Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Helter skelter minds and a full week

These last few weeks have not been easy on me ... I do not want to bore you with the gory details, so let's just stick to me and my tears equaled the amount of rain we had in the same time frame here in the Western Cape, lol.

In between this there was lots of hours spent working as a RN at the various hospitals and clinics, and the new Candle Stick range that I started to play with.

These and some of my other glass and ceramics were submitted to a panel last week for consideration to partake in a Trade Exhibition, hosted by the Cape Craft and Design Institute. Gosh, I really love these people!

On Monday I got the E-mail telling me that my work has been selected for the show. I got word last week through the grapevine that over a 100 crafters applied for it, and they were only choosing 20 for the show. So, the selection was really tough and I know that there is a lot of art and craft happening in our city that is WAY better than me ...

The retail industry, media and other key role players is invited to the 3-day event. All is organised very professionally, with professional set builders that will assist us with the building of our stalls. Furthermore, I am expected to attend a workshop in Displaying and Styling next week with a local design guru, Leonard Shapiro (www.craftsouthafrica.co.za). Due to other obligations, I have been unable to attend a set of workshops lead by him during the previous weekends, so this is my opportunity to get some of his genius to rub off on me!

The down and out of this trade show is that I have the opportunity to make direct sales, but also have the chance to get orders from retailers! And if my stand is nice enough and sales worth mentioning, I could be lucky enough to win a spot at a huge trade Expo in 2010 in Johannesburg!

But this week is spent studying. It is the second month of our Entrepreneurial Marketing course, and the homework keeps me busy till the wee hours of the morning every day. The focus this week is on business practices and stuff like how to draft a good business plan. Horrible details about invoicing, quotes, pricing of your work got thrown on us today, ugh! Stuff that will give any decent artist nightmares for life!

I still have lots of homework to do tonight, so bye for now!

2 comments:

Jenn said...

HUGE congratulations, Diana! Your work is WELL worth the honor. It's gorgeous and I'm so excited for you!

ShellyD said...

Congrats!! You deserve it. Let's hope we see you in Joey's.

Sounds like you need a good ol' {{hug}} as well.

Chat soon.

Hugs