It feels funny to be starting over after 27 years of effort but that is exactly where we are. The past year has been a journey from demoralized embarrassment to optimistic enthusiasm. Around January, we were huddled in our cold, little house and I knew that it was time to get going. At that time, I had no idea where to start. All I really knew was art shows and our marketing budget was non-existent. We had no new sculptures to send to our clients and friends. It felt dismal.
I knew that my sister, Barb, at a low time in her life, just couldn’t face being a software engineer anymore. She had been writing code for decades and she had had enough. She got a job at a video store and it gave her enough of a break that all kinds of new inspiration came to her. She returned to school and got her MBA. And she pursued her passion, which was training for voice over work and learning multi media. It really got her moving again. I decided to find something to do to get me out of the house and get me moving!
These economic times have eliminated so many possible jobs that my only option was to find a volunteer gig and I started volunteering at our local whole foods, organic coop, Briarpatch. I work in the wellness department dusting shelves 3 hours a week on Tuesday morning. I love it. I take great pride in my obsessive-compulsive need to put all the vitamin bottles back in neat rows with all labels facing the same way. The best thing is that it really got me going.
I started thinking about selling sculpture again and promoting Jeff and the monuments. Ideas started coming again! And I started being led to opportunities. I thought maybe we could connect with interior decorators and we went to the Sacramento Home Show to hopefully meet some. There weren’t any. But, whom we did start meeting was landscape designers. Landscape designers led to pool designers who led to architects. Architects let to art consultants and galleries and public art administrators. And all of a sudden, we have a sculpture in a show at a very well respected gallery in Oakland. These are areas that we never pursued but it feels like just the right place to go now. It’s time that Jeff is known outside of our little circle. It’s time that he takes his place with the other masters of our time.
And it all started with dusty shelves. We’ll keep you posted about our journey.
