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.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
They deliver for you
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.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
The Application Dance...or dot, dot, who has the dot?- Pt 2
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...
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...
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