I had just graduated from an MFA program ready to take on the world and all that idealistic BS... and then my mentor passed away, and then I couldn't find a job right away and then I was just ... stuck. So I'd decided to try to start a jewelry business.
I built a website and attended these free classes at Pitt for women who wanted to start their own businesses. I sold some stuff to consignment stores and some stuff at flea markets and got a lot of orders from relatives who wanted gifts for their other relatives at holidays (and also a lot of "hey can you make ME a holiday gift... which was flattering). But it wasn't profitable. And I'd applied to one arts festival and was rejected. I don't think it was because of the quality... I just didn't fit the profile. This particular festival, which I love going to whenever it comes around, is all about the ironic reappropriation of the traditional female stereotypes so, you know: pot holders with guns on them. Onesies that made your newborn babe look like an adorable zombie. Also, a lot of upcycling: typewriter keys, scrabble and mahjong tiles, etc. And lastly, something that is beloved to me but as of now beyond my purview: the elaborately delicate steampunk creations that I can neither afford to buy, nor create.
In the meantime, when I wasn't doing that, I was submitting to journals like crazy. I found my old submissions tracking chart and it brought back some nostalgia for me. I remember how long everything took. How much work it was, and how much uncertainty. Eventually the success came, but it took awhile.
So, flash forward to 2012. The waiting, the uncertainty, of the submission process, is crushing me. I just see the uphill climb without a glimmer of the success. Yet. I hope it's yet. And not never. I keep succumbing to days of crushing depression. Spending too much time in bed crying. I know I'm putting this out there on a public blog, and if it makes me look like a loser then fuck it. This is what's happening. I remember when I was an undergrad we bore our rejections like badges of honor. Taped them to the wall. It was a defense mechanism that worked, at that time. That person isn't me any more. For example, my community of writers is much smaller, more sporadic, and we're all older. Each rejection feels like a little sting. Sometimes the stings add up.
So what am I driving at here? Well, I'd like to adjust my expectations a bit and try to start making jewelry again... "professionally." I have arthritis in my neck, which prevents me from wearing many of my old creations that I'd made for ME, and also many of my vintage finds that I was once so proud of. This time, I think I'm gonna focus on making lightweight jewelry... maybe with some varnished paper / collage elements. My favorite necklace that I made Back Then that I can still wear, has these type of components.
I need another thing to strive for that breaks up the waiting. This I could do out of my house. If I had a bad fibro day, I could do less instead of more. And now there's Etsy. This time, breaking even would be okay. I don't care if there's 5,000 other jewelry designers. I just want to throw something up there and see what happens.
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