Beginning Again

February is a month of beginnings for me. I was born in February (many many moons ago…). I began my South American adventure learning to speak Spanish in Bolivia in February twenty years ago. I met my husband in February ten years ago. I started my job here at the Red Cross in February six years ago. This year, in February, I wrote my first show proposal. (Probably the first of many that will be rejected – but I have to start somewhere!)

Writing that proposal was about as hard a thing as I have ever done. I was fortunate to not be going it alone. KW and I wrote many drafts, emailing them back and forth, talking in between the mailing, until we figured out what to say. The hardest thing was finding a way to express the common theme in our work. We can see it in a way. We have some techniques in common. We are both approaching some difficult things. But it wasn’t until we recognized that we were both working around the same theme, her from the inside and me from the outside, that it clicked for me and I had a conceptual reason to put my work next to hers in a proposal. Then we had to find the right words to say it. My wonderful old friend Debbie had a lot to do with that. She rewrote the statement and even though we changed much of what she wrote, she helped us see how to make it better, stronger, more graceful. It went out in the mail yesterday. Now we bite our nails until April.

Yesterday I also received notice that “Out of Asia” was juried into a local show. I didn’t expect that to happen as one of the jurors doesn’t care for my silver-fumed work. But I hadn’t wanted to submit any of the dwelling places work, or any of the work about emotions to this show. Life is full of surprises.

I took a year and a half off to reassess the direction I was moving in, work on building a body of work, and begin to think anew about strategies for positioning my work. I don’t see myself producing for a fine crafts market. I haven’t got the free time to do that kind of work. This is the year where I start seriously pursuing exposure for my work. Maybe I will submit something again to the Bullseye show. I don’t know. It seems pointless. I’ll probably send some work to Pilchuck again. Then I get to go, see friends, have fun at the party, talk to people about my work, and hope I make a connection with someone. Just about every year that I have set glass goals, I have met them. So, this year, the goal is to find an appropriate place/audience for my emotions pieces. And try to relax and be happy.