happy and privileged to have their work in my studio. With their work, combined with some advertising and a bit of divine intervention, it will be a gallery to take notrice of.
We opened the store same weekend as the Alberta Gift Show. We have been at that show for years. We are the old timers on the floor. It was soooo very weird today not be at the show. It was even weirder that the regulars I invited to come to the studio instead of seeing me at the show, never showed, not one. It makes me kinda nervous. But as Andy Warhol said, “They say time changes everything, but actually you have to change things yourself”. If I don’t want to do as much wholesale as I have been doing, then I have less wholesale clients. If I sell retail, I only need to sell half as much to make the same amount as wholesale. It is just right now wholesale is paying the bills…… however , that is just right now…..At any rate, I will post a few pictures and then call it a night……A night…
Day two of the store has come and gone and still no one came in. It is a holiday monday here in Alberta, a lot of businesses are closed. That would explain why drop in traffic didn’t happen, just not the wholesale customers from the show??Most said they would stop in, so I guess tomorrow will be a busy afternoon. We go to the show as buyers tomorrow morning. I would like to add a few more things to the store.
Until next time.
Cindy
I have been glazing up a storm this past week. I am not sure that a storm is the best thing in the studio right now, but I have had the 10 cubic foot and the 16 alternately firing for …. With bisque and glaze loads…… I donno… a week or more. I unloaded the 10 and reloaded today. Tomorrow I will unload and load the 16. We have pots now. I am excited about the work. I haven’t felt this good about working for a long time. As usual the pots for the show come out of the kiln the day before or the day depending if I get it all in tomorrow. There are some fairly large pieces. When we got the 16 it felt huge, now it is not.
I have been threatening to post pictures here. I will threaten again. The camera has been at work for the entire week. It will be there tomorrow. I hope to get some pictures soon. I still have a lot of work to do to make the store front look like I want it too. But as much work as I think we have, we do not have the booth to set up…..YEAH… It is cold here, with wind chill down near -40 C. There is nothing like setting up in the winter. Did I mention we were not setting up the booth…..??
It is late. Gonna go to bed.
Until next time.
Cindy
I didn’t get as many as mugs made as I wanted, but then I never do. After trimming and moving pots around to drying racks I pugged me some mug pugs and got down and dirty. Kaileigh came by to visit after school. I threw mugs on and off until 5 ish when Jim came with a small load of clay and a ride home for us girls. I had planned on a 100 mugs today but jammed out at 70.
The show is only 11 days away. I have a lot to do in order to have the studio ready. The thought of not setting up the booth is a very nice one. No numerous totes full of heavy pots to carry, no walls to build, and carpets to lie…… no growling at each other over and during set up …. Not like we ever would or do. It costs about $2000 including lighting for the corner booth we have had in the past. The show runs for 4 days. I was talking to a sign making guy today and for less than half that I can have two 4’ x 8’ signs that will hang on the building, one on each side of an attached pillar thing on the front, for years…hhmm…. Don’t need to be a rocket surgeon to walk that one through. I had a dream the other night. We were in this rinky dink show. It was so dark you could not see anything, no one there; in the dream I turned to Jim and said “No more shows!!” It is hard to analyze that one.
Another lady came by to drop off product for the retail side of the studio. Beautiful hand crafted jewelry. Very cool stuff. So now I have the masks and things that Helen makes, hand poured bee’s wax candles, jewelry, and small sculpted ladies. I have not even advertised that I am looking for things. They are just arriving. It is like the store is meant be. Must get pictures!!
I talked to WIN House last week. We are on for the second annual Empty Bowls. The local celebs will come in and make pots again, TV coverage, I hope this year they ask the local paper. It will be fun. It doesn’t happen until the fall. I shipped out vases again to < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />
American Idol is on in a few minuets, it waits for no man, or woman. It is fun to watch those who really think they can sing and can’t. They must have a friend or someone they trust, anyone that will tell them the truth.
Until next time.
Cindy
I have always called work “The Bitch”. She is very demanding, has to be put ahead of everything and everyone. She is very expensive both in time and money. But for whatever reason, I love The Bitch and enjoy spending a productive day with “her”. Up until this last week, I have been avoiding her or she avoiding me. Now she is back in the studio and we are pretty much up to speed. Today was a good day. I have been working for the Alberta Gift Show. We will not be attending the show but inviting all our regulars and some we hope to be regulars to come and see us at the studio instead. We will have the store set up and the shop area all cleaned up. Well, we will have the store front set up, the back is seldom clean. After all it is a studio. Like most shows, I am trying to throw a whole show in a few short weeks. We have been trying to get the front room finished and ready for retail customers. I have work from one other lady in there now and will be shopping at the Gift Show. By the end of April, we should be open for business and looking the way I want the “Bitch” to look. I will take a shot of what the one lady is doing. Great stuff.
I am not in the mood to Blog. I have paid some bills, wrote some emails and now I am done with the computer.
Until the next time.
Cindy