Summer is waning, and so are parts of my garden. Something is always growing, and something is always dying. It has had its moments of full glory:  sweet peas going off in all of their colors, the sunflowers still unmolested by squirrels, the sage blooming and bringing in the hummingbirds. I've mentioned before that I am relatively new to the whole gardening thing, and I am just now starting to recognize that in a garden, it's not really all about having this perfectly beautiful, perfectly growing space like you might see in a magazine. It's all about change. And death. And growth. All at the same time. When it all comes together and everything is thriving, it just doesn't last that long, and you have to enjoy it while it is there.  I'm not going to lie and day this has made me a better person who has learned how to enjoy being in the moment, because I'm still working on that. It has made me see that the garden is just another extension of life: always in flux, rarely perfect.

Letter from the President

The Palo Alto Clay and Glass Festival is around the corner, the yearly premier event for the ACGA. This is when we have a chance to highlight the work of our artists, educate the public about clay and glass, interact with our customers and fans, and continue to fund all of our work through sales. If you have time to volunteer at the show, we love to have extra help from our ACGA community. Any contribution is welcome, even an hour to help booth sitting. Please contact our volunteer coordinator, Sheila Dubin at caldubins@sbcglobal.net or call 408-395-5994.  If you are not showing your work at the Festival, I hope all of our members will try to make it to the show, and also take a moment to promote it through your social media outlets. It's a big push to make this show successful and profitable, and we need all hands on deck!

Retail shows can be a lot of fun, but they can also bring stress and anxiety. I've learned the best way to deal with this is preparation.  Make lists, pack ahead, stock up, whatever it takes. Maintaining a certain level of calm helps the transition from busy artist to salesperson, a role that many of us are not comfortable with.  There are professionals who can teach us how to be better at selling artwork, and over the years I've cherry-picked the things that work for me: greeting everyone who walks into my booth,  paying attention to customer body language, engaging with customers who are looking for a connection, keeping distractions like cell phones and visiting friends to a minimum, being helpful without being pushy. It's a lot to balance for someone who is used to spending all day alone in a studio. What about you? Do you have any killer sales tips to share with your colleagues? Post them on the blog!

Letter from the President

When my husband and I moved into our current apartment, we were amazed by the giant back yard the place came with. Yards like ours are rare in city apartment dwellings, because most landlords would simply use the land to build another house. The yard was covered in blackberry brambles, morning glory vines, bermuda grass, and mint that had gone completely rogue. It also had trees that were still producing persimmons, peaches, plums, jujubes, and apricots. We both immediately saw what the yard could be, and after several years of beating back the wild growing hordes, we've managed to create a garden retreat.

I killed many gardens before getting to the one I have now. I was really good at going to the garden center, dropping a bunch of money on plants, throwing them into the ground, and then completely forgetting that I planted some stuff until a month had passed. Over and over I did this, until I was pretty sure that I had no talent for gardening, and I would never be a gardener. But then I figured out the key: maintaining my attention on the garden, otherwise known as regular tending. With this simple activity, I have found that I can, in fact, grow things.

Making art is much the same way. Sometimes I can find myself giving up on ideas because they didn't immediately come out the way I wanted them to. I'm starting to see that this is the equivalent of throwing a plant into the ground, not watering it, then wondering why the plant is not growing. Maybe instead of assuming it was a bad idea, a regular and daily return to the process of working the idea out is the way to make it grow. What do you think?

Letter From the President

Life has a way of continually delivering doses of reality to you, until you stop resisting and accept what life is trying to tell you.  Accepting reality often means surrendering.  I've never liked the idea of surrender, or the act of surrendering, or even saying, "I surrender!" I'm in the arena, doing battle, and I will never give up. If I get sick, I keep going and pretend like I am not sick, so I can be sure to stay sick an extra two weeks. If I injure my shoulder from overuse, I keep throwing everyday for months, and then pay a physical therapist thousands of dollars to heal those muscles. If I am unhappy in the studio and not liking my work, I keep going in and putting my nose to the grindstone, because that's what I do. I work through it, I keep going, I never give up, and I NEVER SURRENDER!

I have re-examined my habit of refusing surrender.  Recently, I did something bad to my arm, and now I have tendonitis. I did not know I had tendonitis, all I knew is that my elbow hurt all the time. I ignored my elbow pain,  and I would wake up in morning with my whole arm throbbing. Finally, a doctor diagnosed tendonitis, and told me I would have to suspend my normal activities for 6 weeks. To me, this is a ridiculous prescription. I mean, who does that? Maybe if I were a idle rich person, or  a baby who had nothing to do all day, could I suspend normal activity for 6 weeks. I thought about it. I thought about living in pain for the foreseeable future, or doing major, long-term damage to my arm. I took a deep breath, bought a wrist brace, and I  suspended normal activity.

