Years ago when I lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I used to visit the annual art fairs there. Much of the work I saw is a blur now, but there were a few artists whose work was so fabulous, I remember them even now.
One was a doll artist named Charla Khanna. She was especially memorable for this:
She was interviewed by our local newspaper, the Ann Arbor News. The article said that by 5 a.m. on the day the fair opened, there would be a line of customers waiting outside her booth. When the fair opened, she would start selling her dolls.
Within a few hours, she would sell her entire body of work that had taken her a year to make. She would put a sign up in her booth, "All sold out. Gone shopping."
And that was it.
I never got to see her dolls, because sure enough, they were always gone by the time I got to her booth.
When I began making wall hangings, I thought about her often. I couldn't remember her name, but I remembered that story.
To me, it seemed like a dream come true--that you could work exclusively on your craft, show up for a few hours, and sell your entire body of work to a crowd of avid collectors.
As my business grew and changed, that dream seemed apocryphal. Most experts actually poked fun at people naive enough to think a business could work that way. I saw firsthand how important marketing, publicity, advertising and selling were to growing my business.
But I could dream, couldn't I?
Recently I came across Charla's work again. In fact, I just spent a small chunk of money buying a back issue of ART DOLL QUARTERLY, just because it had an article about her and her work, with dozens of beautifully photographed dolls.
Her work IS astounding, and the attention to the smallest detail is breath-taking. In a time where collage art is rampant and much of the work starts to blend together, hers is memorable.
If you visit the sole gallery that represents her (because they sell ALL of her work), you still need to enlarge her images to truly see what's going on. Because she isn't just using patterned cloth to dress her dolls. She's MAKING the pattern on that cloth--with embroidery, with tiny seed beads, with tiny patchwork blocks.
And best of all, I got to read that story again. It WAS true. And it IS true. For her.
Now, I know that her success-of only having to do ONE show or supply ONE gallery--isn't something we can all achieve. And maybe if we do, that doesn't mean it will last.
But for me, the idea that people would stand in line for my work, that instead of PUSHING my art out into the world, the world would PULL it from me as fast as I could make it, the idea that everything I could put into a piece would be treasured and appreciated (rather than me constantly worrying about where I should cut costs in order to bring the price down) is a spiritual luxury I WANT to dream of.
And if someone in the world is doing it, then it is POSSIBLE.
It is the most beautiful, softest, wonderful spot for my dreams to gather today.
