Category — Life

This weekend we did the Westerville Art and Music Festival and it was a smashing success!  So much so that I’m a bit panicked about rebuilding my inventory.  I have two weeks before the Art Expo in Akron to get ready and make more Fairie Bottles, necklaces and earrings.

Not much time but between the two of us we can get it done.  Jonny has asked for a whole week off at the end of July from her job as a Massage Therapist.  I had to really beg for her to agree to take the time off.  Neither of us could remember the last time she took off 5 days in a row, probably because she hasn’t.  We won’t go anywhere, aside from a day trip or two, we really need to stay home and take care of some household projects.

I want to mention a fellow polymer clay artist and her daughter, Ponswan.  Ada is her daughter who had a very serious brain injury several months ago.  Ponswan has created a blog which follows her ordeal and recovery.  Please visit and share your prayers with Ponswan.

Check out my big Obama Cane on my Obama Jewelry site !

When we signed up to be at the Easton Art show I remembered some awful stories of rain and flooding in tents that I read in Sushine Artist Magazine several years ago. I remembered that last year there was some rain at the show as well, but I brushed these thoughts aside and hoped for a sunny day, trying not to put energy into bad weather. As the week before the show progressed we saw storm after storm enter the area and leave. We thought that we could handle a bit of rain and it would pass through with no problem. After all the merchandise is pretty durable and water-resistant.

Jonny set up the tent Thursday night and returned Friday morning to finish while I got ready. We arrived Friday afternoon to set out the merchandise for the evening. The great thing about this show is that it is only 10 minutes away from our house! very convenient. Jonny kept telling me I didn’t have to stay, that I could go home and work or rest or whatever. Right!! I absolutely love being at art shows, talking to customers and showing off our work. Aside from that, it’s usually the only time I get to just sit and rest, enjoying the weather and her company for hours on end. Before I started the jewelry business and attended art shows as a patron, I envied the artists as they sat in their tall director’s chairs in the sun, selling their creations - What a Life!!! Well now I’m living that life and couldn’t be happier.

Back to Easton…the weather on Friday evening wasn’t bad, a bit windy but we thought and hoped that would dissapate on Saturday. Because of the iffy weather we had to pack up all of the jewelry on Friday night, not something I usually do unless there’s no overnight security. It’s a pain but necessary in bad weather conditions. That night as we slept, we didn’t hear any rain and presumed that things were ok at the show. Wrong. When we arrived at our booth, there were several booths around us that had blown over, actually tumbled out into the street, broken tent poles and broken merchandise. How awful for the poor artists. I was surprised that some of the artists waited until 30 minutes before the show to arrive and set up thier booths. Those with the damaged and catapulted tents had a big surprise and alot of work to do. Jonny makes sure we arrive at least two hours before showtime everyday, she just like that, she like to be well prepared. I’ve learned that it can be a good thing to be prepared and early.

I think that show promoters should at least call vendors to tell them that their tent is in the street or broken. It seems like the most professional and courteous thing to do really. We finished setting up and moved one of the tent supports that we bought from Canopies By Fred to the front of the tent, Jonny thought it looked like the pole might snap if we didn’t do something. All of this because of 15mph winds all night and all day Saturday. It was very windy all day Saturday, Jonny literally had to hold the tent sides all day, adjust the displays and re-attach things all day long. One of the concrete blocks we use for a weight broke right in half on Friday night. We had to buy some more Saturday to add more weight to the tent. The wind grated on our nerves all day, causing both of us to be irritable, customers weren’t buying much because the tent was blowing around. I managed to recoup my booth fee by more than double so that was good but other artists around us weren’t so fortunate. Around 3:30 pm we noticed the artist next to us closing up her tent, she told us a storm was about 10 minutes away. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Jonny move so fast!! We closed all of the sides, pulled the tables in and moved all of the cardboard boxes off the ground. As soon as the wind started to blow REALLY hard we knew this wasn’t an ordinary storm. Jonny grabbed the ratchet tie downs and strapped them over the middle bar of the tent and I held on to that while she held onto one of the side poles. I realized that I could strap the hook of the rachet to my 300lb power chair and did so with both hooks. What a sight!! me in the middle of the tent with the ratcheting tie-downs attached to me and the tent. It did the job though! Many of our carded items got wet, some cardboard boxes got wet, but that was the extent of the damage. We had also lowered the tent so that it was lower and therefore less likely to blow around. Needless to say, we were exhausted and decided to give it up for the day. I was a bit irritated, no, I was very irritated that directly across from us a booth of Peruvian musicians had set up their tent with music, cleap jewelry, toys and t-shirts. I couldn’t believe it ! This show cost $250 to ge in and was juried and judged! I should have found the director and said something, but I didn’t want to take the time away from the booth. The subject of by-sell art is one that has become familiar with artists who sell at art shows. More and more shows are letting people in who do not make their craft. Some of the scam artists I’m told are very good at concealing the fact that their merchandise is made in China. They cut into our sales and more importantly, they cheapen the shows where they display their wares.

