Welcome to my first blog of 2012
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU
(I know it's a little late, but i've been so busy with house organising)
As you can see i've changed my blog slightly...I wanted something fresh for the coming new year, there will be a picture at the top soon i'm just waiting to scan it!
I'm so excited, one of the major things I did over the Christmas holidays was getting my art studio set up, it's taken me ages and all my energy, but what better way to start the New Year? For the first time in three years i now, once again, have a cosy little art studio/room all to myself, with all my art, art supplies, lap top, books, magazines, kindle, ipod around me, a place where I can shut myself off to the world (when i want to) and get back to creating to my hearts content! Bliss.
The first task was to move this lot to the upstairs new art room, and it was all undertaken after first emptying the art room to be, which was also full to bursting point.
My new, "old" work table.
I found this at an auction a while ago, it's perfect (my other table was much too big for this room.
My darling husband very kindly fixed in some shelves for me
(please note it's dark by this time and i'd shut the curtains. You can just see the montgomery christmas lights twinkling through)
and this was the end result,
it's still a work in progress, but i'm trying to keep it as comfy as possible.
2011 was a huge learning curve for me and i leave it behind with mixed emotions. The highlight of the year was, of course, getting married. My art was published in Cloth Paper Scissors and i held my first solo art exhibition here in Montgomery, which I approached with huge trepidation and very little confidence but was totally amazed at the response i got. I met loads of interesting people, made new friends, received many requests to set up workshops and got invited to meet and exhibit with other artists at Andrew Logan's Big Buzz Festival in Berriew. In May we'd accomplished our first year of trading as Indigo Moon and the accounts were good. We approached both the summer and Christmas extremely organised, Indigo Moon was stocked to the hilt, we'd shoe-horned in as much as we could and our customers loved it. Some of the lows were having a disastrous holiday in September with a "Beautiful Wales" cottage we booked, getting our car broken into in Manchester when we went to see "The Wall", our plumber letting us down with the new bathroom he fitted resulting in us having to threaten court action to get it righted and although he did pay up, we had to find someone else to do the work. Gavin lost an uncle to cancer and our friend George (who played with his band at our wedding) was diagnosed with MS. The most annoying was having to deal with (from the most unexpected quarter) the most hateful, vindictive, spiteful, narcississtic, personality disordered person i've ever come across (and as a former medical secretary to a consultant psychiatrist in a psychiatric hospital, i feel qualified to recognise/diagnose it).
So...my plans for the new year are to first and foremost rid myself of all the negative things of last year (which is already done), continue to build on my artistic success and Indigo Moon success. To update both my Etsy shop (it's very pitiful at the moment) with work i've been too busy to photograph and upload and with some new work that i can now start creating . Also i'll be updating my Flickr photos. I'll be doing some different things with my blog too, i'd like to organise some art swaps or mail art, i'm impressed with Micki Wilde and Mindy Lacefield's swap, but that will take a bit more organising. I'd like to do a few giveaways too and am even thinking of doing some interviews with other artists, but first i need to do develop my blog a bit more.
I've been so inspired by Cathy Cullis and her "one hundred portraits on brown paper" i thought i'd do my own version of "three hundred and sixty five angels", but like Cathy i won't put myself under any pressure to do them quickly, the idea was to do one for every day of 2012, and i will, but i'll do them a my own pace and then put them on Flickr. I'm also going to do some other features for certain days, but haven't decided exactly what yet - It will give me the incentive to blog regularly.
I'll also, at some point, be making use of the wonderful Giclee printer we have to do some prints of my collage paintings for my etsy shop and Indigo Moon and to look further into printing options for my collage paintings
So...i enter 2012 fighting fit (except for chronic back and shoulder pain from constantly moving heavy furniture around the house) and ready to take on the world.
One of my new year resolutions was to use my quiet/less busy times whilst in the shop constructively by creating things i could sell, so here are a few brooches i made today at the kitchen table (at least i think it's a kitchen table, it has so much stuff on it it's difficult to tell these days!!)
It's so nice to finally get to this stage in my life, I've had some major physical and emotional upheavals over the last three years (nearly all my own choice), including three major house moves, leaving my job, becoming a full time artist and starting my own successful business, and getting married...to name a few ...and finally, the start of 2012 sees things settling down for me (us), not only with moving and working here in beautiful Montgomery, but getting our lovely home organised, decorated and livable. We still have a way to go, but at least we seem to be moving in strides now. Building work has resumed and that's caused some upheaval but it should all be sorted by end of feb.
So...my plans for the new year are to first and foremost rid myself of all the negative things of last year (which is already done), continue to build on my artistic success and Indigo Moon success. To update both my Etsy shop (it's very pitiful at the moment) with work i've been too busy to photograph and upload and with some new work that i can now start creating . Also i'll be updating my Flickr photos. I'll be doing some different things with my blog too, i'd like to organise some art swaps or mail art, i'm impressed with Micki Wilde and Mindy Lacefield's swap, but that will take a bit more organising. I'd like to do a few giveaways too and am even thinking of doing some interviews with other artists, but first i need to do develop my blog a bit more.
I've been so inspired by Cathy Cullis and her "one hundred portraits on brown paper" i thought i'd do my own version of "three hundred and sixty five angels", but like Cathy i won't put myself under any pressure to do them quickly, the idea was to do one for every day of 2012, and i will, but i'll do them a my own pace and then put them on Flickr. I'm also going to do some other features for certain days, but haven't decided exactly what yet - It will give me the incentive to blog regularly.
I'll also, at some point, be making use of the wonderful Giclee printer we have to do some prints of my collage paintings for my etsy shop and Indigo Moon and to look further into printing options for my collage paintings
So...i enter 2012 fighting fit (except for chronic back and shoulder pain from constantly moving heavy furniture around the house) and ready to take on the world.
One of my new year resolutions was to use my quiet/less busy times whilst in the shop constructively by creating things i could sell, so here are a few brooches i made today at the kitchen table (at least i think it's a kitchen table, it has so much stuff on it it's difficult to tell these days!!)
I wish you all a brilliant and very prosperous new year for whatever you decide to do in 2012 ...
"March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life's path"
- Gibran, Kahlil