Dorset Art Weeks finished on Sunday. Two weeks of having my own work on show in my own gallery. I'm not sure I'll ever get round how professional and real that sounds! The reality is far more knackering, stressful and emotional. A year ago, even 8 months ago I had no idea I'd be doing this, and it's been so tiring that I'm still not sure whether I am happy with how it went.
In terms of numbers it was great. Lots of people found me thanks to the great brochure that DAW produce and the website, and hopefully a bit of my own promo. There were plenty of visitors that didn't know the gallery was here so the exposure has been well worth it. I got the feeling my work was quite quirky for the usual visitors, the odd one walking out when they realised there were no paintings...! But the absolute majority seemed to really enjoy and appreciate what I'm doing. So many had never seen needle felting before, and if they had they hadn't seen large pieces like some of mine. I must admit I did start to tire of explaining it all by the end so am glad to step away from the felting for a few days. But the other side of that is the chance I got to explain needle felting to so many!
There were lots of amazing comments left in my visitor book and I think that will be a good thing to look at when I'm feeling a bit down about my work. One thing I did wonder was whether describing it as 'sculptural needle felting' is too niche and I need to look at changing that to something like 'wool sculptures'... I'll keep thinking about that one!
I could have sold a few more pieces; even though I'm quite happy selling other's work and promoting our other makers to customers, when it came down to it being my work I buckled a little and perhaps didn't sell myself as well as I could. All good mistakes to make and learn from. And I did still sell a number of pieces including my showcase pheasant that was in the window, so am really chuffed with that.
Now it's over, I'm going to have a few days away from the wool (I'm actually going on a clay animal sculpture course with Clare Trenchard so that will force my hand!), take a rest, recuperate and start to think about what next. I'm also going to the Craft Festival at Bovey Tracey on Sunday and I'll aim to blog about that next week.
I've just been reading some great blogs that are all under the title of 'Things I'm afraid to Tell You' influenced by Jess Constable and started by Ez at Creature Comforts blog about being honest in blogs and online. In a comment on The Jealous Curator's post there was the below quote which I feel sums up quite well where I am with my work at the moment, so I'll let that do the talking...
"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through."
― Ira Glass
