Shopping Locally

OK, I'm about worn out with all the TV and newspaper ads telling me what I can buy where for what price. So I'm here to tell you some ways you can support your local artisans, shops and community instead of mass merchants. It's easy, it's fun, and you can feel good about your purchases.

Here are a few of the places you might find locally-made, high quality gifts for your loved ones.

1) Your local farmer's market. Ok, I will be writing a separate blog about this sometime soon, but markets in a lot of areas stay open until Christmas. Though many of the farmers no longer have produce for sale, the local artisans and food producers are still hard at work making amazing things, and will be at the market. A few I know of-

*** Baton Rouge, LA. has a wonderful arts market associated with their farmer's market once a month, and in December the artisans are there every Saturday.

*** Little Rock, AR. has a variety of vendors who set up all winter long. You can find lampwork glass ( that's me!), fused glass, jewelry, candles and paintings among other things.

*** Ithaca, N.Y.- yep, believe it or not, many of the regular artisans will put on the old electric socks and sell at this open-air market til Christmas.

So if there is a farmer's market in your area, be sure to check and see if it keeps going into the winter.

2) Local galleries. A somewhat obvious choice, many galleries specialize in local art. And they have more than paintings for your walls. There's jewelry, glass, and loads of other wonderful work for sale. Here in Little Rock, I must recommend Gallery 26. Not just becase I have some work there, but because it's a great place to find interesting, unusual, handmade things.

3) Gift shops. Not sure if your neighborhood gift shop supports local artisans? Call and ask!

4) Museum stores. These can be incredible treasure troves. The Historic Arkansas Museum gift shop, for instance, has all kinds of handmade gifts like soap, candles, pottery, jewelry (yes, mine is there) and woodwork. All of it is locally made, and there is a special section for each artisan- a nice way of showcasing each person.

5) Craft shows. A great way to meet the makers of the items, and find out a bit more about them. Take your time and look around. These can be a bit overwhelming. If you live in Arkansas, don't miss the Arkansas Craft Guild's Christmas Showcase on December 4,5 and 6 at the Statehouse Convention Center.

6) Don't want to leave your house? You can shop locally online easily. Etsy, for instance has a feature called 'shop local'. Just enter your hometown, and etsy will find sellers who live right in your area. Here's a link to that: http://www.etsy.com/shop_local.php

No matter what you might need for the holidays, think local first. Support your local farmers and food producers, local artisans, small local shops, and your local economy, for a more friendly, less frenzied holiday season.

Art Bead Scene September Challenge Winner

Last month, one of my pieces was chosen as September monthly challenge winner on the Art Bead Scene blog- http://artbeadscene.blogspot.com/ . It's a great blog, with lots of interesting info for jewelry designers and beadmakers. The piece I entered was a necklace I'd made that just happened to fit in with their Kandinsky theme for the month, and I entered it at the last minute.

.............. It was just a random drawing- I actually prefered this necklace that I had also entered! This one ended up going to the Netherlands.
There were prizes, and I got one of them in the mail yesterday- a beautiful button from Creative Impressions in Clay from Tari Sasser. http://www.claybuttons.com/ It is such a cool button- I think it's the biggest one I've ever seen (much larger than this photo!). Don't know what I'll do with it yet, but I'm sure I'll think of something. Thanks so much, Tari.

And thanks ArtBeadScene for choosing my necklace!

Parkview students' first beads

Yesterday was workshop day for me at Parkview High School. Once a year, I have the pleasure of going to the jewelry class and doing a 1 ½ hour introduction to lampwork glass beadmaking. Yesterday there were about 15 students on 7 torches. Wish I had some pictures, but I was too busy to think about that. I hope everyone had a good time, and that some of them will continue practicing on the torches there. P,p,p, as we say.

Here are a few extra tips and reminders.
**Shake the bead release (sludge) well, and dip your mandrels in rather slowly to get a nice even coating. If there is time to let the sludge air dry, that is best, though the mandrels can also be carefully dried in the flame.
**Once your glass has touched the mandrel, it will not come off without breaking the bead release. If you have a sharp or thin end that needs to be evened up, you will need to add glass to that end, or heat it and take it out of the flame and point that end towards the floor and let gravity pull the glass down, or heat and push gently towards the pointy or thin end with your paddle.
**Don’t build your bead too close to the end of the mandrel- leave at least ½ inch of space.
**Don’t ever let your bead get too cool- it can break while you’re working on it if it gets too cool and you put it back into the flame- sometimes explosively. So remember to ‘flash’ your bead through the flame often. If you are working on some little detail, you must remain aware of how long it’s been since you made sure the whole bead was hot.
**Whenever you touch the bead with a tool- like your paddle or trowel- you introduce stress into the glass. Sometimes you can see it as ‘chill marks’ which look kind of like a finger print. Heat the bead a bit after using any tool on it to get rid of this stress.
**If you want to add some little bits that will stick off of the main bead- like fish fins or wings, be sure you heat the attachment point well first.

Here is a quick tutorial to help you with your first beads.

