A year ago today I opened the doors to what has proven to be a life long dream. When asked as a child what my plans were for my future I shook my head "no" to ideas of being a nurse, teacher or secretary and proudly proclaimed I was going to be an artist!
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| Over the winter I decided to learn how to make stained glass so I could recycle my broken glassware collection. These pendants are now available in the shop along with my Woodland Wool critters and the wonderful creations of 30 other talented Nova Scotian artists and artisans! |
Everyone warned me about the difficulties... and I admit that at various times over the years I've fallen down in complete defeat and accepted that supporting myself by working in the arts might be an impossibility.... but then I'd have a big bright vision of some sort of vibrant art community or I'd fall into a job surrounded by other creative folks... so that whenever I felt I was going to have to make due with a life that was a little less creative, well then life would take over and let me know that it didn't have to be so.
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| New in the shop this year, monsters by Sewn by Blythe. I'm honoured to have Blythe's work in the shop, it was Blythe's felted vintage cameras that inspired me to create my line of recycled wool critters. |
I sat down frustrated and watched the chaos. My grampy sat beside me and asked why I had stopped - this was my job, I had better get back to it. I told him that I just didn't want to do it anymore. "Well", he said, "why don't you do what you want to do then? Why don't you go to the meeting tomorrow and start your own business?"
The next morning I made the trip into the city, met with an employment officer and told them of my dreams of an artist run creative community centre. I started the application process. After much confusion I later found out that I couldn't be served through Halifax and I had to start the process all over again, this time though Hants County. With an extra 4 months to think over my business plan it evolved. I knew my creative community centre would one day come... but I had to figure out what the first step would be to getting there. Perhaps a retail space!
Over the years I've been fortunate to meet many creative people, whether it was through my time spent working in print and animated production or as a crafter myself, traveling from show to show. I've come across many interesting people who all make very interesting products and I wanted to introduce them, or at least their work, to everyone that I met! Okay... now I was starting to get a bit more of an idea...
Next I began my hunt for the prime retail space. Since I was a resident of Hants County, and being funded through Hants County, my business had to also be in Hants County. The closest most populated nearby town is Windsor, so I began my search there.
It wasn't long before I was once again facing defeat. The cost to rent or lease in Windsor is practically as expensive as Halifax - there was no way I could dish out that kind of cash! I'm no fool, I may love my work and that of my colleagues - but I wasn't foolish enough to take on the financial risk that setting up a shop in Windsor would mean.
As my brain spun trying to figure out how to evolve my dream into something more feasible, Bryan came up with the idea of buying a trailer, gutting it and then having a shop I could set up anywhere. At first I was completely opposed... "oh that's so tacky", I thought. Then we started to look into how much work it would be to gut and renovate an older camper.... we could probably do something for under $5000.... maybe this could be possible?
As I laid in bed that night I thought to myself.... "nope, this was all just a silly dream... I'm still nowhere near making it a reality... I might as well go back to the job hunt tomorrow."
As I slept I dreamt I was packing up my studio space in the garage along with the help of my mom and my step father. As we packed artist Kelly Mitchelmore and her husband arrived with a bottle of red to cheers me and my new future. As we chatted I became distracted by a rhythmic beat and went down to the edge of the water to see if I could find the source.
As I looked across the water I felt a familiar warm fuzziness pass over my leg and looked down to see Mister Fluff... only Mister still had his glorious long plume of a tail intact. I watched Mister as he manoeuvred his way from tree to tree across the pond until he met up with the source of the beat... a young native, seated beside a fire, patting out the rhythm on his drum.
As I watched I once again felt that familiar fuzz pass across my ankle, only this time it was Mister as he is now, post critter attack, with his short little nub of a tail. As I looked back and forth confused over my twin cats I realized I had been joined by a much older native chief. He explained to me that I was experiencing a fold in time and that young man on the other side of the river was he himself as a young man.
He went on to explain that what we were witnessing was the very first time he took on the position of beating out the rhythm that kept the river running, something that he had done every spring since and something that had been done every spring beforehand for all of time. If this rhythm was not started again each spring then the earth would stop functioning properly and all hell would break loose.
Suddenly my mother informed me it was time to leave and I loaded myself into a van full to the brim with all my possessions. I waved my goodbyes and headed towards my future. As we passed through the North End of Halifax I saw my best friend from high school, Tanja, and her younger sister. We stopped at a light and the two came over to the van, Tanja asked where I was going and I answered honestly - "I have no idea?"
She then went on to ask "well aren't you starting your own business? Don't you want to follow your dreams?"
Yes - yes I do!
Now I began to panic! She was right, I needed to follow my dreams, I needed to go back home! I opened the door, got out and started running for home, I ran and ran until I woke myself up.
I promptly went downstairs, opened up my computer and went to Kijiji and typed in camper. The first image that came up was a 1955 Flying Cloud Airstream and she had been completely gutted and was just waiting to be rebuilt. My eye then caught the date in the bottom corner... it was January 11th.... what would have been my Grampy's birthday. Tears started running down my face because I knew that once again I was being sent a sign, I was on that right path - keep following that dream!
I admit that my current business plan has evolved a great deal from when I first opened my doors last spring. Initially I planned to take advantage of the fact that Flying Cloud is a mobile shop and I intended to travel the province from event to event. A lovely and romantic idea indeed, and had I been independently wealthy then perhaps I could have made it happen... but the reality is that once you crunch the numbers traveling has a multitude of risks involved. It took me a while to admit that traveling wasn't all that it was cracked up to be, but as soon as I did the true nature of my business started to unfold.
Here we are a year and a half later, Sylvia is now transformed into a beautiful little Nova Scotian art and artisan boutique, I have a new big and bright studio space where I'm surrounded by all my treasures and supplies and I am just weeks away from hosting our first workshops and starting our weekly open studio day where anyone is welcome to come and create and dream their own little dream :)
Join us July 14th at noon for our first workshop hosted here on the pond together with the HCAC! Ottawa artist Andrea Warren joins us for an afternoon painting picnic! A sandwich lunch will be provided by the HCAC along with a goodie bag of Golden Paint products to take home.
Email us at info@flyingcloudboutique.com to book your seat!
