Recovering from the Art Crawl

Last weekend was the Art Crawl in St. Paul. My studio is in a part of town with a lot of other art and design studios and twice a year everyone opens their doors to the public.

It was a big deal because it was my first contact with the mass public and it was also my official launch of the studio. I spent the preceeding two weeks getting stuff ready like mad, but I didn't have everything I wanted to finish done by the art crawl.

The weekend itself was a madhouse - so busy! I consider this good. I could barely find a moment of silence in three days. Tons of people came through the studio. I talked my voice raw about how I'm trying to revive stained glass with fresh new designs and I studied in Europe blah Blah BLAH dee blah blah..... but it was good. Lots of people were interested. There were many oohs and ahs and compliments to warm my soul. I said at the start of the weekend that I would be happy if I sold one item, and in the end I sold 7 or 8 and made $175! Sweet!!! I posted my first dollar on my wall. I also have one commission lined up and a couple more possible commissions in the pipeline. All good.

My friend Emily, who's doing jewelry, also showed her work in my studio and kept me company throughout the weekend (thanks Emily for the fun and the help and the apple cider!!). She sold tons of her jewelry and was also content. I think we can make a pretty good artistic alliance and sell stuff together elsewhere. Finally also on Saturday night I had my official studio launch party and had friends over for food and drinks. The food and drinks were a bit shoddy because honestly I had no time to dedicate to them. But it was great to make myself official and do it with some company.

I was SO exhausted after. Now, four days later I'm getting a cold which I attribute to the ultra hectic days of this art crawl. But I don't usually get colds and I think it will pass before tomorrow. Hopefully it will, because tomorrow Marco and I board a plane to New York to visit our friends Zoe and Mitesh! Yay!

I also found a really cool new website that sells nothing but handmade goods. It's called Etsy. It is very design-y and I like it a lot. I've put four of my works on there to sell. My "store" is at GreenLanternGlass.etsy.com (Just cut and paste this link, because, as always, my blog fails to create links that work.) I'm going to put tons more stuff up after I get back from New York. There are so many neat things on this site too that I would want to buy like fingerless gloves and inexpensive creative dishware. No matter what you should take a look. You can find stuff that's way cooler than what's in stores for very reasonable prices AND you support independant artists and designers. I am 100% pro-Etsy.