The Studio Source.com

Image by Gyorgy Kovacs

A view from the creative front line
I just spent four days in an athletic facility with air so dry you could load in on Thursday with a bunch of grapes, and load out on Sunday with raisins.

It was a Christmas craft retail show, and I was there with my other business (the one I don’t talk about, but that’s a story for another day).

Both Friday and Saturday traffic looked like a Sunday, which is to say customer numbers were down substantially.

There was the inevitable knee-jerk reaction from some exhibitors.

“I’m not doing this show next year.”

“The venue should be advertising.”

The venue did advertise. That wasn’t the problem.

Shopping patterns have changed. But that’s not enough to kill a show.

From where I stand, as a designer, maker and marketing specialist, the extinction of the retail show is by no means inevitable.

Image by Becky Wetherington

A day in a creative life
She stares at the half-finished piece on the table in front of her. The twisted bulb, too close to her head, hums and crackles, bathing her tiny studio in a flood of alien light.

The knot between her shoulder blades is hot. She imagines herself bursting into flames, nothing left for the coroner to find but a small, unrecognizable pile of ash.

And that bloody damned thing would still be sitting there, a final, glaring testament to an utterly failed artistic career.

Image by Sam Anvari

A celebration and a little surprise
Many years ago, I found myself watching a Hallowe’en street party. It was a nighttime Mardi Gras-style event, with costumes galore, ranging from discount store masks to full-on, enormous, made-from-scratch wearable sculptures.

I was distracted from the revelry by movement a few feet away from me, and just under my usual line of sight.