The other subject of my irritation is that the judge of the Easton show never entered my booth. Not only that, but she didn’t even slow down when passing my booth. I purposely arranged things in the booth for the judge to take notice. One of the reasons for getting there early was to prepare the booth to be judged. After winning several awards, I’ve come to realize that perhaps I should take more time to consider that I’m being judged at these shows. I don’t pay attention to that fact most of the time, but after winning I kind of like the idea of being noticed.

All in all the Easton show was a bit of a disappointment for us. Because of the venue, we thought there would be more people attending, perhaps it was the weather, I’m not sure. I don’t think I’ll return next year, it’s just too expensive and not much in return. I think it’s jinxed too.

I took picture of my new display set up at the show:

Aren’t they beautiful!

One of my new designs, chatoyant fossilized leaf and autumn jasper beaded necklace

When I started the jewelry business 7 yrs ago I was naive. Like childbirth, it’s probably a good thing you don’t know about the pain part, if you did its very possible you’d never succumb to the temptation. Not that I’ve had children or anything but I’ve heard plenty of stories. As I was saying, the Arts and Crafts Show business is for the naive, then once you’re hooked theres really no backing out. Had I know that I would go through about 5 display systems, two tents, rain and mud, dust coating every piece of jewelry I own, wind and dogs knocking down every display, waking up a 4am, going to bed at 7pm after a long day in the booth, eating sno-cones and cheesecake on a stick, roasting in 100 degree sun, wondering if my polymer creations were going to melt before my eyes, and last but not least, watching as people pick up the Fairie Bottles and spill Fairie Dust all over my table 20 times a day, I might not have entered into the crafts show business with such excitement.

Seven years later I’m still doing this and despite all of the drawbacks I have to admit it’s gotten under my skin and in my blood. I absolutely love this life. I think having a partner who supports me and does most of the heavy lifting (literally) makes it 200% better. Having someone believe in you and your art makes such a difference to an artist. I would never have come this far if it weren’t for the unconditional support of my partner Jonny. Being an artist herself, she fully believes in the process and the devotion each of us must have in order to thrive. What I don’t understand, is how she can provide me with such an undying support while she gets no time to practice her own artistic gifts. She is an incredible portrait artist and painter/sculptor of kinetic art. Yet, she has little time to create her own art. She has jumped into the jewelry business with great enthusiasm, creating her own niche of beautiful gemstone and swarovski bracelets, earrings and necklaces. Her contributions fill the booth and make the business complete.

If the tables were turned, I personally don’t know if I could sacrifice my own art to assist her. Perhaps I could, but I feel incredibly lucky and spoiled by her. She insists that she’s completely happy in her position as jewelry partner and I believe her, and am in awe at her devotion.

One of her tasks has been to revamp and beautify the booth display system. Under her skilled hands and vision during the past seven years the booth setup has undergone an incredible transformation. This, she says is what she loves doing and it truly shows. Jonny has a great eye for detail and beauty, she considers every little corner, background, and fabric choice. One would think that there were more display options available for the 10×10 jewelry booth, and the display setup was something I didn’t give much thought to when starting my business. I soon learned that the display and setup is the single most important aspect of my success at art shows. Your booth must be attractive and inviting enough so that people are tempted to enter. Think about how many booths you pass up when at an art show, I simply can’t afford an unattractive or uninviting booth.

Because I use a wheelchair, other considerations were important as well. I need lots of space in the booth in order to move around and I think that consideration in the design has a real benefit to customers as well. The booth is roomy allowing for more traffic than the average booth.

After several variations I think we’ve finally hit upon a beautiful and well-constructed display unit.

Take a look:

The picture at the top left is the necklace display rack, I’ll post another picture once we have the booth setup tomorrow and you’ll be able to see how nicely the necklaces drape over the knobs (one of those details Jonny thought of). To the right is a picture of the earring rack, I took the picture so that you can see the wood and the carving, another nice Jonny touch! The earring cards fit very well over the slats and tuck under so they don’t fly off when the wind blows. The bottom picture is the newest addition to the display, it’s for pendants. Jonny found a place here in Columbus that sells display’s for the retail trade, they have new and used slat walls!!! I’ve never considered a slat wall because of the weight, but this is a small enough unit that it’s perfect. They cut it to our specs and it was only $10!!! Well, of course Jonny had to make it match the rest of the booth and she put the nice fabric covered strips on it, I just LOVE IT!!! and can’t wait to see how my pendants look on it.

