Taking Care of Business

The spouse is making coffee, the chomp of doggie teeth consuming kibble as music. It's Wednesday. Hump day for some, but the end of a three-day week for me as we are off to Austin for a wedding tomorrow. Two orders to ship today, four loads to fire (in three kilns--uh oh, it's a double-duty day!), a piece to design and fire (one of the firings already listed) for my first article for Glass Patterns Quarterly, two months' worth of bills to pay, five months' worth of paper to shuffle, one month's worth of mail to sort, oh yes, and taking Sophie and the J to the aquarium this afternoon. Does the fun ever end? I think I'll go get some of that coffee now.

It's getting time to gear up for the last two shows of the year (The Buyer's Market of American Craft [BMAC] in August and the One of a Kind Show in December). And thinking of the BMAC, the NICHE awards application deadline will also be here before I know it/am ready...

You know, I don't want to think ahead right now. There are still so many things that loomed on my plate when summer was still a warm spot on the horizon. Now it's here in its full-blown 90 degree-ness, and they STILL loom! If those damn galleries would just stop ordering pieces... (JUST KIDDING!).

And speaking of galleries, I have given Sophie all of my wholesale invoices since I started doing the BMAC in February of 2005. It seems so much longer ago, but I have only been doing wholesale for 2-1/2 years! Anyway, since I haven't got my database done yet so she can enter all the data so I can run reports against it, she is making a set of spreadsheets from the invoices to tell me in concrete numbers how my business is doing. She likes doing this kind of analysis (probably why she's in business college), and she's quick and good at it. Too bad I couldn't get the database all pieced together so she could really go to town.

So that's the week. No progress on the web site (a common problem for artists/crafts people), and I have just added two more forums to read The Arts Business Institute Forum and the American Craft Forum. As if I wasn't busy enough? But I just got reinforcement of the validity of a tip I got years ago about calling galleries that stock my work to see how their stock is and if they need a re-order. I am going to try it next week and track my responses. Success/failure of method posted here when I finish.

And now off to the kilns. Tote that glass, lift that frit, hyah mule!