NEW LISTINGS

I just put up a bunch of new stuff in my Etsy shop! Go check it out, tell me what you think maybe? Epoxyuponyou.Etsy.com

NEW BEGINNINGS

Some things are about to change! I'm going to be telling my job that I'm only available to work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday mornings. They can pick two of those days a week, or one, or none. This is so that I can devote the majority of my time to crafting! I'm not going to sit on my butt and hope that someone "discovers" me. I'm going to make things happen. It was very immature of me to hope that success would just happen to me. Sure, some people are very lucky and succeed instantly but most of us have to work our asses off so that's what I'm going to do! It's time to get involved!

I want crafting to be my business and not just a hobby type thing. I want my life to be about glitter, resin, yarn, crochet hooks, baking, etc.... Making money for a big company that doesn't appreciate my efforts or skills isn't what I went to art school for. I wanted to have the skills to make a modest living off what I love. What I love is making things.

I'm really looking forward to being a business woman, to getting my name and my work out there. I'm setting some goals for myself and I'm going to meet them.

For starters:
1) 100 individual pieces in my inventory
2) After 100 pieces it's time to send out emails to craft/fashion/whatever blogs that I enjoy asking if they would be interested in featuring my work
3) Keeping track of inventory, costs, customers
4) Applying to every craft fair I can find that I feel my work would fit into (probably not the "high class" type craft fairs that only stuffy rich people go to. I don't think they would be interested in glittery jewelry or colorful/cute hats)
5) Get active in the selling community! It's time to let Etsy know who I am and what I'm all about.
6) Eventually (and this will probably take some serious time), once I have a following, open a shop on my own where no percentage of my sales is taken out and there's no cost to list new items. (That's a major long term goal)

This is all going to take some time and some serious effort but after working at a job that I HATE I know it will be worth it. I want to answer to no one but myself. I want my time to be my own and I want a life I can be proud of. Making this work will also mean relocating will be much easier. If I have a successful internet business I can move wherever I want as long as my resin and my yarn go with me. I have a few concerns about going back to school for my MFA in a couple years AND trying to keep an internet business going (hopefully thriving by 2011) while doing masters work but I'll figure that out when I get there.

I got some new molds in the mail today! Three new heart molds because the last set all broke, a tie mold and a mustache mold. I'm excited to get started with them. Unfortunately there's not much I can do today because I have to work in a few hours and pouring resin can be an all day thing, even if most of the time is spent waiting for the resin to set up enough to embed. Tomorrow is a different story though! I'm gonna get busy and stay that way.

One last thing before I play a little World of Warcraft and then put on some eyeliner before work: I'm not sure Epoxy Upon You is the right name for me anymore? When the name was chosen I was ONLY making resin things, but now I'm branching out into crochet. I want a name that won't pigeonhole me. I need a name that will give me the freedom to branch out in the future and won't limit me to one medium. I do like Epoxy Upon You though. I still think it's funny. Who knows. I'll keep thinking about it and see what happens!

MORE NEW JEWELRY!

I just updated my Etsy shop with two new pieces! I've got some more waiting in the wings but I don't want to upload all the goodness at once. Gotta spread out the sugar consumption, yanno? check out the listings for more info on each! Here & Here

And now for some news: I've been SICK for the last three days! It BLOWS. It all started innocently enough with feeling a little dizzy and being all full of sneezes. It progressed to a full blown can't-breathe-head-hurts-gonna-die-nose-dripping-constantly viral ATTACK on my body. SUCKS! I'm starting to find my way out of the woods though. The congestion has moved from my head to my chest and I know I'll be coughing up all kinds of gross stuff any day now. I have that tight feeling like my lungs are stuffed full of mucus and it's getting in the way of oxygen. Not fun. But at least my nose has stopped leaking constantly! THIS IS IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR YOU TO KNOW. Got it?

Thankfully I have an amazing boyfriend who made me tea and rubbed my very sore neck. He's been keeping me company while I've been couch bound. He hasn't even minded me whining and being all pathetic. It's so sweet and it's another of the many, many reasons I love him. Jon is a wonderful guy. So glad I have him! I would have been MISERABLE without him here. I was pretty unhappy and grouchy anyway but it would have been x1000 without my baby.

On a more random note our cat just turned one and he's been celebrating by being a jerk! He's always knocking shit over, chasing his tail as LOUDLY as possible and attacking the dog while she's sleeping. It's cute when he chases his tail but not at 4AM while crashing all around the house! He's also bee knocking things off the dresser/table/sink to bat them around on the floor. Always as loudly and early in the morning as possible. He's an evil little kitty. If he weren't so cute we would have turned him into kitty sausage by now!

Tomorrow we're going to our friend Jack's for football (BLEH! XP) and homemade chili (YUM)! Jack is a professional chef - and a good one - so it's sure to be some excellent chili. I'm going to be making cornbread to go with!

