Spring is in the Air-

TattooDreams Tour continues-- Dunwoody Arts Festival•Dunwoody, GA this weekend. New vases, story boxes and wall art!! This past week we put into motion our new vases. They're a fun new inclusion to our work and come adorned with handmade beads and tied around the top.
They cost $68.00 and hold water using the recycled water bottle tucked inside.
Great for gift-giving or a gift to yourself!!

This is just the beginning-- there's more to come!
The road calls and there's art to be sold!
Happy Spring everyone!

YOU STILL NEED ART

~Patricia

Georgia on My Mind

Heading to Dunwoody Georgia this weekend for the Dunwoody Arts Festival. This will be our first time there and with us will come new work! I love taking new work on the road to get the reaction of collectors and fellow artists. Georgia should be beautiful this time of year with trees and wildflowers in bloom.
Hoping to spend a day with my beloved pandas at Zoo Atlanta. Lun Lun has a new cub, Po and we plan to see him. Pandas bring me peace. Their quiet demeanor and slow, careful gestures align with their docile nature and graceful habitat.

While on this trip, my family will be scattering my Fathers' ashes in the mountains, per his request. It was a year ago he died on Easter and it is time to fulfill his last wishes. Having never done this, I look forward to returning Dad to the Earth and the mountains he so loved.
This is closure of the most natural kind.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

~Patricia

Food for the Soul

Friendship is built, much like a pizza crust. Over time, with attention to details. There's a foundation, there's ingredients and there is flavor. Over the years what makes this pizza good may change, but the foundation has been established. The past two weeks we were on the road doing shows. During this time, we shared meals with friends in their homes, in our art fair booth, in restaurants. The breaking of bread, with friends cannot be compared to anything else. This common act shared, is what keeps us whole, keeps us centered, keeps us nourished from the inside out.

Above is a photo of a magnificent gluten free pizza delivered to us at the Las Olas Art Fair by our dear friend, Michael Bole. Created by Pizza Fusion, you'd never know it was gluten free! What an amazing treat to have this lovingly gifted to us.

Food for the soul for certain!
We are continually blessed with amazing friends-

Thank you Michael and all who 'fed' us in so many ways on this recent trip!


Patricia

Embracing Change

After weeks preparing for two back to back weekend shows, we're home! We're regrouping for the next run of shows and we've learned a lot. New items I want to create, new ways to show the work........new. I feel the need to reinvent myself and it feels so good!
Lots of new work on the horizon.
Is it that I'm at 'that age'?
The current economic climate?
Bored?
Needing a new challenge?
All of the above.

I'm embracing the feeling of 'newness' and it feels so good! I feel focused.
Life can become a process of going through the motions effortlessly rote or you can create an aura of taking a highlighter and scrawling wildly with passion, circling your days with florescent energy, growth and excitement.

I'm choosing the later.

Make it a great day, I am!

Patricia

TattooDreams Booth Shot

Art fair artists set up their mobile galleries in a 10' x10' footprint. Some opt for larger booths. Extra costs are double booths and corner access. All these criteria affect the layout and flow of traffic ones work will generate. This is my new booth!
Jon built the panels and, for the time being, the walls are raw wood. He did a magnificent job! Plans include wrapping each panel in carpet. As funds allow, this will transpire.

Selling a body of craft differs greatly from selling art for the wall. How I interact with the collector is different, and I'm learning so much by watching them interact with my work. Also I'm learning who gravitates to this body of work, in essence, 'who is my target market'? It's all good. I needed a new challenge and the psychology of sales has long fascinated me and understanding it directs how I market my work.


My TattooDreams are inspired by the images that resonate deep within our minds at rest. Oftentimes these dreams are awoken later the following day when some visual, scent or memory of a dream is recalled. The mind is a fascinating place to sketch our ideas, transform our thoughts and create inspired artistry. Dreaming is 'billable time' since my ideas come to me in my dreams! Being asleep and unconscious at the same time is awesome!
Thanks for your continued encouragement as I explore part of myself and this new body of work takes shape!

