New Year Transitions!

I can't believe that I have ignored this blog for so long. It's a tribute as to how hard I work, but also a reminder to keep up with my website and blogging on a regular basis.

Part of my reinvention of self, is to constantly keep tweaking, fixing, improving, reevaluating.
Thus, I have made the decision to work out of my home studio only come the end of February, and close my Rhinebeck location.

I learned a few things about my Rhinebeck business venture.
1) it is too expensive to run 2 studios
2) too much effort to lug art supplies up and down stairs twice a week. I am not a kid anymore, and it is a literal pain in my shoulder/back, though I look forward to doing stairs as part of my 10,000 steps.
3) there is no place like home
4) I want to simplify my life- so eliminating extra driving, bills, and work is part of the simplification.
5) I should have taken that business class at Marist BEFORE I opened up a second studio, but what I learned after, helped me make a sound decision NOW.
6) I learned that I am not a person that wants to be tied down to a business outside of my home.  I took off very little time on the Thursdays and Fridays that I taught, as I not only would not get the income from those days, but I still had to cover the rent.  Double whammy. 
7) I am retired. Though I still work really hard doing what I love, I need to not do what I don't love. I owe that to myself. I guess I could say I am learning self-care through a circuitous route.

I don't consider it a failure, rather, I embrace what I learned, have been graced with meeting people whom I would not have met otherwise.  I had a great time at my studio, and love the little town. It will always be one of the towns I visit when I want to play.

This decision has forced me to clean and organize my home studio so that I can fit up to four people in it for classes. I tend to be a bit messy, and this will force me to know where everything is, and store it neatly, though I will never have one of those picture perfect designer studios that you see in those art magazines. (I suspect they have to work hard to clean them up and get them that way!)

Currently am working on my Valentines, and loading up my Etsy shop, Pagibbons, and also selling on Ebay (id catskillpaper) and I also have an Etsy shop where I sell my antique paper - Catskillpaper.
I am getting ready to frame up new work, to start showing again in February.

Here's to my new adage: Play more, sweat less.

Stay tuned!