Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Daily FeatureessaySundaythe artist's life

The Artist’s Life: Grateful for a Busy Week

four black cats in the kitchen
There is always hope when you are in the kitchen with your human. The more eyes the better.

I am most grateful for the artwork that will be heading for new homes in the coming week or two, for the people who decided to spend their money on a luxury in these uncertain times, and the money in my bank account to take care of bills and a few other things, and save for the months ahead.

My sale was going well from the weekend forward with a few followers and local friends purchasing, which kept me busy making arrangements for porch pickups while keeping our distance, framing a few things that needed it, and promoting various pieces of artwork and my sale wherever I could. On Friday a sponsored post on www.consciouscat.net published and that brought lots of traffic and more sales, so much that I was constantly busy answering inquiries and managing what was posted on Portraits of Animals. The same day I was included in the beginning of a week-long Seclusion Solution giveaway promotion that began on Hauspanther, which you should check out even though my things were offered on Saturday—there’s plenty of fun and useful handmade goods each day for your cats and for you in this giveaway that also supports small businesses and makers!

Not just the sales, but the traffic from the many people who visited and decided to follow or subscribe so I can continue to share my stories and images and my artwork and gifts for sale are was my other goal to get traffic to my website to support me on a regular basis.

two cats sleeping on chair
Cuddles on a cold day. Mr. Sunshine and Sienna.

I’m closer to buying a car, getting my camera repaired to get back to photography work, and being able to make ends meet now and in the near future. And that’s a good thing because the other things that have kept me busy, along with some regular design and writing work, have been a lot of water infiltrating my basement and my furnace has gone haywire. I can get waterproofing compounds and start waterproofing my walls down there, and I hope I just need a furnace repair and not a new furnace, but at least I can afford a repair, and there are programs for purchasing a new furnace. It’s been warm the past few days, but the temperatures are expected to drop as this cold front comes in with high winds and storms earlier.

Kitties have been inspiring and supporting me all week long, as you see here! I intended to at least share their photos, but being unable to download images from my phone to post here got in the way of that. I’ve finally resolved that and now I can get back to sharing our daily activities, which right now include a lot of forsythia blooming.

five black cats in baskets
No, we’re not concerned about a tornado warning. Maybe they aren’t but I’m ready to herd everyone into the basement. (We’re good! Looked pretty scary for a while. They didn’t even wake up.)

And aside from all that, we hardly notice any difference now that we are quarantining ourselves because that’s kind of how things were to start with. All our days are pretty much the same and it’s even difficult for me to tell one day from the next, one of the things I’ve always loved about posting here because theoretically, at least, I have a different topic each day and that helps me remember what day of the week it is. I’m so grateful I can continue this way. Of the two grocery stores I applied to on the bus line, one was full for now, and the other wasn’t sure about scheduling around my needs with public transportation, which I understood from the first. Getting a car will help me in that respect because sales like this are unlikely to continue, and around here we are looking at canceling or postponing events into the autumn. Once restrictions lift I may be able to do my open houses because traffic is sparse and half of it is outdoors, but even that won’t be until summer, I’m sure.

cats wrestling on bed
Meanwhile the shenanigans continue. Mariposa challenges Bean to a wrestling match by somersaulting into him, but he’s ready to bite her toes. Basil isn’t sure what to think, but that’s his usual condition.

My 50% off original art sale continues through March 31, 2020. They aren’t all big expensive pieces—the smaller ones are $75 to $100 including taxes and shipping, and you get 50% off of that. I’m considering continuing it after March 31, but because I sell my artwork framed to protect delicate pastels and such, I am running short of the framing I have on hand for that purpose. I only frame what I can fit on the walls because storing art in frames, no matter how carefully I do it, often damages the frames, so I store the art and frames separately and put new pieces together as I need them. My local supplier, whose prices help me frame my art for very reasonable prices, is closed until the self-quarantine period is over. I can purchase some frames and framing online, but not just the increased cost but the limited availability of materials and the longer shipping times make that difficult, as I found today when I spent time searching all my resources. I can’t guarantee when you’d get your art if I did continue past March 31.

four cats in baskets
Everyone seems to have a different interpretation of social distancing. Clockwise from top left: Mr. Sunshine, Giuseppe, Bella, Jelly Bean.

But now it’s time to get back to the important business of sharing my kitties with you, and also writing up the stories and information I’ve found in the many webinars I’ve attended and researched in the past week. Thanks for any support you can send my way. I don’t want donations, I’d much rather have sales! Part of the reason I haven’t had many sales on my site is I haven’t reached my audience, just a larger group of people who occasionally buy things. By sharing you can help me do that.  You are also more than welcome to go to www.PortraitsOfAnimals.net and look around, and sign up for The Creative Cat Preview E-newsletter and share it with like-minded friends so you see the new stuff first and get special deals.

Thanks again for following me! Just being able to share my cats with you makes it all worthwhile.



Copyright

All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.


Subscribe to my e-newsletter

Subscribe to The Creative Cat Preview E-newsletter.


© 2022 | www.TheCreativeCat.net | Published by Bernadette E. Kazmarski

Weekly schedule of features:

Sunday: Essays, Pet Loss, Poetry, The Artist’s Life

Monday: Adoptable Cats, TNR & Shelters

Tuesday: Rescue Stories

Wednesday: Commissioned Portrait or Featured Artwork

Thursday: New Merchandise

Friday: Book Review, Health and Welfare, Advocacy

Saturday: Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat, Living Green With Pets, Creating With Cats

And sometimes, I just throw my hands in the air and have fun!

 
PORTRAITS OF ANIMALS WEBSITE
FACEBOOK | TWITTER | LINKEDIN | PINTEREST | TUMBLR | INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE| EMAIL | PATREON

HOME

Bernadette

From health and welfare to rescue and adoption stories, advocacy and art, factual articles and fictional stories, "The Creative Cat" offers both visual and verbal education and entertainment about cats for people who love cats, pets and animals of all species.

One thought on “The Artist’s Life: Grateful for a Busy Week

  • Sounds good that you’ve got business to take care of.
    Starting week 3 of working from home, and if this keeps up, I’m not going to want to do anything else!

    Reply

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this:
Verified by ExactMetrics