crafting, muses and style
(Taking a bit of my own advice)
Most of the vacation has been spent watching you-tube videos and applying the tips, tricks, and tutorials for card making, paper art, or scrap booking. Some of the videos have been quite informative, extremely helpful and after watching and applying, has improved my skills. Some of the videos on the other hand were less than useful for techniques, but brought to my awareness that even these folks made mistakes and that even mistakes can be made to look cool or part of the design.
However even watching these, I began to notice something; which brings me to my topic of the day; crafting, muses and style.
My muse is odd; she likes beads, paper, fabric, ribbon, metal, ink, texture and symmetry. However there is no specific one style to my designs. Taking a look at my jewelry, you could say it is slightly victorian/indian/classic in overall influence, except when I really just go left field in look or components.
Same with my cards; victorian/classic, with that very common twist of going to left field or beyond. (Which I like doing btw, it is challenging' when I do).
The reason I bring up the style or lack of it, those who have seen my work think the pieces are amazingly beautiful, and I have sold several pieces over the years. BUT, it has no signature style. Everyone keeps saying I should put my stuff up in one of these specialty stores to sell. But when I starting looking around at these stores/boutiques is when the style issue popped up. Walking around in Mendocino there are a dozen+ stores selling hand crafted items, some hosting multiple artists in one store. I've taken this opportunity to examine the pieces carefully, both artistically, presentation wise, organization, overall aesthetics. Upon analyzing these pieces/items, I realized there is a style, something characteristic' of their art that you can identify or see that is common to the artist.
I however don't see that in my work. Moreso, I am not sure of its' importance, need, or function.
How important is having an unique style when taking the next step of making your pieces more available to the general public? Yes, I have an Etsy store and I have actually a few folks following it. But the more I look around - the more I see classic signature styles to the artists that are really making it.
Thoughts? I know there are several folks who are artistic who are linked to my journal.
Most of the vacation has been spent watching you-tube videos and applying the tips, tricks, and tutorials for card making, paper art, or scrap booking. Some of the videos have been quite informative, extremely helpful and after watching and applying, has improved my skills. Some of the videos on the other hand were less than useful for techniques, but brought to my awareness that even these folks made mistakes and that even mistakes can be made to look cool or part of the design.
However even watching these, I began to notice something; which brings me to my topic of the day; crafting, muses and style.
My muse is odd; she likes beads, paper, fabric, ribbon, metal, ink, texture and symmetry. However there is no specific one style to my designs. Taking a look at my jewelry, you could say it is slightly victorian/indian/classic in overall influence, except when I really just go left field in look or components.
Same with my cards; victorian/classic, with that very common twist of going to left field or beyond. (Which I like doing btw, it is challenging' when I do).
The reason I bring up the style or lack of it, those who have seen my work think the pieces are amazingly beautiful, and I have sold several pieces over the years. BUT, it has no signature style. Everyone keeps saying I should put my stuff up in one of these specialty stores to sell. But when I starting looking around at these stores/boutiques is when the style issue popped up. Walking around in Mendocino there are a dozen+ stores selling hand crafted items, some hosting multiple artists in one store. I've taken this opportunity to examine the pieces carefully, both artistically, presentation wise, organization, overall aesthetics. Upon analyzing these pieces/items, I realized there is a style, something characteristic' of their art that you can identify or see that is common to the artist.
I however don't see that in my work. Moreso, I am not sure of its' importance, need, or function.
How important is having an unique style when taking the next step of making your pieces more available to the general public? Yes, I have an Etsy store and I have actually a few folks following it. But the more I look around - the more I see classic signature styles to the artists that are really making it.
Thoughts? I know there are several folks who are artistic who are linked to my journal.