In the company of artists and crafters~

I attended my first artist's and crafter's guild meeting recently. I didn't even know that we had such a thing in our local area and was delighted when I stumbled across an ad on our newspaper's website.

The meeting was informative and the members were supportive and very open in giving advice and support. The president herself was like an excited little fairy with glasses....I loved it! I did notice, however, that there was a streak of no-nonsense steel underneath her fairy-like demeanor...loved that, too.

It was invigorating to be in the company of such creative ladies and gentleman. Some of them have been running their own creative businesses since the 70's and others, like me, were complete newbies. There were photographers, farmers who make their own natural beauty/health products, crafters, jewelry makers and even artists who use found objects to make signs or home decor, knitters and the list goes on.

About 15 minutes into the meeting I made up my mind to join...y'know, when payday rolls around! They were organized, supportive and had access to a lot of different resources.

I did get pretty nervous when we went around the room and introduced ourselves and our artistic/crafty pursuits. Eek! Some people had brought samples of their art to pass around and were eager to explain their pursuits...they were quite eloquent, dang it. I felt a bit like an idiot after I gave my rather vague introduction, but I'll just have to gird my loins and get better at talking about what I do. I'm going to be doing plenty of that when I start showing my work at shows/festivals, right?

What did I learn? Having a good product is paramount, advertise whenever possible (websites were mentioned a lot) and be passionate about your creations.

By the way, my sincere apologies for not posting a lot lately (baby, house business, chores -yuck). You were all in my thoughts...even on those days that I wasn't able to hop on the computer!