Patricia

Friendships Threads

Jon and I have done juried art fairs for 24 years.
In this time we've made some wonderful friendships.
Sometimes we see friends after a long hiatus,
sometimes the next weekend.
The passage of time seems inconsequential to the strength of the friendship.
This is due to several facets---one being
we share some a common thread.

A thread that we've seen become strong over time,
tested by endurance,
made versatile by patience,
softened by rain,
weathered by sun
tattered a bit by age
and colored by our similarities.

Threads are small pieces of a whole. Interwoven.
Each essential to one another. Each holding the other in place taking turns as to who is up and who is down.

The whole is the fabric-
all of us....doing what we've become passionate doing.
Doing what we love.

This thread and this fabric
binds us over the years to
become for one another
-a canopy of protection,
-a hammock of life..
-a rope to hold on to.

I celebrate all of my friends--
however and whenever we met.
I treasure all of you!
Our travels and experiences have
given us the foundation to paint a life of memories.
A canvas interwoven with all these elements in a world
of uncertainty.......we count on one another!

This weeeknd like most others-
I saw you.
Saw you weathering the horrible heat,
hugging over a victory,
applauding award winners,
laughing,
trying our best to sell our work....
And again we painted a canvas........rich in diversity, texture
and added for ourselves
yet another memory in the threads we weave.

Patricia

Swimming In A New Revenue Stream!!

A few months ago, I was asked to write an article for the Independent Artist. The IA is a publication put out by the National Association of Independent Artists, (NAIA). My husband Jon and I have been life long members of this great organization. I chose to write the following article about my experience with Etsy.com. Our paper is mailed to our national membership and will be freely handed out to artists at art fairs.
If you are a working artist and interested in joining a fabulous group of fellow artists who share your energy and concerns, please go to our website and join. We are the collective voice for art fair artists! Your $65.00 membership provides a voice, a forum for that voice, the newspaper, discounts for travel to shows, hotels, services and goods, truck rentals and updates on what the NAIA is doing for you!

One day, a few years ago, I was in my studio playing. Some of my best ideas have begun this way! Over the years I seem to have acquired an 'addiction' to rubber stamps.....This 'play' led to me stamping mahogany cigar boxes with black paint. I love rubber stamps and before long, I was hooked! The black paint on wood looked like tattoo's. I loved the look and was not sure where this creative energy and box fetish would take me. A few friends who lost pets wanted boxes to hold the ashes of their deceased furry loved ones. I created keepsake boxes for them. This added an artistic signature to a painful closure and began a body of work that was somewhat alternative.

Not certain if this body of work would fit into mainstream juried shows and wanting it to continue, I needed to find other venues to sell what I was having such fun making. I was calling this work TattooDreams. By this point my boxes had taken on themes other than commemorative urns and had a playful yet artsy old world look to them. I became aware of a site called Etsy.com.
Etsy.com is an on-line site that allows the user to set up a 'shop' and sell handmade work, supplies and vintage items (20 + years old). The site is driven by artists of every type and quality of work. Every age and genre of discipline from all over the world are represented. A listing costs 20 cents and is up for 4 months. With a 3.5 % fee taken out of the final sale, this grand exposure is affordable. Unlike the auction format of e-bay, here you set your own price.

I watched the site for a while and continued my fascination with black paint emblazoned onto wood. I was mesmerized by this. This body of work held a huge departure from my very colorful mixed media work I juried to shows with. It may have been this absence of color and emphasis on pattern and message that had me intrigued. My blackened fingernails were proof the trade was entering my body!
Whatever it was, I knew it was here to stay and needed to find a venue for it to sell.