I have surrendered to the idea of rest, of giving my body a chance to heal, and of changing my concept of "surrender".  It does not mean that some other, unseen force has somehow won the game, and I have lost. Surrendering, I think, means acknowledging reality, and trying to align your actions within this new understanding of reality. I can't tell you how smart I feel having figured that out, at last. What about you? How do you feel about surrender, and when was the last time you tried it?

Letter from the President

I love my little soapbox here at the top of the ACGA newsletter, and I'm going to use it to harp on something that has been on my mind. For the past two years, I've been designing the Clay and Glass Festival postcard and poster. I get hundreds of images from ACGA members to pick from to feature on the card. It's a hard job, a really hard job. Not because I get so many great images that it's hard to choose, but because I get so few good images. And I'm not talking about the quality of work. I'm talking about the quality of the images themselves. I receive images that are poorly lit, have used a flash, or were shot in bright sunshine. Images that are blurry, images that have not been color corrected, images where the background is clearly a sheet. Last year I was getting so desperate to find three or four decent images that were not only of high quality, but also worked together on the postcard that I almost used an image of my own work. The appearance of being that self-serving I could not abide, but I make no promises this year.  I haven't yet seen the new crop of images I will be choosing from, but I will use one of my own if I have too!

We are all artists here, and the importance of having high-quality images on hand cannot be overstated. You need them. They are your calling card to the world. Hire the best photographer you can afford to take your images. Or better yet, learn how to do it yourself. It's so possible these days with digital cameras, inexpensive editing software, online tutorials and how-to's. I took some pretty bad photos before I figured it out, but I did figure it out, and you can too. I use these two images, take a year apart, to illustrate:

circa 2007

circa 2008

There will be a workshop in April on taking images of your own work, more details are below. It is free for all ACGA members, so I hope to see you there!

Part of what the ACGA does for you is publicize your work, and if we don't have the best images of your best work, then our efforts amount to a puff of smoke on the breeze.

Like everyone, I have a certain way I like to do things, like a formula for how I like to approach life. It's a headlong, sometimes heedless, in-with-both-feet, all-out, willful, impatient kind of approach. Sometimes this approach really serves me, because when I decide I'm going to do something and I start putting my energy to it, you better believe it's gonna get done. Sometimes this approach bites me in the ass, because I can make rash mistakes. As I grow older and try to refine my approach to life, I like to think of this phrase, "start where you are."  I picked it up from Pema Chodron's book of the same name, and its subtitle is, "A guide to compassionate living."  I like this phrase because it means that no matter where we are, how enlightened, or messed up, or confused, we can just  take a breath, and start from exactly where we are. We can't start from anywhere else!

I also like to think of this phrase when I'm trying to help others. For example, marketing. I know from teaching marketing and social media workshops that people feel very overwhelmed by the internet marketing landscape.  If one does not feel "tech-savvy" there is a fear you will never be able to keep up with facebook, google+, posting work on Etsy, figure out twitter, interact on Tumbr, create or update your website, have time to write a blog post about your work, or send an e-newsletter to all of your clients.  If you feel overwhelmed just reading that list, then you are someone who needs this message of "start where you are." Take a breath, and think about which one of those things you think you can manage. Do you like to write? Take pictures? Jot down pithy observations? Interact with communities of people? Whatever lights you up, there is a social media platform that you can plug into. You don't need to do them all, you can just start where you are, and pick one.

If you are not sure which one is right for you, be sure to sign up for the social media marketing salons that we are having throughout 2013. We will covering a wide array of topics and platforms in a low-key, supportive environment. I hope to see you there!

Letter from the President

After the retreat this year,  I am feeling super energized. I don't usually use the word "super" on the place of "very", but in this case, I think it is called for. We just seated 7 new board members. Seven! It makes me feel really good to have such a large group of people stepping in to help guide this organization. Our new Board members include: Christa Assad, Bonita Cohn, Julie Feld, Bill Geisinger, Amy Halko, Josie Jurczenia, and Jessica Parker. A big thank you and welcome to them!

At the retreat, we set a very ambitious vision for the year. Overall, our goal is the enhance the benefits and advantages of being an ACGA member. This means providing more opportunities to learn, to meet members of your community, to contribute,  and to engage in activities that get you revved up about participating in the ACGA. Because that's what it's all about people, getting involved! Some items on our short list include:

• regular marketing salons covering topics such as writing a newsletter for your customers, using facebook as a way to boost your business, and learning how to connect with designers and architects as a way to sell your work.
• creating a Library Party Committee to dismantle the ACGA library and find our books a new home. And yes, a party will be involved!
• hosting a workshop on photographing your own work so you no longer have to pay someone else to do it.

How do you stay abreast of all these exciting activities? Make sure you read through the newsletter, where new events will always be announced.  You can also sign up for the acga group email list and check facebook for latest event postings. Do you have an idea for an event you think would be a fun? Let me know and we will make it happen!

onward and upward,
Whitney