Ponderings on the future

I have been thinking lately about what I need to do to promote my work better and to get well known in the industry so, forgive me but I am going to 'think aloud' for a bit. I have been working at this for 12 years but still haven't managed to reach break even point. It is hard to break through into the upper reaches of the profession, the commercially produced books and the stalls at the big needlework fairs etc. I love the community of friends that I have made through this work but so much work has got me nowhere in terms of making a living.
So, what do I need to do? Needlework fairs are expensive. The cost of the stall is more than I am likely to make in sales (let alone the cost of the materials to sell etc) I can't see me ever making enough to change that as my charts range in price from £7-£10 and the stalls seem to start at about £650- £1000. So as I see it, I have 2 options. A) Run my own needlework fair - this is maybe not as far fetched as it sounds, previous posts have shown that there is interest out there both from retailers and stitchers for a fair, dedicated to needlecraft, that is cheap enough to attract the indie's who have vanished from the big fairs. If anyone is interested in forming a co-op with me to organise this, please message me. B) Get sponsorship from a bigger business to cover the cost of the stall. I don't know if I can get anyone interested in this idea (especially as I am quite a shy person who hates approaching people) but from my limited understanding of tax, if a company sponsors someone then they can write it off against tax which long term means they break even on the deal. I don't know for certain if that is correct though and I don't know anyone to approach anyway even if I did have the nerve.
Commercially produced books - I have a lot of ideas that I am working on. The calendar book is coming on well, it will be ready by the end of the year - maybe by the end of the summer but the search for a publisher will be a long winded process and may be ultimately futile. There are other ideas too but as I sew nearly all of my work myself it takes a very long time for me to get enough work together.
A YouTube channel is another idea that I have been pondering. Some tutorials, a few pieces about some of my works and their inspirations. I'm not sure if anyone would be interested but it's worth a shot.
Art exhibitions. This is an option with a narrower client base as far as my charts and kits are concerned but I would love to have an exhibition of work at the castle. I am not ready for it yet, there are several more works that I want to add to the collection first, some are ongoing, some are in my head and some haven't started forming yet. I have done a couple of other small exhibitions and it was fun
OK so that's what I have been pondering, forgive the long and rambling post but sometimes you have to say things aloud in order to make sense of them. Any (constructive) thoughts welcome.

My first Art piece

Here it is, my first piece of artwork designed purely for sale. It is an embroidered detail on a linen background and will sell at £325 plus p+p. More details are on my website.
It doesn't have a name at the moment, I can't decide if I want to give it one and what it would be if I did. 
I am very pleased with it, it is a pretty piece so I really do hope that it can find a home.

What's in a name?

As the schools go back and I can start working longer hours on things I am starting to think about the release of my first 'Fine Art' piece. I am pondering the name of the piece. How important is a name? Is something likely to sell better if it has a name or will it be fine just being itself? Could a bad name actually reduce the perceived value of the piece? I give all my Hardanger patterns girl's names. This started after I created my first big piece 'Emmanuelle'. I spent ages trying to think of a good name for it but everything just sounded trite so I gave it the name of the person who I had created it for. I like giving them girl's names now as it gives them a sort of personality for me. It can take long enough working out which name to give them as it is.

I may carry on with the tradition and give the Art pieces girl's names too. It's going to take some thought.

Knowing your own worth.

I am working on a piece today that I hope to be able to sell as a Fine Art piece and the difficulty that is haunting me is how do I price something like that. I have clocked up 13 hours on it already. If I was scrubbing floors or filing papers for a living the minimum that I could expect to get in this country for that time is £80.34. I am only 1/2 way through this project at the best estimate, so I'd be looking at £160 just on the creation, that doesn't even take into account cost of materials or and fee that a seller might require. The best I could look at for commission is 25%, most places charge a lot more. So when I release a piece with a price tag of £250+ what will people's reaction be? I guess most people will laugh, but then, wouldn't you want to be paid for your time? Where are the people who paid a fortune for a spirograph picture by Damien Hirst? Embroidery doesn't hit the same market that paintings do. I remember watching the play 'Art' by Yasmina Reza (and thoroughly enjoying it) where friends fall out when one of them purchases a white painting for a silly sum of money. This always comes to mind when I think about selling my work. I wish that I could sell my work for a sum that would pay me minimum wage. When you look at art do you see the time and skill that goes into a piece or just look for the gimmick? (OK now I'm singing a chorus from Gypsy) When I release this piece I will charge what it is worth in time and costs, I won't be able to put any value on for art or skill though. Who knows if I'll be able to sell it? Probably I won't, maybe I'll just end up with a house full of beautiful pieces but still no income. Maybe I'll find an art patron who loves my work because it isn't 'off the wall' and zany. Maybe it's all just dreaming.