In December of 2007 I set about posting my first boxes to the Etsy site we set up. Within 2 weeks I made my first sale! Into my email came the message from Pay Pal " You have cash"..........what wonderful words!! The excitement of that first sale and amazement that this on line shopping venue was working, I will never forget. I'd sold stuff on e-bay before, but never garnered this type of thrill. I was now selling art stuff!!
To further accommodate the needs of required sizes and add a more artistic flair to the process, Jon began building boxes for me. The cherry boxes he's building are the remnants of the wood we use for the frames from my other body of work. These handcrafted shapely boxes are a wonderful addition. Nothing wasted here!

Before I knew it, my TattooDreams were selling to people in Germany, Canada, Australia and across the US! Appreciative notes and feedback accompanied sales as buyers received their purchases, sent friends to my site and bought more. None of this hurts one's self esteem in a flailing art market!
These sales and comments from fellow artists led me to believe that this creative endeavor had found it's own niche market. I applied and got into a few holiday shows, have taken it to our local Farmers Market and had a solo exhibit with this work. I've learned a great deal from this experience. To have faith in your instincts, your work and yourself!

Last winter I began writing a blog. A blog is an on-line diary, if you will. Mine began shortly after I set up my Etsy shop. I began this as an avenue for creative writing. What it's become is a portal to advertise both bodies of work, chronicle our travels to shows, share recipes and open a window into the life of our artistic endeavors. I've come to learn collectors read my blog. They love peering into this window. With well over 14,000 visits to my site, I have 48 followers who have subscribed to this journal from all over the world.

What began as a creative release, has turned into another body of work I can sell in the right market. I've met some amazing collectors who have embraced my work and allowed me to create custom tables, mirrors and boxes for them. The global marketplace has it's arms wide open to artists. As the dollar twists and turns, overseas spending can add to on line sales. There are other on-line sites available to artists. I have tried a few other sites and have come to love the ease and exposure of Etsy.com.

In January Jon and I presented a 90 minute workshop class on the finer points of using Etsy at our local art center. This presentation was made to 77 local artists who felt it was a hit! This positive response fueled us to plan more and has grown into yet another money stream as we've given 4 workshops since this initial one. We charge $20.00 for each participant. The classes fill quickly and we're planning more workshops throughout the year. We utilize art centers and craigslist.com for gathering an audience. So a small stream overflows forging additional streams along the way. In this ripple effect, we move forward and are open to the possibilities of new ideas and how they can spring forth. We're grateful for these unexpected income opportunities!

In a difficult economy I hope you'll find the time to explore alternate methods of showing your work. Never could I have driven the wide array of traffic to a personal web site or garnered the global sales I've had, had it not been for exploring this site. I feed the site daily by utilizing their forums which helps generate exposure. Without that effort, little would sell. Etsy success is fed by exposure. As well we know, it's all about getting people to see your work, be it in your art fair booth or on line!

So my addiction continues with rubber stamps and my boxes find homes around the world. I'm not getting financially rich using Etsy, however 186 sales, the good will it generates and exposure make me feel there is hope. I know that sales will get stronger as the economy does and I will be ready with an on line market presence. I have 2 bodies of work fueling my need to keep my hands and mind busy!

Feeding the fire of creativity with a bit of fuel,
Patricia Hecker
NAIA Staff

My etsy site: http://tattoodreams.etsy.com

On the right hand side of my blog is the red and white NAIA logo. Feel free to click on it and explore our website. Please, show your passion and dedication to your work by joining with other like minded individuals who, together, form a collective voice!!!

Patricia Hecker
My article is being reprinted here by me from the newest IA issue with their permission.

"Artists On the Road Box"

I dedicate this 'Artists on the Road Box' to my fellow artists who criss-cross this grand country deriving a living from what we make. It takes so much more than our hands. It takes our minds, our intuition, our passion, our sense of self. This way of carving out an income has so much more to do than sell what we make.
It has to do with what we love to do, what we have the passion to do and what fuels us to do what we do. We don't sell 'stuff'. We sell pieces of our soul and along the way, I do believe, we inspire a gentler few we encounter to find their passion.

