Parts of Art

     “I made this for you before we met!” It’s one of my favorite comments when I’m at an art show with my Parts of Art jewelry. It happens at least once at every show: that piece that, after I designed and built it in the studio, and afterwards thought “O my God, who would ever want this? What was I thinking? Am I out of my mind?” Then I put it out there and sooner or later she comes along, spots it, and it is clearly, unquestionably made just for her. It’s the one aspect of doing shows that I love and dearly miss.       I have recently become a vendor at the Alexandria farmers and artists market in my little rural town. It’s literally the only gig in town, and all my actual juried art shows have been cancelled. So it happened, albeit with face masks and social distancing intact. Here she came, it was made for her, and it happily went from my neck to hers. Want to see what I made just for you? Visit my shop at Sandyartparts.etsy.com

All my shows for 2020 have been cancelled, so I am taking an unplanned and unexpected break til next year.      I totally miss being at shows, meeting my customers, making connections with other artists, selling jewelry pieces I had made over the winter, staying in budget hotels and Airbnb’s, listening to books on CD on the road, eating Reese’s peanut butter cups on the way home, finding hidden neighborhoods in towns all over the Midwest, and telling my story of Parts of Art to anyone who came in the booth.  What I don’t miss is getting lost on the way to a show in spite of Google maps, holding down my tent with both hands during a sudden windstorm, arriving at my Airbnb the night before the show and realizing it’s in the roughest side of town, getting my tent all set up and realizing I forgot all my display fixtures, having to have homeless people vacate the spot where my booth goes, having a reaction from eating undercooked or overcooked food truck food, not having...