Bowl of Cherries.  By Tammy Vitale.

This morning husband was fixing breakfast and cleaning the refrigerator and said:  you have cherries in here, want them with breakfast?  And then served them up and they looked so pretty I just had to run get the camera and take a picture.

The rest of the day I’ve been playing with finishing jewelry (below right)for Attainment,  wiring pieces, and updating the Sacred website – where you should go since I have put up 4 new pieces as well as updated the pictures I already put up:  adjusting their size on the page, and taking new pictures with the necklaces/amulets that go with the pieces, as well as their booklets and tags.  I’m still working on how I want to present the whole thing and there are pieces of putting up the page that escape me – I can’t figure out how to get hard returns so there’s more white space between the different pieces (I know the answer to this lies somehow in html, and I’m clueless).

in the mail today I got a card from Alyson of ArtBizCoach.com – very nice! It’s a laminated card (that was mounted on a pretty cardboard with a handwritten message on it, using my name – nice marketing!) that says on the front:  The no excuses self promotion routine, with her name and web site and on the back gives a list of that routine:

Update mailing list

Send tank you note

followup on lead

comment on other blogs

post on my blog

write in journal

visit an art exhibit

update statement

read art magazine or book

update bio

write press release

have coffee with other artist

meet new people

watch art video

write newsletter

stay in touch with patrons

post new images on website.

Great list Alyson!  I’m sure you’ll all enjoy it too, as well as putting it to good use in the coming year.

Here’s a new blog I’ve just discovered:  Ancient Artist:  Developing an Art Career After 50.  She write on marketing and the work of being an artist.  Her art reminds me of Emily Carr, who I first ran across at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in D.C. being exhibited with Freida Kahlo  (who I had gone to see) and 2 other Canadian artists who I can’t recall.  Emily Carr happens to be featured in this month’s Art in America magazine, which somewhat redeems it (but only somewhat) from last month’s "art" of 100 tons of dirt in a 42′ x 42′ room.  I guess it’s time for monthly magazines to be out because The Crafts Report  just arrived too and it has more info on retail or wholesale:  what’s best (hint, it doesn’t really answer that question because it’s really up to the artist).

thought for the day:  A goal or a dream that doesn’t challenge the dreamer to become more than they’ve ever been, to go where they’ve never gone, or to feel things they’ve never felt, s actually like wishing for a giant "life snooze button."  The Universe