Friday 12 November 2010

Getting out there

 I've reached a point in my jewellery creating 'career' where I need to raise the game. I've been focusing on the making and listing of many pieces in my internet shop, this is what I love to do and it feels like I'm working towards my aim of creating my brand and supporting my family doing work I enjoy. What I've really been doing is a very good job of avoiding doing the one thing I detest....getting up of my butt and selling my work to shops.
 I am not a person who finds it easy to extol my own virtues, I've always admired the people who can stand up and tell the world that their workmanship and creativity are second to none. I smile to myself when I remember people from my past who have sold me the idea that what they do is far superior, each time I believe what I'm told and assume their work must be so much better than mine, each time it turns out that it's their skill at self promotion that excels, not their work.
 I know the theory, I have a great range of work , finished to a high standard, and I know where I would like my work to be selling...so what is standing in the way?

I need a plan.  I need to decide on my strategy and learn my strong points as if I was learning a poem for my school homework
I need to be prepared for rejection. How do I meet it?  Do I redefine my stronger points or turn on my heel in agreement? I know what I would prefer to do....
 ....oh yes, all this will be taking place in French, which I can do but which doesn;t give me the warm fluffy feeling that I would like to have, that would help me to be charming and dynamic, peppy and confident.

I will spend the next few days in a planning frenzy, until my new French business cards arrive, by that time I hope to be prepared enough to breeze into a few shops, offer my card and flyer, and hope someone is impressed enough to call me for a meeting.
..
 While I've been worrying about making a business out of my hobby, Marcus has been busy with his own pursuits, he has been working long hours in making an oak table for our kitchen. At around 2 metres long, it will quite literally be the centre of the household where we will prepare food, eat, chat and drink enough tea to sink a ship.
This is turning out to be not your ordinary table, and anyone who knows Marcus would be more surprised if it had no fancy features.
This table is being hand scraped instead of sanded, the way that it was done for hundreds of years, which gives a very smooth but not ultra flat finish. Then there is the hand scraped reeding on the side rails, for which Marcus has made his own scraping tool,  the lovingly chiselled chamfers on the legs, and the cherry on the cake is the secret feature, of which I'm sure I would be sworn to secrecy, it has it's own mechanism which had to be thought out carefully before the pieces could be made....I'm sure that you would love to be let into the secret.
 Not today.

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