Aaarrgg!

Groom and I spent another weekend selling our jewelry at the Eugene Holiday Market. We tend to move a little slower on Monday mornings, relishing a moment or two of not having to rush, although we have already started the process of creating stock for next weekend.

The main dress-up theme for yesterday was “Pirate Day,” although any and all costumes, attire and ensembles are welcome, just as long as you wear something. Saturday got a bit exciting when one man slipped a little on his reality and started undressing, but no worries, security is used to at least one person each year feeling the need to streak and it was handled gracefully.

Speaking of slipping, I came home Saturday evening and received a dreaded phone call that my 79-year old mother slipped and fell in the shower and slammed her spine on the edge of the porcelain tub and then lunged forward, hitting her head. My father was calling from the ER while she was having a computerized axial tomography scan (or CAT).

Thank God nothing is broken, but I was quite shaken. I tried to fall asleep Saturday night, but I kept seeing images of my poor mama slipping and falling over and over again. She has a giant purple goose egg on her forehead. Shudder.

In the spirit of keeping this light, short and not burdening you with all my current emotions, I will simply mention that I’m about to get a massage, take a soothing hot shower and cuddle up with Groom, a movie and a cup of tea. Mondays, what’s not to love?

Autumn Snow

Like most of the Willamette Valley, we woke up to snow this morning. After the sun came out to clear the sidewalks, Groom and I walked our cameras (they become very crabby if we leave them cooped up for too long). These four images were all taken within the same 45 minute period.

Since the opening of Holiday Market went pretty well, we’re back in the studio, finishing up a few pieces for when it opens again on Friday. Also sipping lots of hot tea. Hope you’re keeping warm, healthy and safe.

One Down, Four To Go

In a flash, the first weekend of the Holiday Market is over. All the stress to get everything finished becomes a distant memory when the doors open and people rush in. The reunion of favorite clients, dear friends and charming vendors add to the pleasurable mix of mingling with new people and attracting new sales.

I didn’t get out of the booth much, save for the last little bit of Sunday evening, which means no photos of the dress up days. Saturday was velvet day and since I don’t own any, I bucked tradition and did not participate. Sunday was hat day and I wore my black top hat, no surprises there.

These three photos were sweet touches I noticed in booths near ours. As for our new layout, we really like it and had positive responses.

Set-up Day at Holiday Market

Today was set-up for the Eugene Holiday Market, which starts tomorrow and runs every weekend through Christmas Eve. Groom and I arrived at 11am, when the main hall of the Lane County Fairgrounds was relatively empty. Although it was raining, we found the perfect parking spot and an empty cart to haul our booth accoutrements. For vendors, this is exciting stuff.

This is the tape marking our booth. We’re #190 and I always look forward to the message written on it. “Wecome home.” How sweet is that?

It took us six hours from start to finish, two hours longer than I had anticipated, but we recently purchased two free standing glass cases, so there was a new layout to try. We’ll see tomorrow how it works when the event opens.

Welcome To Our New Blog Address

Welcome to the first posting of our newly renovated blog. Our logo has had a makeover and we’re in the process of updating our website, establishing an Etsy store and starting a Facebook  business page all while creating our spring collection for the 2011 jurying process AND making jewelry for the Holiday Market which opens this Saturday, November 20^th at the Lane County Fairgrounds. Come and visit us if you’re in the area.

This picture was taken by photographer Octavia Hunter. You can see why the logo’s top hat was a natural choice. For those of you familiar with us, you’ll recognize Groom and me. If you’re new to Cinderella Lucinda, then this is an opportunity to introduce ourselves. Please wander about the blog as we’ve updated our profile (About the Artists) and added a feature or two.   Cheers!

Stranded on the "Isle of Nothingness" or Why We Went To a UO Basketball Game

While I didn’t drink the bleach water, the momentary, well, despair if I’m maximizing and disappointment if I minimize my emotional response to the news, made it awfully tempting.