It was a beautiful Spring day in 1986; I was camping out at Geneva Hills in Southern Ohio and had decided to take a morning walk.  I was 26 at the time, a junior in the college of education at OSU, studying to be an English teacher.  I was fiercely independent, determined to change my little part of the world, possibly teach English in Africa with the Peace Corps.

When I think about my accident that morning, I marvel at how 10 seconds of a persons life, a split decision to wander off the trail and up the hill can change the future forever.  It’s not often with regret that I reminisce, but with amazement and disbelief.  Did that really happen to me?  it was so long ago and the consequences are so ordinary now, it’s hard to fathom that once upon a time my accident was unreal and felt like the end of my life.

Rachel Widomski’s story is very unlike mine, but the consequences are similar.  Unlike me, she was the victim of a brutal attack and as the result has a spinal cord injury and will be paralyzed for life.  Our community is rallying around her, much as they did for me when I had my accident.  It’s wonderful that we humans have such a large capacity for giving when crisis calls, Rachel and her family will need all of the emotional and financial support (and more) they can get to make it through these next few months.

It’s easy to rally around in the time of tragedy, but even more important to stick around for the long haul.  For more information about Rachel and how to help HaikuHelp

It’s been a long Spring. With the popularity of my Obama Jewelry and the rush to get new items out for the first show, I’ve been crazy busy. I have to admit that I’ve been very preoccupied with the Democratic Primaries as well, at least I had the sense to turn off the TV several years ago, now my obsession is limited to some of the finest writers and blogs on the internet. I check in with Andrew Sullivan, TPM, and the Huffington Post at least once a day, oh yea I can’t forget The Field with the ever prescient Al Giordiano.

We had our first show in Groveport this year, they put on a great show if you’re an artist, tending to your every need, providing water, coffee and pastries and nice clear streets so that virtually everyone can pull their vehicles up and load/unload without waiting. Last year the crowd was thin and so this year I wasn’t sure what to expect, the economy is ever-present on my mind and I was a bit concerned. Groveport turned OUT for this event! We had a beautiful day of temps in the 60’s with a light wind, it was chilly in the morning but always warm in the the sun. My sales were up from last year too !

In preparation for the shows this year I have to admit that we did some recession proofing of our business. Off came some higher prices, we lowered our prices by several dollars on just about everything. I know this can be risky as far as the bottom line goes, however we felt we just had to offer some relief for our customers. Turns out this was a great idea and I felt good about the business at the end of the day too. Jonny made some new display panels and as always she did a spectacular job. I’ll take some pics and post them when we’re at YellowSprings in two weeks. She is amazing. I know if we had the time she could make and sell these to other artists, they’re beautiful and perfectly functional. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it can be to find good functional displays for your booth.

Oh yea, Jonny just reminded me I won 2nd place for 3-d art!!!!! The prize was a check for $100, I couldn’t have been more surprised!

I’ve put together a schedule of my Summer shows for 2008 here.

All in all Groveport was a great day

I am so inspired and excited by the popularity of the Barack Obama themed jewelry that I designed! Because of the popularity, I’ve added a few new designs such as a pendant necklace and a new bracelet with the word “Hope” spelled out in beautiful silver beads. I’ve also taken down the EBAY items because it is just too costly to continue to list there. My Barack Obama Jewelry site is up and very easy to use. As before profits from the sale of the jewelry will go to the campaign, you can go to my fundraising page on the Obama website to see how much I’ve made so far.

I know that as an artist I must have a presence in cyber-space.  Why then do I struggle so much when it comes to writing in my blog and posting pictures at least once a week?  The same dread that I feel when I know I must work out, do the dishes, laundry and etc…is what I feel about blogging.  I would much rather be working at my table making things with my hands.  My head knows that the reluctance and dread I feel is attached to some deep-seated feeling.  Fear? Laziness? Perhaps I need to stop wondering why and just do.  Listen to my inner Yoda, don’t try, do.
Some of you may have noticed that my website of the same name Polymer-Clay-Art.Com is gone.  My plans are to transfer everything from that site to permanent pages in this site.  Please keep an eye out for additions as they come in.

True to my word, I visited the Obama headquarters here in Columbus, Ohio last Saturday. It was absolutely incredible! Not being one to become involved in politics, I had a preconceived notion of what to expect. I’m generally a shy person when in comes to crowds, not to mention that being in a wheelchair can put most people ill at ease. I thought that I would feel very uncomfortable, that people would do their best to “not see” me or look right through me, but this just wasn’t the case.

