fixed it anyway

"if it ain't broke..." the common wisdom begins. In other words, once something is working for you, leave it be. Don't mess with success, they say. But sometimes you have success but it feels off somehow and you can't help but tinker.

The item I sell the most of is a photo frame with an offset window. It gives me an area about 4 inches square to work with. I cover them with handmade papers and embellish them. Sometimes I draw a simple twig and berry design with 3D paint, but mostly I do a teeny collage. Torn papers, skeleton leaves, charms, found objects and, most often, a printed quote. Folks really like them. I can sell 40-50 at a good show if I have them. But something was bugging me.

See, what happens after a while is you get "in the zone". The work becomes repetitive, it's hard to do anything fresh, you become a little human factory robot. And when that happens, the job loses what drew you to it in the beginning. Creativity, the fun of discovery. perfecting a widget you envisioned. To be successful in this business you need to be prolific without being stale.

I was reviewing some old photos and came across some frames I had done 2 years ago with a slightly different look. Instead of applying the design right to the frame, I had made a raised area on which to center it. I like it a lot better. It has a more artistic feel to it. I can't remember why I didn't follow through. Anyway, I made one up to see if I still preferred it and I do.



The timing is good, because my next 2 shows are very heavy into the art of craft and that will give me even more of a push to do better.

So, basically, I took the one item that sells the best for me and made it different. I'm either insane or brilliant. I'll let you know it 2 weeks.