Of Cold Casting, Tentacles, and Conventions

Halfway through a very busy fall. Watch for more about what's been going on.

New Art and Upcoming Events

Contribute to my Indiegogo campaign.

Lots and lots going on right now so here's a brief run down of my schedule as it looks right now for the rest of the year:

• September 6 - Lewiston-Auburn Mini Maker Faire in Lewiston, ME.
• September 20-21 - BangPop Comic Con in Bangor, ME.
• October 8-12 - International Cephalopod Awareness Days
• October 25-26 - Vermont Comic Con in Burlington, VT.
• Novermber 1-2 - Rhode Island Comic Con in Providence, RI.
• Nov 28-Dec 1 - Black Friday/Cyber Monday

Doing so many events in a short period of time is a huge financial commitment for me. So I’ve set up and Indiegogo campaign to try to offset some of those costs. Every little bit helps so if you are a fan of my work or want to support an independent artist please pitch in (there are perks including a custom sculpture for $500). If I can make this fall a success it will give me a chance to further expand range of events I can attend next year. My goal is to not have to rely solely on sales from my Etsy shop while the shop does well sales are very seasonal.

I've also been busy creating new art and jewelry. The piece I'm most proud of right now is Bastian and Teddy.

Lewiston-Auburn Mini Maker Faire

Noadi's Art will be participating in this year's Mini Maker Faire in Lewiston, Maine on September 28. I'll have a booth there selling my jewelry and artwork as well as discussing my creative process with anyone who is curious. The Faire runs 10am-4pm at the Bates Mill Atrium/Museum L-A (off Chestnut St).

PortCon is just a week away!

So my big event of the summer, PortCon, is coming up fast. I'll be in the Artists' Alley June 21-23 at the DoubleTree by Hilton in South Portland, Maine. The hours are 9am-10pm Friday and Saturday and 9am-1pm on Sunday. If you're at the con please stop by (I would suggest on Friday or Saturday, I'm going to be pretty fried Sunday morning).

If you're never heard of PortCon it's a huge celebration of all things geeky, there's anime, scifi, fantasy, roleplaying games, video games, comics, etc. and it's a load of fun. I'm going to try to catch a bit of con fun on Thursday night after setting up my table since I'm not going to have time the rest of the weekend.

In somewhat related news I have some new cell culture necklaces that glow in the dark and Cthulhu rings. They will be available at PortCon and afterwards in the Etsy shop.

Quick Announcements

Lots going on so I'm just going to list everything real quickly.

• I'm at the Portland Flea-for-All this weekend (Nov 17-18).
• I'm at the Portland Flea-for-All Friday-Sunday next weekend too (Nov 23-25)
• Also next weekend is Black Friday, I'll be holding a 10% off sale throughout the Etsy shop Friday-Monday (Nov 23-25) the sale will also extend to my booth at the Flea-for-All. And because I'm a sucker for puns I'm calling it the Holiday Tentacular! If you are impatient the sale will go live sometime Thanksgiving night instead of at midnight so I can settle into my turkey coma.
• New stuff is being added to the shop right now. Along with new cephalopod jewelry there's also tentacle earrings. seashell necklaces, and super adorable sea otter ornaments.

Cephalopod Awareness Days 2012!

It's almost the most important time of the year! Cephalopod Awareness Days are next week, October 8th through 12th. Of course as I have since 2008 I'll be holding a sale those days plus some giveaways.

I forgot that last year Cephalopod Days were extended from 3 days to 5 days, so I had only planned to do 3 giveaways. Now I promised a giveaway for each day and I'm sticking to that plan. Originally I was going to put up a trivia question each day but 5 days of trivia might be stretching things a little. So while some of the giveaway days will include a trivia question some will also feature other ways to enter the giveaway to mix it up a little bit.

