[OK, this turned out to be a long one...]

Muse...
Well, pretty much ever since I got on facebook a few years ago, my favorite social/art site (dA, of course!) has taken a back seat. I stop in on dA pretty regularly, generally about 3-4 times a week, but I really am not so involved anymore. I want that to change! I am reasonably established here, and would like to keep it that way. (Plus, I now have a 2 year subscription. Yay!)

I've noticed that even though I post pictures regularly on fb, I rarely post them here. Perhaps a few occasional concert pix, but that's about it. This is partly because I used to think that Photography wasn't really my form of art. I felt I just wasn't a photographer. Well, with my last two digital cameras, that seems to be changing. I spend a lot more time on photography they any other art form, these days. And I'm loving doing it!  

In fact, for my first year or two on dA, I didn't even have a digital camera, I only used a scanner, or borrowed a digital for jewelry pix. It was my jewelry that caused me to get (and justified getting) a digital camera. I've gotten two since, not to mention the cameras on my phones (which occasional produce an artistic picture for me), and I am becoming increasingly interested tweaking my pix in Photoshop. Plus, my new phone (HTC Evo 3D) actually has glasses-less 3D photography! I've had a LOT of fun with that.

Due in part to some difficult times in the last few years, my artistic "Muse" seems to have left me... I closed my Etsy shop about 2 years ago (my ArtFire shop IS still open, if you need something, but I don't really focus on it right now). Also, earlier this spring I had a minor(hopefully) injury to my primary wrist, that can sometimes cause my quite a bit of pain when I crochet, write, or make jewelry. (Typing and Photoshop doesn't generally seem to bother it, thankfully!!) I have been making so little jewelry, crochet, crafts, or window painting over the last 2 years, that I had pretty much considered my muse as already gone.

Then, very recently, I realized that even though I don't make stuff anymore, I have still been enjoying my photography and Photoshop! So I guess my muse hasn't really left, but just moved into the lot next door...

Don't get me wrong, I still hope to get back into making crafts n stuffs. I really like crochet, it's very relaxing, and I feel I made some creative gifts!

When I started making jewelry, I really thought of it as gifts, and "not for making money". But that quickly happened, anyway. Not long after it did, it became work. And with things like large pieces, special orders, etc..., it became tedious work at times. The skyrocketing cost of gold and silver supplies (3-4 times the cost per ounce, in the last few years alone!) was one more nail in the box. The cost that it would take to replenish supplies was so high, that I refused to sell my items at prices that the average person could not afford.  I don't make my items for the upper middle class (who are welcome to them!), but instead I want my jewelry to be made for everyone, and still be up to my quality standards.

Balance...
So, what I need to do, going forward, is to find balance. Yes, I CAN be artistic, and enjoy it, and still make money at it! I just need to figure it out.

I have had many thoughts on this. Making jewelry required making every single piece, and materials, too. Not good for time or cost overhead. Then, I considered making tutorials, giving away the more basic, and selling PDFs of the more complex ones. Possibly even a book or magazine of my designs, sometime in the future. I could make the original tutorial, and sell copies of it, which would be much more cost and time effective. But, for some reason, that  never really got off the ground. I have pictures for two tutorials/lessons, that I shot about 2-3 years ago, and have never put into working order. Maybe I will someday, maybe I won't. Hopefully I will, as I once promised someone here that she would get the first copy of the first one, to test for me. I intend to keep that promise!  

So... Prints!
Another thought that I'd had was to do prints. But looking through my gallery, I feel there is very little there, artistically, worth selling as prints. I'd love to learn to do digital art, but I am very armature at it, having never taken any art course more then the basics. And although I was once pretty good at reproducing a large drawing from a small photo, I knew nothing of figure or facial drawing. If I didn't have a picture of it, I usually couldn't draw it. (Still true to this day, with my occasional window painting.)

Over the last 6 months I have been getting a LOT of comments on my facebook page about the quality of my photography. I have begun to accept that I might have some skill there, too. As I already mentioned, most of those pictures have not been posted to deviantART. But I am hoping that will change, starting immediately.

Unfortunately (since I never intended to print or sell them), the files for the pictures that I'd saved for facebook posting were saved at too small resolution for print purposes. Some were, but not most. And I didn't save as .psd either. They will be fine for posting to my gallery, here, but I'll have to re-do many of them for prints.

Also, I need to learn the optimal file sizes, resolutions, aspect ratios, and file types to make my prints quality enough for dA sales. I need to create a digital signature, learn about watermarks, and copyrights, too.

I've only ever received a single print from dA, and I love it, but the aspect ratio was wrong for the print size, so the bottom of the print was trimmed off, to fit on the paper, the balance was off from the artist's original. Consequently, half of the artist's signature was cut off! To me that is unacceptable. I'm not overly concerned about that particular print (which is otherwise beautiful), as matting can hide the signature, and fix the balance somewhat. I never did try to find out if that was the fault of dA or the artist, and I have no intention to do so, in this particular case. That was from about 3 years ago, so things might be different on dA prints now, but I want to make sure that never happens with my prints!

SOOOO...

If you have read this far, you probably have some interest in my work!
That said, I would like to ask that you take a few more minutes, and take a look through my gallery. If you see something there that looks like something you might buy as a print (even if it needs some kind of adjustment), please me me know here!! And, going forward, if you would please let me know which you would like to see as prints (out of my future deviations), I would love that!
And feel free to critique ANYTHING in my gallery!!!

OK, so this journal was waaaay too long! I guess I needed to get some of that out of my system...
Thank you for reading, random deviant!

Peace, Love, and Hippiness!
~MT

PS. If you DID get this far, please just leave a quick comment/check in. I am honestly curious if anyone does read these long posts all the way through.