If you’ve been reading the last few entries then you know (and if you haven’t, here’s a brief recap) that Groom and I are in the throes of being creative on demand. Yeah, that always works…

The clock is ticking for us to design half a dozen pieces of jewelry to be professionally photographed for the 2011 art show jurying season which opened November 1st. Each day that passes puts us further behind.

We had until Friday (yesterday) to complete the mini collection and present them to our East Coast consultant. I wrote here a few days ago, that if we were given the green light by this expert, the next step would be to ship the artwork to New York for their walk down the runway. If we were booed off the stage, I might drown my sorrows in bleach water.

Thumbs down was the review. We don’t pay the consultant to be nice or to tell us what we want to hear. We pay him to be brutal, to view our designs with a discerning and critical eye, to play judge and jury while there’s still room to make improvements rather than having the actual art jury exclude us from shows and by default, our income.

While he did not like the direction our created-in-a-pressure-cooker-work was taking, we sent him photographs of things we had made over the summer, which, surprisingly he liked. He even went as far as describing several of them as having that “wow factor,” and used adjectives such as rich, heraldic and imperial. A sharp contrast to a few other adjectives that he used about our initial jurying pieces.

The outcome of this consultation was that he advised using a couple of older pieces (circa June or July) and selecting elements from them to design the rest of the aggravation, er um, I mean aggregation.

I just finished a book called The Handmade Marketplace by Kari Chapin and she suggests that when “your creative flow has dried up, leaving you deserted on the Isle of Nothingness,” then go do something else unrelated for a little while.

We took her advice and nothing could have been as unrelated in our bruised brains as going to a basketball game last night. A friend of ours works in the steel industry and had donor tickets so he invited us to attend the tip off game for the final 11 played at the University of Oregon’s historic Mac Court before they move to the newly finished Matthew Knight Arena.

The last time I was in McArthur Court was way back when Groom and I were registering for our senior year, pre-computers. We had to rush around on the basketball court like athletes ourselves, running to sign up for classes needed for graduation before others filled them up. The sweat, fear and anticipation smelled the same.

However, watching a live basketball game was a completely different, and, a surprisingly wonderful experience. I never, ever thought I’d cheer, clap, whoop and holler for five guys running around in squeaky shoes throwing a ball, but I’m glad I can still discover new things about myself. Prevents getting bored being me.

While having a delicious pre-game dinner at The Vintage and then watching the exciting, close game with North Dakota State (tied 84-84 and then going into overtime to finally win 97-92), Groom and I completely let go of thoughts about forcing creation and have decided to play today, allowing the natural evolution of our ideas to emerge.

Elevenses

“One and one are sometimes eleven.” – K. Miri

What? Two blog entries in two consecutive days? Must be the alignment of the date being 11/11. It is also Veteran’s Day; a National Holiday set aside to remember those who have served their country, thank you.

Groom and I spent all day yesterday developing our ideas for creating the jurying pieces for the 2011 (ah ha, there’s that number again) Art Fairs and Festival season. We have until tomorrow to complete them, so game on!

But first, we must sustain our strength by nibbling crumpets and sipping tea, also known as taking elevenses.

Cheerio

Creative Deadlines

The response to our intention of changing the blog from the weekly posting schedule to a more random, spontaneous format is making me laugh. One person sighed with relief as she let slip, “Oh good, your entries are SO long,” while another lamented that she wanted them even longer.

So while the idea in the very near future is to have much shorter musings with a photograph or two posted every day or so, this meantime finds us in a pressure cooker. We have until Friday to come up with a concept for jurying; a theme and focus which ties our different pieces together that we will have professionally photographed and then made Zapplication ready for the purpose of applying to the 2011 Art Fairs and Festivals.

This brief timeline until Friday is not just for coming up with ideas, it is also the countdown until we have transformed these various possibilities into actual photogenic pieces of jewelry, camera ready for their close ups.