Here's the deal:

• 15% Off all octopus, squid, nautilus, and cuttlefish jewelry in the Etsy shop. This is the biggest sale discount I run all year, so if you want to do some early holiday shopping here's your chance.
• The giveaways will mainly happen through Facebook so please like my page so you will see the posts (though I will share the links to the Facebook posts on Twitter as well). I will be posting the giveaway each day at noon EDT. At the end of the action period (8pm EDT) I will draw one random person who completed the task to win the giveaway.
• Octopus Day 10/8 - Dedicated to all the 8-armed species. Giveaway item is a 4"x5" Octopus in Kelp Forest print
• Nautilus Night 10/9 - Celebrating the shelled cephalopods. Giveaway item is a 7"x5" Natural History Nautilus print
• Squid Day/Cuttlefish Day 10/10 - For all the tentacled ones and the midpoint of the celebration. This is the biggest giveaway item, a one of a kind cuttlefish necklace.
• Myths and Legends Day 10/11 - Release the Kraken! Giveaway is an original sketch.
• Fossil Day 10/12 - To coincide with National Fossil Day we celebrate all the cephalopods of the fossil record. Giveaway item is an ammonite shell necklace.

If you want to learn more about Cephalopod Awareness days check out the official website or Like the Facebook page.

Things are Getting Busy

Lots of upcoming events here at Noadi's Art. New holiday goodies are right around the corner, I'll be announcing the new ornament design tomorrow afternoon (go vote for your choice). I'm also making lots of new jewelry and ornaments, and I will finally be adding my seashell jewelry to the shop in the next couple weeks.

This is my busy season so there are lots of upcoming events and deadlines. Here's the timeline for the moment, I've also created a page here with all the information.

October

• International Cephalopod Awareness Days - October 8-10 - Sale on cephalopod jewelry plus a giveaway each day.
• Custom Order Deadline for Sculpture & Art - October 15
• Halloween at the Portland Flea-for-All - October 27-28 - Come shop for a last minute addition to your Halloween costume if you are in the Portland, Maine area. Flea-for-All hours are 10am-5pm.

November

• Custom Order Deadline for Jewelry - November 15
  
• Pre-Thanksgiving Shopping at the Portland Flea-for-All - November 17-18 - Flea-for-All hours are 10am-5pm.
• Black Friday-Cyber Monday Sale - November 23-26 - Kicking off the holiday shopping season in the Etsy shop.
• Holiday Shopping at the Portland Flea-for-All - November 24-25 - Flea-for-All hours are 10am-5pm.

PortCon Wrap Up

So PortCon has come and gone and it was fantastic! Hands down the best event I've ever participated in as a seller and the folks running the Artists' Alley were fantastic. How well did it go? I sold more in 3 days than I do in an average, non-holiday season, month. I count that as an overwhelming success and it was a lot of fun. I'm a huge geek so being around hundreds of fellow geeks and chatting about Cthulhu and Dr Who with people stopping by my table was fantastic. I'm definitely going to sign up for next year.

The down side? I was around hundreds of people for 3 days and people are walking germ factories. I've got a cold now.

New Jewelry and Next Flea-for-All

After my first weekend at the Portland Flea-for-All I learned some really important things. First of all I had a lot of interest but also a lot of comments about how my jewelry was too bold or out there for a lot of the people shopping. This isn't usually a concern for me when selling online because the beautiful thing about the internet is that you can have very niche products and still sell if the right people are seeing them. When selling in person I need to appeal to a broader audience than just the type of people who buy from my Etsy shop (and that audience changes, I'll have a different selection when I'm at PortCon than at the Flea-for-All).

So to broaden that range of jewelry I offer, including in terms of price, I spent the last week creating a new line of jewelry that fits in with what I already make but has a little more mainstream appeal. So I have a new line of fun, colorful, seashell jewelry. Some are hand formed and some are press molded from silicone molded I made using real seashells. Currently these are only available in person or for custom and wholesale orders. If you are interested in them please drop me an email 

Speaking of the Flea-for-All, the next date I will be there is May 13th (that is Mother's Day) from 10am-5pm. You can find the Flea-for-All at 125 Kennebec Street in Portland, ME (it's the old Asia West showroom).

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Portland Flea-for-All

Noadi's Art will be at the Portland Flea-for-All this spring and summer. The very first day is coming up this Sunday, April 29, from 10am-5pm. Go check out the Portland Flea-for-All's website for more information.

To see all my upcoming events check out my events list on Facebook.