We are dreamers, makers, creators, designers and innovators. We are people living out loud spreading a 'can do' message that it's okay to be different. Artists usually are. We are the shy kids who sat in the back of class. The ones with the weird socks. The kids that ate glue, the kids that worried about how different they were. The kids that weren't the cheerleaders or the jock.
We were the kids who hung out in the art room after lunch because it felt safe and comfortable. We were the kids not picked first on the play ground.
The ones busy looking at cloud formations.

~I think that's who we were.

The kid who was mesmerized by the intricacy of the birds nest on the ground and worried about the birds whose home was empty. The kid who listened carefully to the music in their heads because it contained the melody of the painting that was being orchestrated in their mind. We were and still are the kids who feared and embraced change all in one fell swoop as scary and exciting all mixed into one.

~We were those kids.

So to my fellow artists, I share with you my 'Artists On the Road Box'.
This handmade cherry box measures 8" wide x 3 3/4" deep x 7" high. It has jadite painted feet and opens by way of a lift off lid with the words 'artist' on one side and 'vision' on the other. Stamped with memories of a bye-gone era but reminiscent of todays traveler. The freedom of the open road before you, the dashboard your desk. So many fun stamps on this box will take the viewer down memory lane and out onto Route 66 and beyond. The road awaits and the trip begins!

May your travels be safe, your baggage in life - light and your dreams continuing to come true!
This is who we are and what we do!

Patricia

On etsy

$50.00

★ Peace and Hope ★

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
Jon and I 'experienced' a wonderfully old historic neighborhood in St. Louis this past weekend, called Shaw. It was there we showed our work. A wonderful collection of work from high caliber artists ignited the public. The air was crisp and the leaves beginning to fall. Homes were adorend with Halloween decorations and potted mums.The recent doom of Wall Street had an impact on sales, but we anticipated that going in. We feel the need to continue to tempt people with our work.
I believe we did just that!
The neighborhood welcomed the artists to their annual event and into their homes and held a party Saturday after the show that left many drinking wine and dancing late into the evening, despite our economic stresses.
It may have been just the antidote!
What really struck us, was how wonderfully 'blue' an area we were in. Down the street from our booth, a grassroots movement of making yards signs for Obama took place. Large tarps covered the yard where signs were spray painted and decorated by children and adults. Bumper stickers were sold, ideas shared and poll numbers exchanged. The neighborhood children wrote messages about hope and Obama in the streets with chalk.
To be around like minded, intelligent, politically alive people was wonderful!
It gave us hope!
Hope Obama will win.
Hope for our country.
Hope of a return to people buying art.
Hope for so many lost feelings.

For the last 8 years I have watched our country become more divided every day.
The great 'uniter' has failed miserably in bringing this country together.
It reaches farther than that however. It has become a source of divisiness among
families who cannot bear to debate conflict.
This scenerio we know well.
Jon and I come from Republican parents who will not discuss politics.
Period.
I find this odd. I have long believed that it's when ideas, however different, are shared, that we can
all learn from one another.
I also was taught to stand up for what I believe in. I'm not afraid to speak my mind or think on my feet
and perhaps it is this that frightens them more.

I believe in leaving the world better than I found it.
I believe in helping the planet heal itself.
I believe in better tomorrows by carefully adjusting what we do today.
In taking responsibility.
I belive in the power of peace and the power of hope.
Without them I would be nothing.
Without them I could not put myself out there, weekend after weekend in such a wrecked economy
trying to sell my soul through my art.
Without them, I could not daily put one foot in front of the other without falling.
Without them I could not wake up to the atrocities the last wreckless 8 years of war, mismanagement and lies
have brough to our country and not curl into a ball sobbing.
Without them I would have given up long ago.
I don't want to be disappointed on November 4th.
I want change!
I want my livlihood back!
I WANT OUR COUNTRY BACK!!!

