Greetings! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I don’t know about you, but after almost 2 years of crazy pandemic protocols, this year felt a little bit more “normal”. It felt really good to gather with family and laugh. Laughing is my favorite part. When my sister and I get together, we laugh about EVERYTHING good and bad. It’s so therapeutic. My dear husband is the resident chef for all 19 people that joined us. He was up at the crack of dawn and executed this massive meal effortlessly. I’m so thankful for him. Boy am I lucky. A couple pounds heavier, but so very lucky ;)
On the art front, the two weeks before Thanksgiving are THE MOST STRESSFUL DAYS OF THE YEAR. I have been sorting art, jewelry, and pottery into piles. Then I had to get every single item priced and labeled for different art centers for their holiday sales which all begin TODAY. Months and months of work all come together in what will hopefully be a successful art season.
On top of that, I also try to create a solid representation of my work for my Etsy shop. Each listing can take 20-30 minutes to write and hours of photographing the work. But Etsy is the most personal to me because even though it is a tremendous amount of work, it feels so good to click on a website and have a visual of all your hard work. I don’t have a store, so this is the closest thing to seeing all of my work in one place together. It feels really good.
This year, Etsy is where I am releasing my most personal offerings as well. I joke, it’s like I am putting my babies up for adoption. I spent an entire year on one art series, My secret Garden. In that time, I have grown rather attached to the animals I chose to create. I see their faces every day and like my pet, I’ve grown rather attached. But stacks of paintings should not be sitting on my floor in my studio. They should be on walls hopefully making people smile. So with pride, I am releasing all 20 of my original watercolor studies for my Secret Garden Series. It is in these little paintings that I did my imagining, visualizing and execution of concepts. I always like to mention, as artists, we begin with a blank sheet of paper or an empty canvas. It is so hard to face an empty page. It can actually make you freeze up or run away. These little studies gave me permission to let loose, not take myself so seriously, yet get my imagination running.
So here they are. Matted, signed and photographed. Months of work are wrapped into these pages and as I mentioned, it’s so nice to be able to sit here at my computer and get a good visual of my progress.
Here is a link to my Etsy shop so you can see for yourself! https://www.etsy.com/shop/BeCreativeMary
These are some of my personal favorites:
Here are flyers for locals for the shows where I will be participating. I will post more this week with fun pottery I have created.
In some ways, the most stressful parts of the holidays are now in my past. I don’t know about you, but I am going to go get cleaned up and go head out to some of these art sales. They are where I like to do my own personal holiday shopping. I can’t wait to get out there and see the beautiful things people have created!
Be Creative Mary 