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Bethel Art Fair Recap

So Saturday was my first art show of the year. Here's how it went.
(scroll down to the bottom if you just want to see the photos)

Friday
7:00 PM-9:30 PM: Janet threw a party for the Shy, Novice, and Closeted Art Show. I was the graduate this year so they sponsored my booth for the show on the Common.

The party was a lot of fun. There was wonderful food provided by some of the artists in the show and Janet's house looked gorgeous with all the art displayed. The party didn't go totally smooth, shortly after it started a big thunderstorm hit, so we lit candles around the house just in case the power went out.

10:00 PM: I get home and with my dad get the truck packed up to go. I don't get to bed until 12:00 AM.

Saturday
5:30 AM: I get up to get ready for the show. I got maybe 4-4.5 hours of sleep. This was not a good idea. We also had to repack the truck to make sure none of the boxes got wet because it was raining a bit.

7:00 AM: Arrive at the show, check in, start setting up the booth. It was still raining but lightly.

9:00 AM: Show starts. There was a good crowd starting off pretty early and the first half of the day went great. This is when I made the most sales and got a lot of compliments on my work. I sold one of my octopus necklaces to a lady who wanted to give it to her daughter who's a veterinarian and octopus lover which was just great.

Why do so many people break the rules? The show stated very plainly that dogs were not welcome but there were so many there. I have no problem with well trained dogs (and most were wonderful and friendly) but why bring a puppy that isn't even leash trained yet? Luckily I had no mishaps with dogs knocking things over but it was close.

12:00 PM: Friends Danyelle and James come to help me out the rest of the day.

12:30 PM: 10 minute downpour. Unfortunately this is when the show started dwindling in visitors, the rain drove off a lot of them and they didn't return. Still had a good crowd but not as good as in the morning.

There were a ton of kids at the show, a lot more than I've seen at other shows I've done. Most of the kids were great and a lot of fun. There was one boy in particular who was probably about 9 or 10 who loved my squid necklaces. He came and looked at them then ran off and brought his mom back, she said no. About 5 minutes later he was back with his dad who also said no. I'm surprised I didn't see him back with a grandparent. I felt kind of bad for him but I don't blame his parents, the necklace is $30 and while my necklaces are fairly tough I don't think they could survive an active 9 year old boy for too long.

4:00 PM: Show wrapped up and with Danyelle and James' help I got everything packed up pretty quickly except the canopy. It had started to rain again just after 4 so we waited under the canopy until my dad arrived with the truck.

Good:

• There was a great crowd with a lot of enthusiastic people.
• The organizers and other artists there were all incredibly friendly and helpful.
• Sales met my goal, obviously selling more would always be great but the show is about getting my name out more than making a lot of cash.

Bad:

• The weather.
• Visitors did skew to older folks and couples with young kids which are not my best audience.
• I didn't set up my booth in the best way I think. Too much high priced sculpture, next show I'm not bringing so much. Also I should have arrange the tables in an outward face U that people could walk around rather that face in because not enough people could fit inside the area.

Norway Sidewalk Art Show Recap

Now that I've had a couple days to recover from the art show it's time for a recap.

I got to the show about 8am, signed in and dropped off Odin's Runesong for judging then headed over to my spot to set up. I have to say that I hate my canopy, it takes forever to set up and it's not as sturdy as I'd like. I got two folding tables for my booth and it became very clear that I need another one next time, I just didn't have quite enough room for everything. Since I do jewelry as well as sculpture my spot was with several other jewelry artists. I had a great time talking to them and swapping ideas.

The show started at 9am and that's about when people started coming by. I have no idea how many people came through during the day but it was quite a crowd. Early in the morning I heard someone at the next jewelry booth talking about eCrater so I popped over to check it out and found out it was another eCrater seller that I know from the forums.

I brought along some little bookmarks I'd made with a rubber stamp I'd made from carving an eraser and gave those away to little kids (if you're curious the stamp is of an octopus). That was a big hit. I know a lot of kids like my sculpture (especially the animals) but how many parents are going to get their 5-year-old a $65 Perma-Pet, so the bookmarks I thought were a way to make them a little less disappointed and it worked. Another big hit was the little brochures I printed out aboout my work. I lot of people snagged those so hopefully some will then visit the website and buy something.