Like I said, I believe in the power of peace and the power of hope!
This is what I am casting my vote towards on election day!

Patricia

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

Wall Street • Main Street • Street Fairs

These are strange times to be selling art at shows. We pay our jury fees, booth fees, our hotel bills and set up our work.
We show up.
We're there to do our best all the while knowing that the public must open their hearts and wallets to grace us with sales. Sometimes this happens. When it does I genuinely thank people for their recognition of the passion it takes to make a commitment to buying art. I never take a sale for granted.
Each one is important to my survival.
They let me have my life!

With these slow times there comes a sense of loss of control. Artists, especially us self-employed ones, are by nature, control freaks. We wear multiple hats and have to wear them well to succeed. Most of the time we can do this.
When I find myself feeling a loss of that control I feel the need to regain it ..........somehow.

Today I made soup!

Yes, soup!
The elixer of all things that need fixing.
A pot of creamy garlic soup with wild rice.
I'm not sure why, but the task of cutting and preparing soup settles me like nothng else.
It's my own creation. I don't use recipes.
Each pot is a one of a kind.

I also wrote these thoughts which resonate with current events.

The people have spoken with wide, bold strokes.
The markets have responded.
We all have our 'battles',
be it Wall Street,
Main Street
or our Street Fairs.
They are all passages.
Passages to power,
to homes,
to our incomes.
We traverse them in good times and in bad.
They take us where we need to go.
For artists and craftspeople,
the highways take us to the
parks and neighborhoods that will embrace our creations
with acceptance and grace us with purchases.

Our work becomes their collection.

A wonderful mingling
of financial commerce that is good,
fair and
far from greed.
Far from Wall Street.
It is this commerce that lets us small business
artists have the lives we live and
take us to our homes
where we find solace
down the roads we are most familiar.
A passage to our own passions.

Travel safe and continue doing your best work!
Abundant blessings to all of you!
༺♥༻
Patricia Hecker

"100 Square Feet"

On any given weekend across this country, artists are
setting up shop in their portable galleries.
For those two or three days, we may well share art and our skill with
people who have never been exposed to such.
We speak with people who may have never seen or looked at art.
We are a rare breed of business people, and fiercly independant.
We wear many hats being self employed.
I am proud to say, this has been and continues to be our main income
for the last 24 years.
I wrote the following poem and presented it at the NAIA Directors Conference
held in Lancaster,PA last fall. I've posted it before, but for those that missed it, here it
is again.
A sweet reminder of a grand love affair with our profession!
I share it with you here:

"100 SQUARE FEET"
by Patricia Hecker

We criss cross the country
in our vans of white-
to sell what we've made
at an art fair site.

This is the life
we've chosen by trade-
to sell to the public
things we've hand made.

The booths we fill
with displays 10 feet wide
are secured in our vans
for a long distance ride.

Created by day
and driven by night
to arrive in town
at your art fair site.

This gallery we build
in our 100 square feet
can withstand mild wind
but not snow or sleet!

The sun and fair weather
are art fair friends
as we hope for blue skies
and upward sales trends.

The consumer is fickle
when stock markets dive.
Collector confidence
keeps art fairs alive.

With jewelry and pottery
and paintings so bright-
we offer our best
for the publics delight.

To future young artists
we meet in our booth-
imagination and crayons
are part of their youth.

We might light a spark
by something we say-
and meet them again
as artists some day!

To share and inspire
are what we do best.
'Making a living'
is put to the test.

We want to feel safe
in our 100 square feet.
It gives peace of mind
to all that we meet.

Booth fees oh my-
And jury fees too...
We pick and choose
by what shows we'll do.

We too are consumers
of this thing called a 'fair'
to decide to apply
with the art we will share.

These shows stay alive
by the art we all do
not just white tents
but advertising it too!

