I’ll Skip the Desert, Thank You, I’m Finished Eating This Sand.

I’ve been absent from this website for the past couple of weeks, but I can assure you that my head wasn’t completely buried in the sand.
I just took a stroll through it with my bare feet….

I’ve been active elsewhere on the web; shopping for fixtures, studying booth designs, and stocking up on Epson Cold Press paper from my favorite online dealer….

I also placed a large order for new business cards yesterday. I still have a couple hundred (cheap!) business cards from VistaPrint that I’m no longer crazy about ~ is there anything I can DO with them?!

These new business cards are designed to be collectible; each card features one of my cat characters from Pride and Prejudice with an accompanying quote:

I’m getting these cards printed from Moo.com…. Dominic finds the name “Moo” embarrassing, by the way, and suggests they change it to “Meow”. If the cards turn out as well as I hope, more designs will be forthcoming. They would also make cute postcards, don’t you think?

The reason for all this preparation and stockpiling is that I’ve been accepted as a vendor for the Carroll County Farmer’s Market in Westminster, Maryland (specific dates to be announced)… AND… I’ll also be selling my artwork at the Urbana Music Festival in Frederick, Maryland on Saturday, June 23rd. My table will be located inside the Urbana Regional Library, and 15% of my sales will be donated to Friends of the Library.

Two years ago, I resolved to get my artwork into an actual art fair… and each season, I stand in my studio holding printed applications. Occasionally I’ve even managed to fill them out. This year, I’ve shaken the sand out of my hair and walked directly to the post office, depositing the stamped applications into the Out of Town slot.

No turning back.

Last week I sent off one such application for an Independent Press booth at MegaCon 2013, held each spring in Orlando, Florida. Many of the successful artists that I follow are regulars attendees at MegaCon ~ as well as other major fantasy conventions like DragonCon in Atlanta, GA, and FaerieCon in Baltimore, MD.

MegaCon is a sci-fi/fantasy/anime geek paradise… where people dress-up as their favorite comic book or fantasy characters, compete in costume contests, and receive autographs from television actors. Last year, Brent Spiner (Lt. Data) was there! *swoon*

Attending a show like this could very well be the kick-start I need to get my anthropomorphic cats in front of thousands of appreciative eyes.

A Flickr Slideshow of MegaCon attendees… I love the DeLorean costume! LOL! ♥

The logistics of participating in a major venue were almost paralyzing….. in addition to the hefty booth fee, I would have to consider travel to Orlando, lodging for the week, display structures to buy/build, and vasts amounts of inventory to accumulate.

Not to mention that once my family was made aware of my plan, they decided a trip to Disneyworld was in the cards.
So…. 5 tickets for Disney, please.

If ever there was a moment when I felt tempted to bury my head in the sand, inventing excuses to explain my un-readiness, my un-worthiness, to take a leap so ginormous…. THIS was the moment. It felt terrifying and impossible… that I knew it had to be attempted.

I need to pressure myself, push myself beyond my warm fuzzy sense of complacency, to do something meaningful and BIG for the sake of my art.
Or I can continue to fool myself into believing I’m a “real” artist, letting my easily manageable trickle of Etsy sales and a couple of small wholesale accounts lull me into a contented sense of accomplishment.

I chose to mail the application to MegaCon…. without putting much faith into an affirmative reply. Truth be told, I almost wanted to be denied… it would be so easy to “wait another year or two” until “I feel ready”. ….When my portfolio is larger. ….When I have extra money to spend on supplies and fixtures. ….When I have a few local craft fairs under my belt, and I feel experienced enough to tackle a big show.

I still had my Farmer’s Market booth to plan and prepare for, right?

Last night, I received an e-mail from MegaCon’s Assistant Director:

“We have received your Independent Press application and have assigned you to Indy Press booth 6…..

Oh. Crap.

I’ve been accepted?!

There is no use burying my head in the sand anymore.

This is it. Sink or swim… Mr. Darcy, the gang, and I are going to Florida next March.
Unless the Apocalypse comes first.