I didn't really sell much, just a couple of my small ornaments. Several people were very interested in my sculpture, including one person who said if he wished he had $750 in cash to buy An tEach Uisce (I made sure he left with a business card and brochure, who knows maybe he'll call to buy it).

About 1pm show volunteers went around handing out the announcements for the awards. I just about had a heart attack when I saw that I had won the Honorable Mention award for Odin! Obviously that was the highlight of my day.

About 2pm I had to go up to the gallery for picture taking. I had my picture taken with Odin for myself. For the local paper I had my picture taken with the other winners, US Senator Susan Collins, and some of the show organizers. Afterwards I brought Odin back to my booth and got a round of applause from the booths around me.

The rest of the day went pretty well, and I wrapped things up around 4pm. I'm still recovering a bit, it was a long exhausting day and I got a terrible sunburn even using plenty of sunscreen.

Here's a slide show of the photos I got.

Shy, Novice, and Closeted Art Show Recap

So I've recovered from the show, so now for the recap.

Everything started around 9am Saturday, I arrived with a bunch of flowers to help decorate Janet's house. People started arriving almost as soon as we started. Along with the art we had some very yummy goodies, coffee cake, cookies, and limeade (that was a big hit).

There was so much great art at the show this year, and a nice variety of mediums. We had oil, watercolor, and acrylic paintings, photography, metal sculpture, jewelry, polymer clay, paper mache, mixed media. It's amazing the amount of talent in the area!

I got a lot of compliments and great feedback on my artwork even though I didn't sell anything. The consensus was that I should graduate to the big art show on the commons because I'm no longer shy, novice, or closeted. It's a huge compliment and I hope it happens.

Speaking of the Bethel Art Fair on the commons, I took a walk up an looked around. Some great art but definitely lacking in sculpture. Tom White had his bronzes there and they are amazing (and I had a nice chat with his wife who is goign to send me some info on foundries) but that was about it. There were a few jewelry artists but no one doing anything in polymer clay. So I'll definitely stand out if I do the show, whether that would translate to sales is difficult to know.

Overall it was a fun and very exhausting day. Huge, huge, thanks to Janet Willie and everyone else involved with the show!

Here's a slideshow of pictures from the show.



Shy, Novice, and Closeted Artshow on Squidoo

Shy, Novice, and Closeted Art Show 2008

For the 3rd year in a row I'll be participating in the Shy, Novice, and Closeted Art Show at 18 High Street in Bethel, Maine. It will be on July 5th from 9am to 4pm. It's been a lot of fun every time I've done it, so if you are in the Bethel area that day for the big art show on the Commons make sure to drop by this smaller show too.

To help promote the show because I enjoy it so much I put together a Squidoo lens for it, even has a map on how to get there.
Shy, Novice, and Closeted Art Show

Here are some pictures from last year's show:

New Non-Art Blog

This is the last time you'll see anything posted here not directly related to Noadi's Art. I've started a new blog called Sheryl's Scribblings for all the articles, Squidoo lenses, websites, etc. that I do that aren't related to art or art business in any way. I do hope you'll check it out.

Giant Sculpture in my Hometown

Nope, this one isn't mine. In 1999 Bethel, Maine, built the world's tallest snow man at just over 118 feet. Now we've built the world's tallest snow woman at 122 feet 1 inch. Here's some photos I took.

The arms are pine trees, her eyelashes are skis, the buttons and eyes are skidder tires (for those not in a forested area skidders are heavy machinery for pulling trees out of the woods), the mouth are car tires painted red. She's been named after Maine's appropriately named senator Olympia Snowe (you just can't make up something that perfect).

Click images to enlarge.

Happy New Year

Happy 2008! Now is the time for resolutions which for most of us won't last past the end of the month. However I figure if I put my resolutions for Noadi's Art up on this blog I can't avoid them or conveniently forget, because I'm sure someone will bring them back to haunt me.

I have two categories of resolutions, one for sculpting and one for the more business side of things.

