My first art market!
I think the Whitchurch-Stouffville Art in the Park festival was the perfect event for my first time. It wasn't very busy so I didn't feel overwhelmed and the people were very nice.There were also a lot of cute dogs and kids there! I met another embroidery artist there named Laura who runs Through Rain or Shine and her work really nice and done very well. I also met an artist named Joanne who runs Sculpted Light. She makes her own paper by hand and then creates gorgeous lamps. Finally, I met Sönja who runs Sönjaart and she had really interesting black and white photography on wood panel and resin. In terms of customers I think I did okay since it wasn't very busy and I think a lot of people. But I'm probably going to need to rearrange the layout of my booth since I had my table at the back but I notices other booths had their table out front so that they could engage with people easily when they walk by. So I think it went pretty well and I might join the festival again next year but I will probably see how my other events go first and then decide.
Convocation/graduation:
It was great to celebrate the 4 years of hard work I had put into my degree and I got to celebrate with my sister who also graduated and was in the same ceremony! I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, Honours-Fine Arts, Studio Specialization and an English Literature minor. My sister graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and Business-Co-op, majoring in Social Developmental Studies. I'm very proud of the both of us and feel honoured to have graduated with my sister (heart!) It's also nice to reflect on everything that I done and is a good reminder that I'm capable of whatever I put my mind to. I'm glad that I got to see some of my friends and teachers there. It's very strange going from 8 months living in the studio and getting to know everyone so well to not seeing them very much. So I will definitely need to make time to visit Waterloo again!
Trying to be my most productive self:
I'm going to be completely honest. Although the art market was a great experience, I made less then what it cost to participate in the event. I also wanted to have a giveaway to celebrate Canada day, but only had 3 people I didn't personally know enter. It's pretty discouraging but it's forced me to rethink my business model. One of my biggest problems is that I always want to do a little bit of everything. But I think for people would engage more with my work if I focused on a theme.
This made me think back on Arounna's artist talk at the University of Waterloo. She run's a business with her partner selling handmade goods, (Bookhou) and did her Master's degree at Waterloo. The one thing I remember most from her talk is that you need to pick 5 main things that tell your story, because your brand is your story. So I've made a list of my top five aspects that are important to my story:
- Everything is handmade
- I work primarily in embroidery
- I'm inspired by nature
- There is a sense of home
- I would like to support enviromental issues
Even just doing this small list has helped to clear my mind and makes me excited to keep working!
Also, I've been interested in learning about habits and routines to be my most productive self. I had started keeping a habit tracker at the beginning of the year but sometimes it was hard to stick to it while in school. Now I'm trying to instill these habits so that I'm able to complete them easily even on a rough day, because that's when you need it the most right? Anyways, I might make a separate blog post going over my habit tracker and routines more. If that's something you'd be interested let me know in the comment section below.
Here is the June Studio Vlog!
Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you are having a wonderful day!
~All the best 😘