A dreamy powder room

How do I get the power room I want? I ask myself this almost daily.

I need gloss black paint and a marble sink  with brass hardware and a modern toilet. The toilet is important. It must not have any sides that I'd have to lean over in about three inches of space to clean.

I'd top it off with a tiny chandelier like this one.

Then I'd add a painting with feeling like this one called Black Palm.

It's pretty moody but in a tiny little powder room I think it works.

New items available today!

HERE

I have been spending time on a few ideas for fabric created from favorite paintings of mine and turning them into new products.

Starting today, I will have a variety of clutches, change purses and men's ties available on my website.

The fabrics were created from my paintings "Coquette" and "Tea with Mabel"

The idea came when I decided to have a tie made for my husband from a fabric that I had on hand. He needs an extra long length tie so I had it made by this Etsy seller and it grew to include the other items.

Historic Charleston proved a great backdrop for our photo shoot.

HERE

I have a small inventory currently but if interest is good, more will be available soon.

HERE

Dispatches from the studio

The past few months have been, for me, like "Blog? What blog?". I feel as if I have been remiss blogging,  kind of like handing in homework late. New and exciting things were happening and I am here to tell you all about them. So consider this my tardy note.

The snowball started with me deciding I a needed a new website logo for KerrySteele.com and that snowballed into creating something that I could use in Blogger, as a letterhead and a favicon. 

 Terrena at eLance.com was fabulous to work with. That brushstroke is actually mine and she worked with the precise colors I wanted. I always thought something like this would cost a boatload of money but it was surprisingly affordable.

Next on the list was my face. No, not plastic surgery, just a professional photo. My husband kept saying, "Let me take it."  Nope! I wasn't going for that. I know what his photography is like.

I researched a few photographers and hired Michael from LeftHandedPhotography.com.

He had been wanting to photograph an artist in studio and I wanted a professional photo that did not look like a realtor, so it was a lucky match. He arrived on a Friday afternoon and over the next three hours we moved furniture, staged shots and basically laid waste to the first floor of my house, which sounds like a bad thing but I felt like we were squeezing out every ounce of creativity.

These are a few of my favorites.

Michael was awesome to work with. I hate having my picture taken, but I can honestly say that this was really fun. If you are in the Richmond area I highly recommend him.

He even helped me find a new camera and lighting so I can get better images of my art.

This is the temporary setup just inside my front door.

I really love the Nikon I bought and the timing was pretty good too. Being able to get really good images of my work is ever more important.

"Come away with me" 40 x 30 oil on canvas by Kerry Steele available through Gregg Irby fine art

Finding and working with the right gallery is one of the most important things in an artist's career and I am proud to say that I am now being represented by the venerable Gregg Irby Fine Art in Atlanta. GIFA also happens to represent some of my favorite artists, so it is particularly special to be on their roster.

This painting is headed to Atlanta, along with others tomorrow.

 As if it couldn't get any better, somewhere in this whirlwind, the art collection manager of Serena and Lily contacted me about my work. I am thrilled to be included as one of their artists too.

"Cocktails at seven" oil on canvas by Kerry Steele available through Serena and Lily

All of these great things mean lots of time painting. Lucky for me painting is my favorite thing to do.

So, my tardiness in blog writing has come from the pleasure of realizing many of my goals...all at once.

I am ready to get back to talking about chairs and fabric in between all of the painting going on here.

5 things I wish I had known on day one of being a business owner

I have always created but it was more recently that my art sales warranted a " for real" business setup and I wish I had known these things beforehand. Its not that I was so naive that I had never heard these things, but rather the lesson learned by choosing to heed the words or not heed them and then deal with the consequences is something different.

Having figured out these things makes me wonder what I will wish I knew about business 5 and 10 years from now.

1. Boundaries. Boundaries are so difficult for a non-confrontational person like me but so very necessary.

Last year, there was a minor upset when we told a family member not to come and stay for a few days. We were so very busy and the thoughts of remaking a bed and cooking just about put me over the edge. I am glad we were firm about that. 

That was my first lesson on setting boundaries. Working from home does not mean that you are available for other things even though others may think that you are.

2. Bookkeeping. Oh how I wish that sort of thing had been easier for me. It was something that I over complicated in my mind and found frustrating and even tear-producing. I now have a simple paper form that I complete each month. I am tech-savvy enough to do something else but find comfort in having things on paper. If I had a nickel for the number of people that recommended an accounting program...

