Ho, Ho, Ho . . . or Not
The holiday season has always been atypical for us. Two things keep us from the usual family gatherings and celebrations. One is that our family is in California, Texas and Michigan. Two - we have been in retail (galleries) for 30 years. You don’t take the holidays off in retail. You work yourself into fine little bits.
But we don’t have the gallery anymore. We retired.
WHAT?!?
We didn’t mean to do it, we didn’t want to do it - it just sort of happened - because of Georgia O’Keeffe.
DANG! Well not really. She didn’t mean to do it either.
Our gallery actually survived 2020 and 2021. However, our lease was up for a 5 year renewal last January. In December, 2021, the Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation announced that they were going to take down the entire city block where the gallery was located - not the galleries along W. Palace Avenue, but everything around us, and build a new O’Keeffe Campus with a gigantic museum and a park and a bunch of other stuff. They were going to start last Spring and construction would go on for 2-3 years.
Since Santa Fe dates back to when the Pilgrims were first showing up back east, we are sitting on an archeological dig here, and every pot shard unearthed would stop construction until cleared by the Historical powers that be. So the construction could be going on for twice as long, As it turns out, they haven’t even started it yet.
We could not sign on for that many years of dust and dump trucks, and we became a “homeless” gallery last January. We never meant to “retire”. We contacted agents handling Canyon Road properties, got on wait lists etc. Our previous location was the best downtown, so Canyon Road was the only place for improvement.
Time went on - and on - and nothing reasonable came up. Mark got more and more convinced that retirement was a fine idea, and I basically went batshit searching for a reasonable location. A year has passed and I woke up the other day with the realization that this retirement thing seems to be real.
I can’t retire!! What would I do?
All the life coaches advise us to do what we love, and if what you do and love is also how you make a living, how can you retire?
So many of my artist friends thought it was a great opportunity to have the time to create art for myself - for the joy of it - and that sounds wonderful, but I don’t know how to do that. My art has always been my bread and butter, and I can’t make that disconnect.
So, what you will see from me in the new year, is a person trying to work out answers and figure out what she wants to do and be when she grows up (if she ever grows up). It should be entertaining if nothing else.
I am starting with something that makes sense given that I have been an illustrator for a lifetime - I am launching a greeting card company - online and somewhat in the real world. I test market in a local gallery and my cards sell very well there. They have always sold well in our gallery. Greeting cards are something people still seem to love - even in this digital age. And I will be adding prints and signed and framed prints in that shop - selling my art online for the first time ever. The cards are very high quality and still affordable.
The Shop is called SkyDog & Chevy and it is currently accessible through the Marketplace of my Santa Fe Art Cafe. I am working on a website that will allow it to grow much larger in the new year. Of course, the card in this newsletter is one of mine.
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REGISTRATION is now open for my Artists-In-Residence Retreat in April 2023. If you didn’t see my last newsletter, this one will be held at a fabulous private estate in the hills above the Santa Fe Opera. Registration is open through January 31, 2023. All details and Registration Form can also be found in the Marketplace at Santa Fe Art Cafe. Any questions, just Comment on this newsletter, or respond directly to this email.
Tomorrow is the shortest day of the year. Hello, darkness, my old friend. But I start to get Spring fever the next day! Every minute counts.
jessica