Sculpting:

1. Finish more large sculptures. I had a grand total of 3 big sculptures that I finished this year, the Satyr, Odin's Runesong, and Lionfish Mermaid. Though I did 17 medium sculpts (baby rat, turtle, lots of perma-pets, etc.), and dozens of necklaces and ornaments. The small stuff is fun and it sells more often but they aren't really challenging. I currently have a pretty big stock of small stuff that I shouldn't need to make lots in the near future except some of those gargoyle couples I just started doing.
2. Improve my anatomy. Especially hands.
3. Try wax! I've never sculpted in wax and I'd love to give it a try.
4. Improve my workspace. Right now I have a tiny corner of the living room for sculpting and part of the unheated basement for airbrushing. I'm unlikely to get more physical space so I need to optimize what I have. Right now it's really jumbled without much storage aside from stacks of little plastic boxes and a book shelf behind my desk. Also I have that great new toaster oven and nowhere to put it.
5. And definitely get a better chair. My desk is too low to stand while sculpting and too high for my chair even at it's highest setting so I need a taller chair.

Business:

1. Sell more! (of course)
2. Do more art shows and festivals. I've not had much luck selling lots at shows but the experience I've had meeting and learning from other artists makes them so worth it.
3. Promote my sculpting more locally. Aside from the one tiny gallery I'm in and the two shows I did in 2007, I haven't done as much as I think I should to get my name out in my area. I know my work is a niche market so the internet will probably remain my main way of selling.
4. Blog more! I've already been writing more often but I really need to keep it up.

Doing a Good Deed

The local middle school always has a charity project for the year, where they pick a charity and do events throughout the year to raise money for it. Part of this is the annual charity art auction right before christmas. I've donated 2 pairs of gargoyle ornaments in decorative tins. I hope they're a hit!

This year they are raising money for the Pine Tree Camp, a camp in Rome, Maine, that gives children and adults with disabilities the chance to experience camp activities such as swimming, boating, and team sports. They are currently building Maine's first ever fully handicapped accessible treehouse! Which is just the coolest thing ever.

The auction will be December 12th at Telstar Middle School in Bethel, Maine, from 5pm-8pm. I'm going to try very hard to be there to talk to the kids running the show and see their artwork.

Moore Art not as Successful as I Would have Liked

Well the Moore Art in the Park Festival was a complete bust, I didn't even make back the cost of my booth. It was really frustrating, not just for me but for all the artists, people just didn't seem to want to spend any money. My necklaces range from $20-$30 and even those didn't sell. There was a jewelry artist there too who had beautiful and very affordable work (as low as $10) and she told me she only made enough to cover her booth cost (which was $40). The lady with the booth next to me who had just gorgeous watercolors (and was very nice she kept me cheered up after the show when I was a little upset) only sold a few watercolor postcards, nothing larger sold.

I thought about it for a bit last night, and I think I've figured out the problem. The show was advertised quite a bit as a family event. Now in my experience when you call something a family event it means that most of the people who show up are families with children 5 years old or younger, families with older kids, single people, couples without kids (or with grown kids), don't attend nearly as much. I think it's great to expose young kids to art and I wouldn't have wanted the show to discourage people from bringing kids since I think art education is very important. The simple truth is that parents with young children aren't likely to buy much art either because they don't have the money or something I heard a few times is that little kids break things.

I really hope that the people running the show send out a questionaire or call the artists who participated because I have a few thoughts about how it could be improved for next year. Top of that list is definitely not to call it a family event. I think if I had been planning the advertising for it I would have gone with something like "Art for Everyone", make it clear that it's an accessable art show. You don't have to be a connoisoire of art to appreciate all the great talent that was on display at the show but that it had something for everyone, from serious art collectors to casual art lovers to families and kids. I'm not ready to give up on this show but I think I want to see some changes made for next year before I commit to doing it again.

Okay to get away from complaining about the negative parts of the show some things did go well. I talked to various representatives of art organizations and owners of galleries. I'm going to spend part of this coming week making calls and maybe meeting with some of them to expand the number of places where my art is seen. An idea which someone gave me was to call some of the quirkier restaurants in the area and see if they are either interested in either buying or displaying for sale my sealife sculptures like the Squid or Perma-pets. I was also told that I really should do the Norway Sidewalk Art Show which is very well established and popular (and importantly for me not too expensive to get into).