Thar Be Dragons, Cats, and Treasures Buried in a Book’s Pages

After Christmas, I spent a teensy bit of money buying supplies for my shop… including a nifty lamination machine for making bookmarks. Previously, I’d been using acrylic varnish to seal the card-stock and paper used for my bookmarks, but I wasn’t totally satisfied with the results. I wanted something flexible AND water-resistant AND durable, because my bookmarks suffer from constant abuse. Heehee

I’m a voracious reader, rarely leaving home without a book in hand, except for those quick trips where I’m mostly sitting behind the wheel of my car. I’m sure the other drivers wouldn’t appreciate glancing over at the vehicle beside them, to see my face buried in a novel and absentmindedly steering.

If the book is small enough, it gets crammed into my drawstring knapsack/purse, forced to occupy space with my checkbook, hairbrush, car keys, and whatever else is living inside the dark, cavernous depths of quilted fabric.
Larger books wind up at the bottom of tote bags I carry around on errands, laundry hampers taken outside to hang clothes (to read while they dry!), trips to the park in the kids’ wagon, or stuffed into my locker at work for a lunch-time alternative to the local newspapers and sleazy tabloids lying around our break-room.
Although occasionally someone will bring in a Time magazine ~ oh, the torment!

The laminating machine has been waiting patiently in my studio closet, so the other weekend I made a batch of bookmarks to destroy test their durability. Within 24 hours, I’d spilled hot chocolate onto one of them (the book itself was in my lap at the time ~ not on the table, thankfully! Haha!)
The liquid wiped right off, without leaving a stain! The bookmark looked great.

I do realize that given enough time, the edges will likely curl, and the plastic will get a bit scuffed with constant use/abuse… but I predict they will withstand quite a bit of abuse.

Each bookmark features one of my cat portraits, reproduced onto Ultra Premium Presentation paper using pigment inks, and coupled with a piece of complimentary colored card-stock on the back.

Feeling confident enough with their construction, I’ve begun to list individual bookmarks for sale in my Etsy shop. Eventually I hope to list them all, and bookmark sets as well!

I took a few photographs of them using old books as “props”, and made an awesome discovery! In my copy of The Forsyte Saga, I found a newspaper article clipping that dates all the way back to 1948. Here is the archived article online; apparently the book’s owner lived in Wisconsin at some point. The clipped article dealt with children’s illnesses and the ‘Five Feminine Hungers’ ~ which was an interesting glimpse into relationship counseling in the late 1940s.

There was also a vintage photograph of a toddler boy, cropped in half, as well as this vintage Hallmark card congratulating someone on their new arrival. The card was signed “With our love, Teresa and Frank Nesci”.

I’m not sure whether the book held special significance, or if these items were simply used as bookmarks!
As someone who enjoys collecting photographs of strangers, coupled by a voyeuristic urge to read grocery receipts and other discarded scraps, this was an exciting find! Unfortunately Google didn’t provide me with much info on the Nescis, the toddler’s photo was unsigned, and I have no idea who previously owned my copy of The Forsyte Saga.

Perhaps someday I’ll bump into that little boy ~ who must be in his 60′s now.

For anyone interested, I’m currently on the 3rd book of the Inheritance saga, by Christopher Paolini. I read the first novel, “Eragon”, in 2007 (shortly before seeing the cheesy film based on it)… and I’ve just recently taken up these books again, now that the author has completed the journey.

When friends inquire about the series, I’ve summed up the story as “a cross between Dungeons & Dragons and Star Wars” ~ with a medieval landscape, fantasy characters (elves, dwarves, dragons, etc.), and a plot that pits a fractured rebellion against the evil Empire, with the assumed last Dragon Rider (a young, inexperienced boy who learns from a secret master) championed as their “only hope”.

It’s really good, I swear! LOL

I’m considering whether to dedicate a post to Eragon and Saphira once the journey is over. And I really should make Dragon Dommie into a bookmark for reading Inheritance; it would be appropriate, don’t you think?