I Think, Therefore I Am... Not

Coffee in the New York skyline mug, "Nightswimming" by R.E.M. on iTunes. Advertising is almost done. All supplies for the One of a Kind Show are identified and ordered. I keep making pieces. Not as many as I planned for any given day, but everyday sees at least one kiln load and for the next few days I will have two. My Bullseye frit order came yesterday so I can do all the series again. And (I feel a whine coming on) everything is blah. I am a worker bee. I have no direction, no detailed goal, nothing more than a vague hand-waving plan. I haven't been able to focus to plan. Some might say I over-plan already. But right now I feel completely rudderless.

Maybe it's because almost all of my work is still up at Taylor Kinzel. We extended the trunk show through another weekend. The weather and highway closures between downtown and the gallery limited attendance--though I did extremely well anyway. I know what I took up there, I know what sold, but I don't know what was already there. And I probably shouldn't be thinking about taking it anyway. Need to leave them work for the holidays too.

In truth, I think I think I have too much work and display system to fit in my van for the OKSS. I have never done a 10 X 20 booth before. The pipe support system for the lights and the hanging panels is seriously heavy, as is the wire storage rack that I plan to use for inventory storage in my booth. Add all the boxes of work, Me, Jessie, my Mom... whew!

I have seven hanging panels for this show! They are 16" X 24" and I did them in five different series (cosmos--shown above, ocean, forest, earth, and watermelon delight). Six of them and two of the 20" round panels (one cosmos, one earth--earth series at right) in steel stands make up the back and only) wall.
The plan (back when I had lots of ambition and time) was to make one of each size of the smaller display pieces in stands (16" round, 10-12" square on edge and 12X14" rectangle) in most of the ten series I am taking. But as I think about it, I don't even have enough plastic totes to carry all that glass!

I was going to add to that another 9-20 pieces per series--taken from the following: small rectangular plates, small square plates, small round dishes, three sizes of rectangular platters, two sizes of oval platters, three sizes of bowls and two sizes of square platters. Was I nuts? I was planning $22,000 of work for this show! On the other hand I doubled my sales between the year before last and last year, and I did over $10,000 last year in a 10X10 booth...

Planning is making me absolutely nuts. And it's moot. There are eight more firing days between now and the show. That's eight more kiln loads and some of them must be slumps. My brain hurts. Maybe it is better today to be a worker bee. I will take all the hanging panels in to be drilled. I will do another fuse load, and another melt load. And that's probably all I have time for. I will not plan. I will not think.