Finding your voice

sneak peak of my painting: 
  "The Flighty Temptress, Adventure"

Thank you all so much for the sweet comments and notes of encouragement from my post the other day about facing fears.


Another related issue that I’ve struggled with these past 2 years, has been finding my voice as an artist. As someone whose always known who she was in the academic sense and yet who only recently started developing who I am as an artist, it's been a weirdly wonderful journey of discovery. 


If you're interested, I wrote about my trials, tribulations and triumphant in finding my voice over at Calalita Designs. I've also (finally) included photos of a few paintings - including the very first one I ever did in all of it's unruly wonder. So go take a gander (here) and let me know what you think  

Pricing your work

{via Etsy via Kelly Rae Roberts}

I'm a big fan of Kelly Rae Roberts. I adore her and her style, but most importantly I love her honesty, eloquence and humility on discussing topics that, as an artist, I find myself bumping up against on a frequent basis. 


One such topic is pricing you work. Etsy recently featured an overview of her thoughts on the matter, and I found them to be incredibly helpful. Though I think there's a difference between selling art in the traditional sense versus art in furniture or home decor, I do think a lot of Kelly Rae's points still apply.   


As someone who is just starting out, pricing my work has been a struggle for me. With my furniture, some of my pieces took ages to complete. I am entirely self taught in my craft and this first furniture collection involved a massive learning curve. I learned, repeatedly, the hard way when something didn't work. As a result I spent a lot of unnecessary hours redoing and amending mistakes that (hopefully!) can be avoided in the future. 


My goal for the furniture side of this business of mine is to create beautiful, funky, one-off pieces that are not only original and unique, but also affordable. I truly believe that every home should have a piece of furniture or decor that they love and that speaks to their character. Trying to find the balance between pricing based on current economic situations, competitiveness and affordability versus costs of materials and time put in though, has been nothing short of difficult. As this was my first collection, I found myself undervaluing pieces. Basing my pricing off what I would spend on the piece. I also found myself consumed with the tinnest of flaws and despite no one but myself bearing witness, or even knowledge of these, I still felt compelled to price things accordingly. 


To give you a bit of perspective, the first piece I sold, after I took away the costs of materials and the stall at the market, left me with a wage earned of less than 5 euros an hour. Impressive I know. 


Kidding aside, I realize that as I grow in skill the time it takes to complete each piece will decrease and my rates will be able to better reflect my ability. But at the end of the day I didn't start this purely for monetary gain - I did it out of love and passion for what I do.  

Mustard + Grey

Calalita Designs, or rather Ms. Ivy, has been featured in an oh so charming Mustard + Grey Treasury on Etsy! 

To see the full treasury, with links to all of the fantastic shops, go check out the full post on Calalita Designs

xx

{Introducing} Calalita Designs

Hot off the heels of the Brocante Market, I'd like to (finally!) introduce you to Calalita Designs!

A labor of love, Calalita Designs started as a tiny dream a long time ago.

Ever since I can remember I’ve always been drawn to art and color. Over the years it’s manifested itself in different ways, but it wasn’t until I moved to Dublin, Ireland in 2008 that I started to narrow my focus.

What began as a simple effort to make my apartment feel like a home, soon turned into a full fledged passion. My flat became my canvas where I was constantly upcycling my own furniture, painting walls, rearranging rooms and creating my own art.

Eventually I saw an opportunity to turn doing what I loved into a business. In late 2010 I acquired a small studio space and began teaching myself the tricks of the trade. Since then I have been remaking furniture and developing my own collection of mixed media illustrations that bit by bit I've been sharing with you here on Furi Kuri. 

Inspired by nature, travel and the playful, whimsical side in us all, Calalita Designs is rooted firmly in the belief that home decor, like life, shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

I'm so thrilled to be able to share my site and my work with you all. I'm officially online now - how groovy is that? There's still quite a bit of tweaking and adjustments that need to be made so please bear with me as I navigate the uncharted waters that is wordpress and html code. 

I originally had intended to slowly phase out and integrate Furi Kuri with Calalita so that the website and blog would all be in one. After I got the website up though, I realized that I wasn't quite ready to give up Furi Kuri. Compounding the issue was the realization that to make things more 'professional' I'd probably have to streamline and censor my posts more to help with marketing and image branding. I'm not sure that posts on travel, random musings or killing zombies would align with Calalita's aesthetic. Maybe it would work, but for now Furi Kuri will continue to be my personal blog and Calalita will house more a design and art centered focus, highlighting new pieces and any upcoming exhibitions. 

I apologize in advance for what I'm sure will be a bit of overlap while I figure out what works best. The perfectionist in me has been strongly opposing launching something that is not 100% finished but the realist in me knows that it will probably never be totally complete.  The time to wait it is over: these days it's all about the forward momentum baby!  

So what are you waiting for? Go check it out! 

Brocante Furniture Market

I apologize for the absence around here lately, but I promise dear nuggets, it hasn't been in vain.  I've been working non stop and I'm so excited to finally share the news I was only able to randomly hint at before.

This past Sunday was the Dublin Brocante Market, were I (officially) unofficially launched my first furniture collection.

This is something I've slowly been working towards for what feels forever, a true labor of love (and blood, sweat and tears) that despite a few false starts has finally come together.
I've wanted to share all of this with you for ages, but every time I tried to write the words simply wouldn't come. In hindsight, I realize until now, that the timing was never quite right.

I believe that art is in essence an extension of oneself. As someone who is entirely self taught and still making mistakes learning as I go, my wavering confidence in my abilities prevented me from sharing that which had become so personal.

This market has been a goal of mine since the beginning of the year, a way to own my work and put myself out there. In the week leading up to it, despite being (mostly) prepared I hesitated telling anyone about it until Friday. Residual fears and doubts (hello neurosis, my old friend) kept creeping up but eventually the only way to silence those voices is to do that which you are scared of and embrace action.

The market was a wonderful experience and I am so grateful for the support of friends and most importantly S. Monster - without whom I wouldn't be where I am today.

I garnered a lot of attention and sold a few pieces but ultimately I realize that if I want this little business of mine to succeed, it's going to take a lot more than a stall at a market. It's going to be a lot of hard work, but I've always known that this market was merely a stepping stone. Now the real fun starts and mark my words - before I leave Dublin my name will be known.

Because you're the best nuggets anyone could ask for, here are a few sneak peeks from Sunday...