Speaking of baking I'm going to be making chocolate cookies with peanut butter and white chocolate chips. They're gonna be AWESOME! The cookie dough is chilling in the fridge. Once we're done dinner (which is salmon, fried shrimp, and mashed sweet potatoes, FUCK YEAH!!!) I'm gonna bake those bad boys up! :9 We always have such excellent food for two people who aren't trained in cooking or baking other than liking to eat! :9 :9 :9 :9

NEW JOB AND NEW JEWELRY!

I GOT A JOB Y'ALL! Urban Outfitters called today and offered me a job as a sales associate. So I'll be folding clothes, helping people find sizes and styles and probably doing cashier stuff too. WHATEVER I don't care what they have me doing as long as I get paid and don't have to change my hair! I get to dress like myself, my tattoos can be showing all over the place, and my piercings can stay in! I'm so thrilled. And relieved!

Now on to the jewelry stuff! I've been working on some newer ideas and they've been turning out great! Two of my pieces have already sold. How exciting!! I've been feeling pretty inspired lately. It's awesome. I'm going to be experimenting with these basic ideas and hopefully something magical will blossom from the seeds I've planted. I made these three pieces by painting the back of a resin layer with acrylic paint, then adding glitter, then another layer of resin to hold it all together. They turned out better than I had imagined and I'm so pleased with that! I hope I can keep pushing these designs to newer and better places. While Jon is out doing his stuff for grad school I'm gonna be here making things! :D

UP AND RUNNING

These last few weeks have been spent putting together my Etsy Shop. I've been uploading photos of the jewelry to DeviantART too! I'm really excited to get off the ground with all this stuff! Money is nice, but mostly I just want to know that people out there, somewhere, are wearing things I made. I squee every time one of my friends wears their necklace, or whenever someone stops me on campus to talk resin. It's really awesome. It gives people an opening to talk to me (apparently I'm a little intimidating... maybe because I'm the tallest woman in the world?) and it gives me something to talk about endlessly so there's no awkward pauses and all that stuff.

That's right, this creator of cutesy, glittery goodies is actually pretty shy and awkward in social situations. I've been doing a lot to get over my social fears but many of them are still lingering. Doing all this resin stuff has really opened me up though! I know that if I have to keep interacting with strangers on a customer/seller basis my social skills will improve! I'm already much more comfortable talking to Etsy people, and I've only done it a few times.

RANT TIME!

Another thing has been bothering me and that's how closed the internet art community is. No one wants to share their secrets, everyone is so worried about who's copying them. Everyone seems to think that they did it FIRST and anyone who does anything similar after them is therefore a copycat, or just an asshole. Sure, tracing someone's art and calling it your own isn't such a good idea, but does that mean nothing is learned from it? Why can't we learn from each other? Why can't we share our secrets with everyone in the hopes that new and better ways of crafting and creating will be invented? Nothing ever changed by hoarding knowledge!

I know a lot of this attitude comes from this: "I learned on my own so everyone else should have to learn on their own too! No one taught ME how to do this so why should I help anyone else out? What if they do it better and they steal ALL my customers/fans/friends/spaceships/etc...?"

We need to get over this kind of thinking! In Fine Arts one of the biggest topics is that nothing is new under the sun. The only way to be original is to do things from your perspective. No two people see things exactly the same, and sometimes you learn the most by taking an idea and changing it, making it better, expanding on it. It's about the evolution of ideas. How can ideas evolve if we don't talk about them? How will techniques improve if we don't discuss them? If no one knows how to do something then no one will be able to come up with new and innovative ideas.

I guess what I'm trying to encourage here is a more open market, a more open attitude, and more open communication between artisans and artists on the web. And not to sound preachy, or like I know everything, but the contemporary art world that artists like Tracey Emin, Mike Kelley, Annette Messager, David Altmejd (and other people you would see in prestigious galleries and curated museum shows) don't hoard ideas. They don't gaurd their art making processies like Cerberus guards the gates of Hell. They speak openly about how they work and think because that's what art IS! It's the process, it's the materials, it's the IDEA!

Also, those secrets you guard so jealously aren't really secrets. There are so many people in this world that eventually someone, or multiple someones, are going to invent the exact technique you invented without ever even knowing who you are or that you "thought of it first". It just doesn't work that way and it's silly to think that any idea is ever completely yours.

I am not advocating copying someone else's design verbatim. I'm not advocating tracing as anything but a learning tool. Creativity DOES exist, you can be creative and unique, but there are going to be people just as creative and unique as you. Just be yourself and you'll be golden. No one can ever be JUST like you. So don't be afraid to share! If someone rips you off, so what?! If someone does something similar to you, don't think that they're copying, be amazed at how intricate this world is and how we're all connected in some way. Be fascinated! Not angry or upset! Be happy!

Share! <3

Rant is over :D