Hammerstroke & Fire

I am here to brighten up your dreary winter days! I have decided to have a contest over the next two weeks regarding…marketing. Not as excited? There’s a prize involved…

Now that I have your attention again, I am interested in finding out your most creative, “out there,” alternative marketing promotion, venue, or other idea that actually worked. That’s the important part, that it worked. Then in two weeks I will pick a winner who will receive:

Bruce Baker’s Booth Design & Merchandising… Continue

Today I wanted to talk a bit about loyalty. It’s not usually something that I think about, but it has been coming up a lot lately. First you should know that I am someone who boycotts certain places or brands for personal or moral reasons. Obviously I can’t boycott everything that I disagree with, so it’s mostly just the biggies. But I can also be irrationally loyal to other brands for many years, even decades, remaining blind to what they might be doing. So the first question of loyalty is what… Continue

I wanted to let everyone know about a call for entry that I came across through ACT: Art in the Round. Here is some info from their site:

Entry begins June 1, 2008. Deadline is August 15, 2008. No entries will be accepted after deadline.


2008 Art in the Round is a publicly juried competition that supports fine craft artists by introducing their work to discerning collectors throughout the world. $6,500 in cash prizes will be awarded.
Visit th… Continue

Lately I’ve run into the conundrum we all face as artists, but perhaps more so as craftspeople. Should I make work to sell, or should I make the work I want to make?

In a perfect world this would be the same work, but this isn’t a perfect world is it? I’ve gotten mixed messages about this from a variety of sources, so I still don’t know exactly what I should be doing. Of course this economy doesn’t help things any. I took a class last year about working with galleries that was taught by two gal… Continue