Basic glass bead technique:
1) Begin by heating the tip of your glass rod slowly. There are a couple of ways to do this– you can start heating high in the flame and work your way down into the hotter flame, or you can move the rod in and out of the hotter area of the flame. Either way, keep the rod twisting so that it will heat evenly. Always stay aware of the heat of the rod you are working with and the heat of the bead you are working on (known as “reading the heat base”).
2) When the rod has an orange glow all around the tip, it is ready to stay in the heat of the flame- between the tip of the blue cone of the flame and the area about 1 inch above this cone. Begin to heat the prepared mandrel (in your other hand) to a slight glow while you continue to heat the glass. Rotate the glass rod to avoid sagging, and continue heating until hot glass has a controllable but fairly liquid texture, similar to cold honey.

3) Keep your glass rod in the flame, and the mandrel behind the flame, as you begin to apply glass to the mandrel. The glass rod and the mandrel should be perpendicular to each other- in a ‘T’ position. Roll the mandrel up and away from you during this process. The mandrel will be slightly behind the flame and you will be pushing the rod of glass through the flame to it, heating the glass rod just in front of the area you are actually applying to the mandrel– this gives you a constant source of heated glass to use. TOuch the glass rod to the mandrel, and gently push it on, and begin rotating the mandrel. The glass rod should stay pretty much in one position while you spin the mandrel.

Make sure the glass is good and hot- it should flow easily onto the mandrel. If it feels like it is pulling, pause and let the glass heat up some more, or burn the glass off, heat it again, and then add more. If you are adding more glass to a bead you have started, make sure the bead is a bit cool (not cold) before you add the next layer of glass.

4) Wind the glass once all the way around the mandrel, then move the mandrel slightly to the left and add another wind of glass right next to and touching the first wrap. Add more glass on top of these two wraps, moving the mandrel back and forth as necessary, until the bead looks fairly even, and is about the size you want it to be.
5) When you have applied all of the glass you need, detach the glass rod by pulling up and turning the bead towards yourself, and letting the flame burn it off.

6) Now you can begin to round the bead. Keep turning the mandrel, and keep it horizontal, while you heat your bead in the flame to a nice orange glow. Take it out of the flame, turning it all the while. Look at the bead in cross-section so you can make sure it is uniform all the way around. Use gravity to help round the bead. You may need to gently marver the bead into shape with a paddle. Be sure you don’t push the glass too hard against the mandrel. You are trying to push the glass on the top of the bead into shape, not push the bead around on the mandrel.
7) When you are finished with your bead, you want to cool it slowly (flame anneal) before putting it away. This will help keep it from breaking later. To flame anneal the bead, get it just glowing all around- not so hot that it all starts moving around again- then begin to move it slowly towards the top of the flame, always turning to keep the bead from getting distorted. Flame anneal for 1-2 minutes, or until bead is no longer glowing. Take out of the flame for a few seconds, and then cool in a fiber blanket or vermiculite for 3-4 hours.

Much of working with glass is simply a case of paying attention to the heat base of your glass. Different methods and techniques are most effective when the glass is at slightly different temperatures Stay comfortable, but be aware of what you are doing at all times.

Do the Math

As you attempt to get your home-based art or craft business off the ground, you may be approached by folks who have shows they would like you to participate in, or shops they want you to sell your products in. Here’s my special tip to help you make these important decisions- do the math! It’s very important to figure out how much something is really going to cost you before you sign on the dotted line and turn over your hard-earned money. What do I mean, how much it’s really going to cost you? Well, first and most important is the booth fee, or percentage the shop will take off the top. Booth fees are pretty straightforward.
Here’s an example. Let’s say I have heard about a show with a $100 booth fee. A fee of $100 is just that, no hidden costs, no percentages. But what, exactly, would I need to sell to make that kind of fee a sensible investment? I have often heard that a booth fee should be no more than 20% of your gross. So if I pay a booth fee of $100, I would want to bring in at least $500.
I would think about the number of hours the show lasts, the amount of inventory I predict I can have in my booth, etc. Does it seem feasible? I have found, in the larger shows I have done, that I can generally sell maybe 20-25% of the stock I have on hand. So for a show like this I would want to have at least $2000 worth of product on hand. I know that can be easily done. Now how about the hours of the show? Well, let’s say the show is just one day- a Saturday from 10am to 8pm. That’s 10 hours. Ok, so if I sold an average of $50 worth of items an hour, I could make that booth fee. Do-able? Well, probably.
There are plenty of other considerations, though. Is it in town? That means no hotel and minimal gas costs. Is it a juried craft show? I find that that is what draws the type of customers I am looking for. Is it indoors or outdoors? Bad weather can ruin your chances of having a good day at an outdoor show. Do I know anyone who has done the show? What do they think? This is a starting point, though folks have different ideas of what a ‘good show’ is.
All of these things and many more should be taken into consideration, but doing the math on that show fee is the first, very important step.
Here’s an example a friend presented me with recently- a craft mall situation where he would pay $100 a month, plus 15% of his sales. Hmmm… That sounded a little iffy to me, so I did the math for him. Here’s what I told him. Well, if you sold $1000 worth of your product a month, you would pay that $100 rent, plus another $150 a month in fees. That’s 25% of your sales. Is that sensible for you? Well, he knew from previous shop experiences that it was pretty unlikely that he would sell $1000 worth of product in one shop in a month. And if he sold less, the percentage he would be paying the shop would just go up. For me, the answer was a definite no. I don’t think he’s going to do it either.
Yes, there may be times when you just want to take the plunge, roll the dice, and see what happens. But I’d strongly suggest that you first do the math, and not delude yourself about how things will turn out financially in the end.
Hope this helps with some of those difficult show decisions!