2010 My Year In Review

Phew! The holiday season is over at last. That was a busy one wasn't it? Far busier than I had expected. That's alright though - I came extremely close to my year end goal of 100 sales in my little online shop, and I was happy to add several new countries to the list of places in the world where my art can now be found.

As this year comes to a close, I look back amazed at the fact I have made and sold nearly one hundred of these handsewn masterpieces in felt. My art masquerading as product! If you had sat me down two years ago and told me I would have to hand sew a hundred of anything, I would have thought myself incapable of doing it. But here I am, and I've done just that.

Not only did I design and sew them all by hand, (note: without the aid of a sewing machine) I also packaged them each by hand, one at a time, and sent them off to customers all over the world! What's more, I did all this (for the most part) without the advantedge of having a computer at home. That's right - I still don't have a computer; not since the beginning of the summer.

Shockingly, for most of the last two years I have operated a shop on Etsy, I have been without the 'luxury' of a home computer; losing it first to a malicious bit of malware for several months back in 2009, and then a final loss caused by a hardware failure this past summer. And unfortunately, my financial situation at the moment just doesn't allow me to purchase a new computer any time soon.

That means I have had to run my Etsy shop from any public computer I can get my hands on. Which entails almost daily trips to the local library, (which isn't all that local by the way) public computers in lobbies like the one I'm writing from now, stopping by the Apple Store to check my shop for sales and answer customer emails, and evading sales people at BestBuy as I check for blog comments and new Twitter followers. Yeah: Fun. With a capital 'F'! It hasn't been easy, and I suspect I may be the only madman out there attempting to run an online enterprise like this.

My sales were good this Christmas holiday season however. Better than last year for sure. There were dry spells earlier this year when I sincerely believed I may never sell another thing to another person ever again. That's how bad it got. But eventually, my promoting paid off, and the sales started up again.

I've learned a lot along the way. First off: You can never be too prepared for Christmas! I thought I was fine, but as prepared as I thought I was, I just wasn't ready for the onslaught of not only sales, but daily customer emails, special requests, Etsy treasury notifications, standing in endless lines at the post office, and a sudden shortage of supplies I needed and couldn't for the life of me find anywhere. (There's also that pesky little thing called 'regular daily life' which tries to intrude every now and then, just when you're busiest. Emergency car repairs anyone?) So, I am preparing for next years holiday season...now! I won't be caught off guard again.

Things this year also came into focus clearly for me professionally for the first time, and finally clicked. In other words, I finally know what it is I want to do! I struggled for a long time with questioning what it is exactly that I do, and what did I want to do. I had no clear vision of where I was going. Was I simply a crafter? What about my painting? Did my future lie in fine art? I love drawing as well, in all types of media. What about that? Did I have to pick one and not the other? What about my pop-art leanings, my love of zine making and the whole punk/indie aesthetic that attracts me? I want to work on sculptural pieces as well. What does that make me, I often wondered aloud?

Society loves a label - in fact, society gets really uncomfortable when it can't neatly categorize something and tie it all up in a neat little bundle for your easy digestion. And I'll play along if need be. It certainly made me uncomfortable not knowing how to answer someones question of "What do you do"? (Or, "What do you want to do"?) Now here I am at the end of 2010, and I have decided that the role(s) that best fit me is that of an illustrator and designer. Within that field, I can explore all the methods and media that I am attracted to. It gives me a clear path to follow, and concrete goals to be met.

So yeah - 2010 has been a good year for me, with growth in both the business and personal parts of my life. I'm really looking forward to 2011 now. What more could one ask for?