The Long and Winding Road . . .

I seldom end up where I wanted to go, 

but almost always end up where I want to be.

-- Douglas Adams

Here in Hinckleyville we've been on a bit of a wild ride for the past year --

We left the sheltering wing of Big Corporate America last April when my husband decided to follow a dream and start a company.

(Not for the faint-hearted, by the way, which could explain all my visits with a cardiologist this year . . . but I digress.)

Anyway, I've learned a lot from this adventure, including:

1) that I don't really have the stomach for roller coasters
2) that life is a grand meandering adventure and not a straight line, and
3) that stitching fun and quirky high-end pictures day in and day out is a privilege and that every stitch should  be revered as such.

Any afternoon spent watching Bonanza with a needle in your hand and a diet coke on the desk is a gift, Dear Reader . . . let us not forget that.  (When the afternoons are a long slog through a Minnesota winter, some days it's hard to remember how special they actually are.)

After our meeting with the accountant on Saturday, I decided that it's time for me to make a bigger contribution to the greater good.  When the economy crashed, I kept assuming we'd bounce back pretty quickly and people would return to their art-buying ways, but such has not really been the case.  I've been lucky to be able to keep muddling along because I'm not my own means of support, but . . . the days of double-digit show sales may not be returning anytime soon.


You may have come to Small Works hoping to talk capital-A-Art today, Kiddies . . . but some days we have to lower ourselves to think about capital-B-Business.

I've been thinking about it, and undoubtedly

my best creation to date is my daughters,

 Two talented future artists and one crackerjack environmental attorney 

burst through the jaws of something somewhere in Seattle long ago . . .

two of whom have art degrees (and this has nothing to do with me wishing to see a return on our college investment, but now that I think about it . . .)

So the three of us have decided to put our heads together and DO SOMETHING.  They're tired of being poor and teaching swimming lessons, and I don't want to give up stitching to run a cash register at Target, so we're taking the creative bull by the horns, so to speak, and

. . . we're working on a top secret idea . . . 

An artistic collaboration unprecedented in the annals of Hinckley history.

My mother has always maintained
that we reinvent ourselves every 10 years
to reflect our changing age, tastes, perspective, etc.,
and the older I get the more I have come to agree.







I haven't been at this particular gig for quite 10 years yet, but I'm also not planning a full detour -- rather a Small Works Enhancement.  With partners. Still going to do what I'm doing, but also going to do something else with someone else (a whole lot more talent in the pool!  Brainstorming sessions in which I don't talk only to myself!  Additional help sanding frames!  More shows [including outdoor shows] that I won't necessarily have to work!  Hip-hip-hooray!)  for a while. 

I hope you'll stick around through the summer 

and see what develops.  

We're planning our kick-off official business meeting the first week of May, and we'll try to keep any family bickering, not to mention our artistic differences, under control.  Or at least off the blog. 

A new direction for spring . . . sounds like a breath of fresh air to me.

If we are facing in the right direction, 

all we have to do is keep walking.

-- Buddhist Proverb

 

Happy Monday!