First of all, there was on street parking which was awesome. Then as we approached the building, there were several people walking in and out, most looked like myself. Jeans, sweatpants, t-shirts and the like. They were all happy and friendly. The windows of the building were decorated with handwritten signs announcing “yes we can”, “Obama ‘08″ and other encouraging words. We went inside and there was a mass of people signing up, finding their precinct for volunteering, working on laptops, organizing papers, gathering signatures; everyone was busy and happy. The walls were decorated with the same handwritten signs as the windows, each enthusiastically proclaiming “win Ohio”, “make the calls to win Ohio”, “Obama 08″ and so forth. We felt very much at home and at the same time couldn’t wait to jump in and help out.

As it turns out the call center for the Obama campaign is at the SEIU local headquarters in Columbus. This is the place where many organizations use their phones for phone banking purposes and it is also not wheelchair accessible. It was pretty disappointing to say the least. I’ve been doing this long enough (living life in a wheelchair) that I don’t get angry like I used to. However I do feel a great deal of disappointment in the lack of access STILL TODAY. Sure I can phone bank from home (and am doing so), but I won’t get to feel the comraderie and team spirit of the phone bank volunteers at the headquarters.

For the entire week I’ve been making phone calls from home. Most campaigns make this pretty easy to do, computer databases allow a person to access phone numbers and call scripts. I find it easy talking to strangers, especially about my enthusiasm about Barack Obama. It is very surprising to me how many voters are undecided and have paid little or no attention to the race thus far. Those people are challenging to me. I rely on some bit of knowledge of the race thus far to educate the people I call. For those with no interest, or not enough interest to pay attention it can be difficult. I usually direct them to the barackobama.com website and I educate them about his legislative and civil rights experience in Il.

So today begins a day of calling.

For most of the primary season, I’ve said that either Democratic candidate will serve our country well, I’ve been torn between Obama and Clinton for some time. I share this feeling with many people, both candidates have a host of good qualities, and their weaknesses are exactly the strengths of the other. However, I’ve made up my mind that Barack Obama has my unconditional support from here on out. Deciding has freed me up to actually work on his behalf, whether it’s making phone calls, writing about it in my blog or putting a sticker on my car. I encourage you to take the final step and support one candidate over the other, that way you can put your boots on and do the work they need.

What tipped me over into the Obama camp? So many things. Some of you know that I truly believed that he was the only candidate that could rise above the fray of Republican smear, we don’t know that much about him and his history in the world of politics is relatively short, that the Republicans have mountains of material on the Clintons to use in the general election and so on. While this is true, my devotion and support for Obama go much deeper today.

Hope and change. As a recovering child of an alcoholic, a recovering racist and bigot from Texas, and a recovering disabled person I know alot about hope. Contrary to the media and the Clintons (who used the word Hope alot during Bill’s campaign), the word hope is packed with quite a bit of depth. If it were not for hope, I might be dead or otherwise absent from engagement with the world. I have lived my life hoping that things will change, knowing that without hope I would be useless and lifeless. Hope is what decided my future when considering college, hope is what propelled me through the door of my first Al-Anon meeting, and hope is what got me up each day for the first 5 years after my Spinal Cord Injury.

Hope is what we need as a country. Aside from his profound message of hope, Mr. Obama brings honesty and truth to the political arena. How many african american leaders have the integrity to name the homophobia and anti-semitism that exist in their community? How many candidates back up their anti-corporate rants with a pledge to take no campaign $ from corporate America? Critics maintain that he is inexperienced, and unless we investigate his record we are tempted to agree. After all, he’s not been in the spotlight, the poliitical fray as it were. That’s a bad thing? In our media soaked culture, those who make it to the headlines are almost always there because of some discretion, not good deeds.

Mr. Obama has written two books that reveal his transgressions and shortcomings in no uncertain terms. He chose to work in the area of civil rights instead of working for the corporate interest, he served in the Illinois legislature for 8yrs, he is a father and he has lived as a black man in a country where racism is the norm. He has built a campaign that celebrates the grassroots, has influenced thousands of Americans to get up off their butts (no easy task) and actually work for no pay. This is not the work of an amateur.

It seems to me that he has had plenty of life experience and professional experience to lead us out of business as usual and into a new century.

And finally I want to share something I saw last night. It’s a sit down interview with Mr. Obama and the journalists at the SanFrancisco Chronicle. His depth and candor convinced me to join the 1,000 other volunteers (look at this) in Columbus and get up off my butt and take our country into the next century with Mr. Obama.

Over 1,000 volunteers showed up to lend their support and time to the Obama primary campaign in Columbus, Oh.