This dual commitment
for artists and shows-
To give it our best
as everyone knows.

This isn't a hobby
or part time thing.
This is what fuels us
and thus what we bring.

We've supported ourselves
and put food on the table.
Sent kids to college
and donated when able.

We've seen each other
at our worst and our best-
and keep making art
with an undying zest.

We're in this together.
We've accomplished great things.
Artists and directors-
the art that it brings.

This tight knit group
is why we're all here
to hold securely
a lifestyle so dear.

Proxy exhibitors
hurt what we do-
by faking all out
on just who's who.

With imports off shore
and buy/sell so cheap-
it's the honor of our trade
we fight hard to keep.

This is our life
its critical to see
that I respect you
and you respect me!

༺♥༻

Patricia Hecker

An Image Says it All!

For 24 years we have done outdoor juried art shows. We have utilized different ways of photgraphing our mixed media body of work. With the work being dimensional it has some parameters that call for shadow to be seen but not be too strongly side-lit that it distorts the art. It's tricky at best and becomes an expensive learning curve.
The quality of the images and their content is imperative since show juries view the work for less than 30 seconds. This is what a 35.00 jury fees 'buys'. An impression. It is that impression that either gets me into a show or not.
Is it cut-throat?
Oh yes!
Is it moreso in recent years?........You bet!
Competition at shows is tighter than ever.
It's this high level of competition that keeps me making what I feel to be better work and jury images and Jon trying to find better ways to capture them.
Todays blog shows a piece I sold at Boston Mills. It's called 'Eclipse'. He shot this in my booth with hard side lights in the booth. Not ideal controlled lighting by any means. This is not jury quality, but it does inspire us to shoot the work on an angle as opposed to straight on as we had been doing.
Here's to the competitive spirit that keeps us working towards the best possible!
★
Pat
Please see more of my work on my website:
http://www.heckerdesign.com

Warming up here!!

♥´¨)
¸,•´¸.•´¨) ¸.•*¨)
{¸.*´ (¸.*`¤~Okay, well, it was below zero overnight and its around 7 now, so it is getting warmer. Thinking thoughts of warm sun on my face and back as I garden. Missing my herbs and flowers and time on the back deck sunning with kitties. Soon. The grocery stores have pots of spring flowers positioned inside the front door that make me feel the season of growth is around the corner!

Studio will be buzzing today as I make more TattooDreams and we photograph work for my etsy site! I sold 2 boxes in one day and that felt great. Love to keep that momentum going. I feel I'm connecting with my customers and their feedback of my work is encouraging. A local co-op here in Bloomington wants a month long show of my work. Feels good.

This is not the body of work I take to shows. This is:http://www.heckerdesign.com
This seperate body of work really liberates me to experiment in ways I've come to enjoy. It's fun to have 2 very different bodies of work going simultaneously. Studio is somewhat of a mess, but it shows that stuff is happening!

Here's to a most magnificent weekend!
♥
Patricia

Tuesday

♥´¨)
¸,•´¸.•´¨) ¸.•*¨)
{¸.*´ (¸.*`¤~Still learning my way around how to edit and move things here on my blog.
Sold another piece on etsy. Such wonderful customers who appreciate the
work I've made. While not being at art festivals, interacting with those buying my
work first hand, this is a great alternative. It allows me to create a body
of work that will probably not be seen at shows with me. A good place for experimentation........
maybe someday all this will let me find a path to the journey of painting......

One never knows where the path of creativity will take them. It has no roadmaps or
directions, and must be journeyed with intuition as your compass. Getting lost
along the way, hitting roadblocks and detours is all part of finding ones destination......
if there really is such a thing to be found!

Sharing with you on this rainy Bloomington day another piece of my TattooDreams
work. This box recently sold to some dear friends in lovely New Mexico,
the Land of Enchantment. Thank you for your support and love!
Sit back with a cup of tea and enjoy.

Pat