I was reading My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok, the part where Asher is in his room and his uncle comes in and buys one of his drawings for 'a coin'. That brought to my mind my 'criteria' first of all. His uncle then leaves the room and Asher suddenly longs to have the drawing back. As I was reading that part I was thinking that that is probably how I would feel. There are items that I have made and then couldn't bring myself to list on Etsy because I just like them too much. I read somewhere once that a successful artist can't get too attached to their work. So it was a pretty massive coincidence that when I put down the book and picked up my phone by the bed to check my emails (yeah, I know major cause of insomnia blue light etc) I saw that at some point while I had been reading that part of the book I had got my first art sale.
It is really hard going trying to create anything with Alex around, from the point of view of not getting the mental space to think creatively and also because he is just obsessed with hanging around my art desk when I try to work. I had been planning to give up on the whole thing until he can start nursery when he turns two. But this sale has spurred me on a bit and so I have managed to knock out and list a couple more items. To be honest, the really hard part is getting the work photographed. Our garden is out of sight of the back of the house and up a big (to a toddler) flight of steps and Alex cannot let me out of his sight for a second, so everytime I want to photograph an item I have to get him into his shoes, which of course he doesn't want on, carry him out there and up into the garden with me while holding the artwork and the camera/phone, and the sunshine is getting more elusive now. This morning we were standing out there, Alex clinging onto me, waiting for the sun to come out so I could get a few shots! But we did it...because we are awesome! Here is what we did today...(and proof indeed that the iron DOES get used for something around here).
