I think the first blog entry is always the hardest. There's so much to say, establishing who you are and what you do, and explaining the purpose of your blog. It's easy to say too much, and overwhelm the reader, but it's also easy to say too little, and not capture the readers' attention.
Who am I? I'm Martha Bleidner, and I'm an artist. It took a lot of years to be able to say that... I was comfortable calling myself a craft designer, then a needlecraft designer, and finally a jewelry designer. But I never considered myself an artist until recently. See, I always thought an artist had to be able to draw everything well... and I can't draw portraits for anything! But I've come to the personal realization that what makes an artist has less to do with whether they can draw recognizable faces of specific people, or how straight their painted buildings stand, and more to do with how the artist uses various physical media to express emotions, thoughts, fears, moods and loves. Art isn't about technical perfection (that't the realm of the engineers and draftsmen and women), art is about feeling, and (hopefully) sharing those feelings with the viewer. So, based on that... I'm an artist. Hopefully, with my Etsy shop up, I'll eventually even be a selling artist.
It's funny, as a professional craft and needlecraft designer, my partner and I sold hundreds of designs to many of the top publishers in the field, Leisure Arts, The Needlecraft Shop, House of White Birches, Bucilla, to name just a few, but I'm really more excited at the thought of selling one piece of my art to someone who really connects with it, then all of those sales combined. Not to take away from everything we did, I'm very proud of what we achieved, but the concept of selling one of my paintings feels more like a personal validation. It's not like the designing field, where there was my partner, our stitchers, the editior(s), publishers, photographers, etc between us and the eventual buyer of the magazine or book. It's because it's just me, my art, and the buyer (and Etsy). Anyway, I'm really looking forward to that experience, and when it happens, I'll probably be announcing it to everyone I know... and to all my social media connections!! LOL
In the meantime, I'll just continue to create and write about creating, and we'll see what happens next. Welcome to my adventure!
