Rejection!

I'm completely zen about not being accepted into Cherrywood Art Fair this year. It was going to be a big bite to take and be able to chew for me right now anyway.

I was not looking forward to an entire weekend of being stuck in a booth, not being able to take care of my little girl; not to mention the hours and hours of prep work that were going to have to go into getting the booth ready and my inventory up also taking time away from my little girl. Next year will be a try, try again year. Dorothy will be almost 2 yrs. old (better suited to a solo Dad weekend) and I should have much more stock to pull from so the prospect of being accepted won't be quite the Herculean effort that it was going to be for me this year.

It also makes sense that Cherrywood would have been inundated with amazing applicants this year. When I worked for the Dougherty Arts School, the economy being in a slump always meant we had lots of talented people looking for work, willing to take the pay cut of a city job. When I first applied to the Dougherty for a teaching position I was not accepted due to this very reason. Once I did get hired and worked my way up to the administrative level, I was able to see this flux firsthand and had to turn away artists I would have otherwise gladly hired. My biggest piece of advice to job hopefuls was to keep trying. I would tell them my story of how I was rejected multiple times as an applicant; first for the summer camp, then for the afterschool program, then for a summer teaching position, then for an administrative position. All these times had totally understandable reasons behind them that had virtually nothing to do with who I was or my worth as an employee. I was able to say all this as a Cultural & Arts Education Specialist and be an actual example of how patience and tenacity really could pay off eventually.

So, in short, I'm not taking the rejection personally, or as a discouraging message. I was just starting to get excited that I might be making minor headway in my Etsy shoppe, and I was really going to have to shift my efforts away from that focus and probably lose any momentum I may have gained recently (with starting to be more included in treasuries and picking up hearts along the way). I feel like I'm just about to hit my stride (maybe just a mini-stride) when it comes to the whole being-an-online presence/blogging/producing ball of wax that I've been wrestling with and am excited to continue working on that goal. I'm also happy to enter into this Christmas shopping season not being torn about what to list in my shoppe and what to reserve for the show.

I still have so much to learn and know I will be much more prepared for the work that goes into a craft show with another year under my business belt. I have really started cold and slow with the whole Etsy shoppe/business thing; having never done such a thing, and having a baby, thusly rarely being able to devote much time to it. I knew I would have to be patient, but I'm only now really starting to see that Etsy seems to be a venue (just like anything else in life, duh!) where you get out of it what you put in. Now that Dorothy is closing in on the 1 yr. mark and my life has graduated from survival mode to more of a routine; I really feel that I will be able to balance TCB for my shoppe and TLC for my daughter. (*Sorry for the dork moment!*)

I was looking forward to putting together a collaborative shop with my twin sister, celenajustine. I was also looking forward to getting some firsthand reactions and feedback from shoppers. However, it is only one show and it was only my first application. This coming year I will do some research into finding some other shows that we would be able to do and be ready to have more baskets to put more eggs into. This was just the beginning. I think we have a marketable aesthetic and am committed to pushing us both hard in 2010 so that we can go into the next Christmas season with glue guns blazing!