I do have to say that despite the lack of sales, the actual running of the show was done very well. Things went about as smoothly as they could have gone, the organizers were very helpful, they got everyone to their assigned lots quickly, I didn't have need of the parking because my dad drove me over with his van then went home but for those that did they had valet parking of a sort, the music groups that played were pretty good. I got a lot of compliments and positive feedback about my work, no one suggested I had priced things too high so I'm pretty sure people thought my prices were fair even though they didn't buy anything. I got to talk with some cool people, in particular one teenage girl who works in polymer clay, I gave her a list of sculpting links to help her out and I wish her lots of luck.

I know I've been putting off the Ebay and Etsy thing for a while now because it's a bit intimidating but I'm starting to realize that I don't have much choice. Sales through my website are slim and local sales are getting frustrating. I think my necklaces will probably do well if I sell them through a popular site like Ebay or Etsy (I'm leaning towards Etsy because I don't like auctions).

Another option is that since tourists are often a good market for art is that my dad is going to talk to a friend of his who has a fairly popular shop selling things like handmade furniture (he just gave us a beautiful garden bench as thanks for all the work my dad's done for him). I hope that pans out because it would be even more exposure for my work.

Lastly here are some photos of my booth and a pretty monarch butterfly who just loved the flowers I brought along with me. It was just totally unconcerned with everything going on around it.

Gearing Up for Moore Art

August 11th I'll be participating in my first ever big outdoor art festival. It's the first annual Moore Art in the Park in south Paris, Maine. I picked this one because it is new, I don't have to worry about an established idea of what the festival has for art, it's going to be pretty small the aim is between 75 and 150 artists compared to the 500+ that some festivals have, and of course it's close to home. That has since become very important since I can't drive it makes it much easier for me to rope friends into driving the truck for me since my parents will be out of town at a wedding that weekend.

I have a lot of preparation to do for this one. The Shy, Novice, and Closeted Show was easy, I just needed my art and a few other things, Moore Art is a whole other deal. Aside from needing enough art, I need tables, displays, the tent, a sign, business card, sales books, and at least a dozen more things, the list is huge and a little overwhelming. I'm slowly chipping away at the list and getting things done.

Over the last couple weeks I've been making more tags for my work, getting more business cards printed, collecting my business stuff that needs to go to the festival in a box, building a necklace display, and more stuff. Most of it is rather boring tedious work but I did get two rather fun things done that I want to show off.

First of all I needed to paint a sign. After a mad search for a suitable board (ended up with a piece of particle board that no one can remember what it was for originally) and a few hours of complete artist's block when it came to a design for my sign I got to work. Since I couldn't come up with an idea, I just decided I'd stop stressing about it and just paint the base coat, I figured that since I did know the base color I wanted that if I got that done maybe something would come to me.

A few months back I refinished an old desk I had been given that was really ugly so it's now much prettier and is the center of my sculpting space. While I was able to strip the hideous varnish off the top and the front of the drawers the rest was a lost cause so I got as much off as possible and painted it using this really pretty sage acrylic latex paint. I still had about a quarter of the can left so I wanted to use it as the base color for my sign. What I hadn't expected is that particle board doesn't like taking color evenly so instead of trying to get a flat finish I broke out the sponges and sponge painted it. The texture came out great and gave me the idea for a dusty green and purple Art Nouveau look.

Second, I decided some Noadi's Art t-shirts would be great to both wear at the festival and as some advertising this weekend when I go to Mollyockett Day in Bethel. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do so I googled "DIY t-shirts" and "t-shirt tutorials" to see what turned up and if it would jumpstart some ideas. What I found was this great tutorial on do it yourself screen printing. So I pulled up the greyscale image of An tEach Uisce that I used to print up tags and adjusted it until it was completely black and white and added the Noadi's Art text. After I printed it out I traced the image onto the nylons streched onto an embroidery hoop and used modpodge to cover all the blank areas. First I tested the design on the white shirt for my mom, then did the black shirt for myself both with acrylic paint mixed with textile medium. I think they turned out pretty cool.