My lesson here was: do what works for you and you business. It is such an important thing that a business owner know their monthly sales, expenses and profit margin and I always do by using the method that is a good fit for me.

3. Details affect your image. Thankfully it took me a very short period of time to be horrified at the thought of packaging my artwork in a leftover makeshift cardboard box for shipping. Its a small thing but a customer who spends hundreds on a handmade item deserves a new box that is packed up in a tidy professional way. This philosophy comes up in many ways like using the best quality materials I can afford at my price point and responding even the smallest questions in a timely, respectful and friendly manner.

4. Building relationships is key.  I am the artist so I do everything, right? Wrong.Yep, my husband builds wood crates for the biggies so I need to be nice to him but I need more help than that. I have a relationship with the owner and employees of my local UPS store that is invaluable to me. I could use another shipper but I value the relationship enough to stick with them. Artist friends are great to bounce ideas off of and a small art supply store is my best source for custom stretcher bars. Everything I do would be drastically more difficult without these cultivated relationships.

5. Ride the dips. Seth Godin devoted an entire book to knowing when to quit.  A dip can make you feel like quitting. A dip is a lull in business, creativity, or both and it is scary as hell. Like the biggest rollercoaster ever scary. I found that dips are good. In my case, a creative dip allowed my subconscious time to do problem solving about creativity. It ended in a series of "Eureka" moments and it was only in hindsight that I saw that thing I viewed as a slump was rather a regrouping of energy.

 My daughter at age four said it best while painting one evening, "I am a real artist because I never give up."

In business, things are not always linear, rarely exactly as you expected and mostly tougher than you thought it would be but the rewards are immeasurable and I never want to do anything else.

Like Kerry Steele Art on Facebook to see my latest artwork

Follow me on Instagram to see paintings in progress

ORC-Whew! Its done!

As always, many thanks to Linda of Calling it Home for dreaming this baby up.

Are you all exhausted too?
If you need to catchup here are the previous weeks.
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
 Week 5

Let's take a look at my plan for my 17 year-old daughter's room and the results.

I had the bed, curtains and loveseat beforehand.
The girl likes chevron so I indulged.

I ordered a Lucite chair (from a company I won't recommend) and the blue and white chevron rug was a last minute Homegoods find.

The accessories in the room were the most fun for me. We both love elephants and the brass one was a thrifting score.

I found this vintage magazine rack at a local thrift and hit it with some gold spray paint to tie it in with some other accessories and hold all of my old her records.

I actually had the table in my basement. It was a side-of-the-road broken find that I repaired and lovingly refinished years ago. I took a deep breath and just started painting it white before I could reconsider.

I use my children's rooms as art hanging spots for my paintings until they sell so we can enjoy the paintings for a while.

That painting is from my new series and my daughter likes things to be color coordinated  and I think this works with her color scheme without totally matching.

The lamp on her nightstand was thrifted and I wrapped nearly all of the books in fun wrapping paper.

The pillows and throw on the loveseat make me want to steal them.

I found these blue and white porcelain balls at a discount store and I may have to buy some for myself.

 I hung her watercolors that are for sale in her Etsy shop with bulldog clips and they serve as inspiration as she works.

A print from The Pink Pagoda and a small abstract of mine work nicely together.

The rainbow was painted by her little sister and hangs with my favorite of all of her elephant paintings. I might just have to snap that up myself.

I learned a lot from this ORC. The main thing is that I never want to redo a a room with a resident slob. Every photo you have seen involved me moving clutter and clothes out of my way and putting things back to the way they were just a few hours earlier.
 We love the Parsons desk and ghost chair andI am really happy with the John Robshaw pillowcover I ordered and my recovered storage cubes.

Are going to spend the next few hours perusing all of the other fabulous ORC linker's rooms, like me?

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Follow me on Instagram to see paintings in progress

New looks

I have been working on tweaking my website, KerrySteele.com to give it more visual flow and reflect what I seem to do best.
It seemed too all over the place visually and I decided the other day the direction I would like it to head. It is decidedly more feminine looking but my clientele are primarily women.
Its a good thing I made this change as a practice change that I thought did not publish was up on the landing page for over a week. Damn browser caching!

 I changed a small amount of the content as well.

I will continue to have available work on Etsy and on my site's SHOP page.

Next stop is my blog header and ultra-nemesis.

I went from this...

to this (which was all wrong) and back to the first one.

and then this

now this.

 

 

Which does not say "interior design" but is the least cluttered look for now.

It will change. Possibly many times in the next few days and weeks.

Do you have a favorite?