Started from the bottom…
When I first left my career in education (I’ll let you read about that in the New Dreams Blog) I really had dipped a toe in everything and my other foot was on a banana peel.
We had just gotten home form a 2 week trip to London which we definitely could afford before I quit my job, but then wound up being a pretty stressful credit card statement. I had a very promising job in the works which for 3 months made it seem like I was 100% getting it — it was just a matter of paperwork — only to be called immediately upon landing back home that I didn’t get the job (I was devastated). I had bought a storage unit a few months prior from someone’s estate sale leftovers. I kept a few things for my gallery wall and the rest was heading to my new antique booth. I was excited cause I‘ve always loved thrifting and this meant I’d be doing more and maybe getting some money for it.
While setting up my booth, terrified of what was to come but hoping I didn’t just throw out my happiness (I wasn’t happy, but brains are weird) I found a tiger swallowtail on the ground outside. It was dying (I hoped it wouldn’t. I put it in a basket and sat with it until I knew it wasn’t going to fly away), a bird had nipped its abdomen. I kept it, hoping I could find someone to put it in a dome like I had of dried flowers as a kid.
I asked my sister for the name of the person she has gotten a butterfly remounted from, that’s how I met Bri at The Garden Spider in Corning, NY. She made me the most beautiful dome for my fallen friend.
The Dome that Bri made for me
Tigers have always been my favorite. Probably just cause they’re yellow.
It wasn’t until a few months later that my sister told me that Bri was doing a class at Pixie Moss Meadows (a store on Market Street in Corning) and that she and her friends would be attending. She asked if I’d like to go which was a hard decision cause it was $50 and we really didn’t have much to spend. I’m so glad that Mike encouraged me to go, cause we know where it led.
I loved this class. I was so interested in the process, and as someone who loves the Victorian and Edwardian era, I’m a big fan of bugs in frames.
The first dome I made was with a butterfly from that class. I bought a few things on temu and here’s what I ended up with: an accidentally vaguely phallic dome.
But if my time in music taught me anything it is that practice makes better, so I told Mike that I wanted to start selling butterfly art and he said “you do you, boo”. So $200 later I was rocking and rolling. By January I was in Finger Lakes Unique on Market Street in addition to Old Town Antiques, and my fist set up didn’t have any frames yet. (Shout out to Danielle for making me start doing frames when I didn’t want to).
My first set up with “Framed Butterflies Coming Soon!”
About a month later I was pregnant, I did a few craft shows before it was too much and I just focused on having enough stock to get me through Christmas. Around that same point I also started full time with Guardian so I was just all over the place. I feel like I’ve live 10 lives in 2 years.
I started doing shows again in February and I’ve done 7 (?) this year. I’ve gotten so much better and I’m having so much fun.
If you enjoy my work, thank you so much — and if you’ve bought my work extra thank you cause you make it possible for me to keep creating.
I hope you all take a weird little class that turns into a passion.
