Covid, Art shows, and the new reality

Soooooo - Covid really started for me on March 18th 2020, when my regular work decided to start sending people home to help prevent spread.  I'm a high risk person, so I was the first person sent home from our group.   

Of course I couldn't do art shows either.

Now, over a year later, I have both my shots and I'm "street legal" again.  I still will want to take care, but I can now at least THINK about doing shows again.  Thankfully Farmer's Market is opening up to arts and crafts late May.   I will hopefully be able to announce which dates I have in 2 weeks. 

I also will be doing Art Mart at Mayhem June 5th.  

Doing shows again will be strange, but good.  

I think.

Those of you who know me, know I have severe health issues,  which seem to get worse every year.  This past year of no shows ( and very few sales) gave me plenty of time to mull my reality over.

Yes, I like making money.  I can always find a use for money.  

More importantly, making art fulfills me in a way nothing else seems to do.  If i can't sell it, I end up with great heaping piles of it around the house.  If there are great heaping piles around the house, it takes some of the fun away because I have less of an excuse to make it.  Storage really isn't a problem, but part of making art for me is sharing it with the world.

Shows can't be my only avenue.  I've reached a point health-wise that doing 2-days shows is probably no longer physically possible, and after a 1 day show I'm exhausted (happy exhausted! ) to the point I can't move.  I won't even get into the possible asthma problems I might have if I got close to smoking or other triggers.

It's very real that I'll have to stop doing even Farmer's Markets at some point.  Thankfully I'm not there yet.  One of the reasons I love Farmer's Market it's quick, over  and home by 1pm.  If I need to take a 3 hour nap to recover, I can and still have time left to do stuff on the weekend.  

In an effort to maintain, if not improve, my health,  I have to get my stress levels down.  Parts of running a home business is very stressful.  Not making jewelry is more.  I really need to find a new balance between the two that I can live with.

More thoughts to come.