Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Grand Opening of the Gallery & Serendipity

I'm getting very exited! the Coop ( http://artistcoop.blogspot.com/ Official opening is this Sunday, Nov 1st!) has been open "unofficially" for 2 weeks now, and I've sold pieces! I stopped by the gallery in Merle Hay Mall yesterday and talked to one of the Coop partners Monika. She's a fabulous painter in her own right, and quite interesting to talk to. Among the good news I've already sold some jewelry, we talked some about how important the Internet is for artist to self-promote. She didn't realize it but her opening the gallery galvanized my actions. In the last 3 weeks I've opened a business page on facebook, a twitter account, and a new shop on artfire.com . All of this was inspired by being invited to join the gallery.

You see, I did a gallery years ago and it ended badly, and it's just been this year I started to seriously think about galleries again. Early September I looked up all the local galleries and made plans to visit them, checking them out for possible venues. As I still have a full time job and full time family responsibilities, and I still had shows every other weekend, the list was about as far as I 'd gotten.

So out of the blue I'm invited by an artist I met at a show earlier this year to submit my jewelry to a gallery coop that was opening soon. The artist was Monika BTW. She sent the invite via email, and I saw she had a twitter account and a facebook page for both her as an artist and one for the gallery. Now I've thought about using the Internet more forcefully, but time constraints made me hesitate. I haven't kept my website up to date in the last few years, but I've been blogging regularly. Last January one of my goals was to blog at least weekly... more if possible. Part of that was a test for myself, to see if I could provide reasonable contact in a timely fashion. If I'm going to do this, I want to do it right! I'm pretty proud of myself, I have posted weekly, and more all year.

So getting into this gallery was the best kind of luck... it is serendipity. Serendipity is being lucky.. knowing your lucky, and actually doing something with the honey pot that falls into your lap! So, take a look... I have links to my facebook page and twitter on the right side of my blog. I've also updated my website with links. I'm trying to list something everyday on artfire, and I put it out on facebook/twitter when I do. And while this is all work, it's fun also. I know I won't be able to post everyday, but I've made the commitment to myself. Reaching out on the web is a priority in my life. I am ready to grow my art business.

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