Seeking - or finding - community

A frequent recommendation for individuals who venture into publishing their art online, is to seek out communities of like-minded people. The internet is full of them. It is hard to figure out where to even start looking. If you are a natural at making and maintaining contacts you are going to have a lot of fun, and will probably also advance your business swiftly.

As a totally-not-social-media-geek, I admit I have been evading the pursuit of networking opportunities against better knowledge. Just to give you an idea of my socializing skills: at parties, whichever conversation circle I join typically disintegrates and I am left standing alone, or when I sit down at a table it magically depopulates moments later. It is very awkward. I always hope no-one is watching. It's not that people run away because I behave awfully. The problem is I am unobtrusive to the point of being invisible. I have a bizarre talent for approaching people without them noticing and then scaring the sh... out of them because to them it seems I just materialized out of thin air. Maybe I should have become a spy. I could stand in the middle of a room during a top secret government meeting, recording device in hand, and nobody would ever know how the information got out.

A passionate maker of things, I feel my time is better spent in my workshop than doing what I do worst - promoting myself. But, of course, creating art necessarily entails the latter to some degree. The good thing about the internet is that it facilitates contacting people. Addressing someone online is way less fussy than seeking them out in person (which might be impossible altogether for geographic reasons), and also way less scary than trying to engage their interest in a formal one-on-one meeting. The new media make interactions possible that would have never occurred in the physical world. Nonetheless, I never got very proactive about putting myself out there. It was through coincidence that I found community, rather than running after it.

As I was browsing Etsy for the sheer joy of it, as I often do, one artist's product listing also included the logo of an organization called SRAJD - Self Representing Artists in Jewelry Design. It caught my attention, so I visited their website to find out more. I decided to apply for admission and submitted a link to my Etsy shop in order for the SRAJD team to get an impression of my work. To my delight, they accepted my application and I got subscribed in return for a very modest yearly membership fee. Not only is my shop listed on the SRAJD website now, but I also have access to helpful conversation groups on Facebook: how to optimize your product photography, your webpage, your technique, etc. Most of all, I was astonished at the warm welcome I received. I haven't had so many people saying "hi" to me in a long time! It was a very nice beginning.

And here is my official membership number, YAY! I will keep you updated on the results of having become a bit more electronically sociable.

Chance acquisition: vintage Egyptian glass beads

After three years of not seeing each other, my husband and I went to meet my sister and her family for a week of holidays together. We had each brought little gifts for one another. Among the things she gave me were these beautiful artisan glass beads.

Originally, they were part of a necklace my sister received as a wedding gift from a friend who had purchased it in Egypt. That was a looooooooong time ago, and the necklace has since disintegrated. That was unfortunate for my sister, but very fortunate for me. Now, I am lucky to have the beads to make exciting new pieces of jewelry from.

I washed the beads carefully with warm, soapy water and tried them out immediately. Here is the first result, already listed in my shop - it features some of the vintage Egyptian beads in purple and spring green, combined with magnesite stone:

I find the organic, coin like focal bead especially intriguing. I have some others of that type, of varying sizes, in different blues, brown and white. There is also several more of the small round beads in blue, white, grey, green, purple and brown.

Looking forward to creating more jewelry with these pretties!