What next?

I am trying to work out what to work on next at the moment. I have several very pressing projects on the go but I'm not sure which to go with. My priority has to be to find something that will bring in some money, I can't keep going on the way that I am. I am currently working on a book idea, a piece that I hope to get into a magazine, some fine art pieces, a new work to be sold in chart form and the knot garden pieces. 
I feel like I have a really good idea for a book that will fit well with the mood of the time but this has to be a long term project, there's no way that it will bring in any money in the near future as I have a lot of work to do and then there is no guarantee that I can find a publisher.
The magazine piece is a more likely way to make a bit of income but again, there is no guarantee of take up, the pay is very low and it takes quite a long time.
I am really keen on the idea of working on fine art pieces right now, of course I can't guarantee that they'll sell and they can't be cheap given the amount of work that goes into them. I would love to do some commissions. I would love to do an exhibition. It will take a lot of work though and if I am not constantly releasing new works will people stop looking?
I have designed a lovely new piece that I want to sew as my next 'chart release' this would be the quickest thing to work on but chart sales are too low, I need to take some risks and try and find something that does stand a chance of selling. I need to sell 10 charts a day to make a living, I don't sell anywhere near that many.
The Knot Garden series was a very big hit at my recent demo sessions. I have completed 2 of 4 and I am about 1/4 of the way through no.3. My hope is that I can interest English Heritage in them, either as charts, kits, cards, prints or all of the above, again - no guarantees.
So, 5 good ideas, all time consuming, requiring a lot of work and no guarantee of making anything from them. I have tried working with a rotation before, saying on X day I will work on this and on Y I shall work on that, but once I start working on a piece I tend to become absorbed by it. I have a couple of model stitchers helping me out with the book idea but can't afford to pay people to do it. I guess I'll just have to go with what feels right and hope like mad that something works.

Can I talk to you?

One of the things that has come out of my demo sessions at SewArty (last one on Sat afternoon) is a suggestion that I should consider some speaking gigs. I love what I do and I love talking about it. It appears that people enjoy finding out about it too. I have a particularly distinctive style that draws from many areas and I am able to talk a little about the history of the styles and show their influences on my work. If you belong to a group which employs speakers and would find it interesting to host a talk/demo about embroidery then please get in contact with me.

Enjoying the company of Artists

I did another session at SewArty this morning. Or rather I enjoyed another session all day. This is a pretty solitary profession. I spend most of my time alone, that's just the nature of self employment so getting a chance to work with other artists has been fabulous (that and it's a lovely light and sunny room to work in) It has been wonderful chatting to people about my work and my inspirations and seeing how other artists work. I spent the afternoon working alongside my old Art teacher which was lovely. She was demonstrating monoprinting which my daughter enjoyed having a go at and had the most wonderful scrapbooks of work. It's a shame that there isn't a way that I could do this more often. Over the last week I have had the chance to talk to people who work with screen printing, needle felting, batik, machine embroidery, encaustic art and many other crafts. It's a shared experience which you rarely get unless you can afford a studio. I love my work and, though it often depresses me that I struggle to make a living from it, I don't want to stop. I will miss this opportunity though.

Bespoke Art

I have been wanting for a long time to work on some 'fine art' embroidery pieces. Something larger scale and working with different styles and fabrics. I have decided to offer a High End bespoke design service to create beautiful individual works of embroidered art. I would work with the customer to create something personal to them, maybe to celebrate a wedding or a birth or just to be a piece of featured artwork to compliment their decor. Prices would depend on the types of embroidery involved and would be calculated to cover the amount of hours involved in sewing it and the costs of materials/frames etc. If you would be interested in this then please email me to discuss it.

It's been a while since I posted - oops!

I keep forgetting to post things on here - sorry!! Here's my latest design, just released today. I have called it Ariel. It's a sampler of several different styles of hand embroidery in a quilting inspired pattern. It was a fun one to stitch and a good introduction to other styles if you have only tried cross stitch before.