We have an appointment to send preliminary snapshots of these gestating objets d’art to a consultant on the East Coast for his judgment, hence the fierce deadline. If he gives us the green light, then the collection can be shipped to New York for their photo session.

If we are given the red light, booed off the stage so to speak, then we must go back to the drawing board. If that were to happen, you’ll probably find me drowning my sorrows in a bucket of bleach water, scrubbing the floors like Cinderella pre-ball, or Joan Crawford a la Mommy Dearest.

So cross your fingers gentle readers, that today and tomorrow (Wednesday and Thursday) bring inspiration and that time opens itself up and reveals hidden and secret caves to play in and that by Friday morning we’ll emerge victorious.

a plus tard (see ya later)

The Need for Bead

“Keeping house is like stringing beads with no knot in the end of the thread.” – Unknown.

Oh, how true for us this week! We thought it would take two days (insert hysterical laughter here).

Groom and I consulted the oracle (our calendar), and although it was going to be a tight squeeze, we gambled the result would be worth it. So we set out on a two-day excavation of our basement which turned into a seven day rampage of spring cleaning. The weather here in Eugene this week has been stunning, giving us the much needed energy and motivation to see the project through to the finish line.

As you might notice, comparing le salon photo to the disaster zone in the previous posting, we managed to put Humpty Dumpty’s living quarters back together again.

No rest for the weary. Or is it the wicked? Regardless, with our claim ticket in hand to get our hour back from the Daylight Savings Time pawn shop, we spent our shiny new 60 minutes at the Piccadilly Flea Market (check out these groovy 1960’s flower power pins, booth #163), and then overspent at the Gem Faire. Groom and I felt hypnotized, drawn like magpies to the shiny pretty things.

Okay, time to continue working on updating our logo. See you soon.

TA DA! This is NOT our new look

When I wrote last week, I had grandiose expectations of Groom and I updating the logo for our Cinderella Lucinda jewelry business and a funny (if not inspiring) tagline to go with our blog and website makeover. You see, we’re considering stepping into the 21st Century and start doing things in the current fashion. What does that mean? For starters, adding photos of our current work. The images on our website have been there from the beginning. Getting a little stale. Okay fine, a lot.

In order to take photos, one needs a light box. Don’t want to buy one? No problem, online sources say. Simply rig up one of your own using tissue paper and sticks nailed together. Groom tried that and it worked…okay, as far as tissue paper and wood scraps go. But the expert advice said nothing about cats.

What do cats have to do with anything? In our 750 square footish bungalow that doubles as our living and studio space, we set up the light box to take pictures. But then once constructed, there was no place to store it, so it had to live with us on the dining room table. When we came back from a walk, our adorable charming never-gets-into-mischief kitty cat had discovered himself a new toy! We came home to shredded tissue paper and a deconstructed light box. So we became disenchanted with the process of taking photos and posting them on the website. Staleness continued.

Then Kimmm calls us with exciting news that she has finally invested in a professional light box (and lights) from B&H Photo after a bunch of investigation and research. She invites us to look and are we ever impressed. Oh boy, it collapses! (On purpose, not because a cat sits on it…)

We ordered a smaller version of the light box (and lights) which are currently en route from New York. But where to put it so that A) it is functional and B) the cat does not decide to sleep in it? Scritchin’ our heads and looking around our already overloaded chateau, le sigh, the only place left is what we call my subterranean closet or “fortress of fashion.”

I took the plunge and descended into le sous sol (a fancier term for basement) and have spent the past two days sorting, hefting, toting and moving; willing to sacrifice hats, cloaks, capes, books and frippery for the greater purpose.

Currently our space is the living definition of chaos. The after effects are spread out everywhere. You know all the stuff you didn’t know what to do with in the first place? That’s what we’re stepping over and around right now. So, I need to continue organizing while Groom continues to work on the logo and updated blog banner.

We’ll be keeping you posted on this process. Thanks for tuning in.