I sold an art!

Back in February my stepmom and I devised a plan to take more photographs more often by routinely sharing them with each other. I have loved photography since I was small and have thousands and thousands of pictures rusting away on various hard drives. But as a working business owner with a second grader and a house full of things to clean and feed and water it’s been relegated to the occasional family hike (mom! hurry up!) or road trip in recent years. But now I have a photography accountability partner and it’s been incredibly effective as a way to carve in just a little “me-time” back into my life 🙂

So it happened that when a colleague shared this “call for art” post specifically asking for spring-timey, sun-shiny things, I had exactly such a picture immediately come to mind.

So I ordered prints! I decided to “save money” by not ordering metal prints or standouts and then spent 4 or 5 late evenings figuring out how to make my own frames, in between watering things and following up on homework. I ended up wrapping/gluing birch paper to some 3/4″ trim and then gluing everything to some plywood that came with our house. I rasped and sanded edges. I recut all the trim when my limited understanding of geometry failed me. I cleaned up my mess when I was done. The ready to go standouts seem less “expensive” now but I actually like these a lot better!

I called this “Peeking Through.” These were taken on March 19, 2023. I really enjoy March in Fairbanks, especially since we moved to the woods. It warms up a little, we get to have a bit of Normal Place Winter. It’s still daylight when you get home from work. I caught the sun shining through this birch paper while walking the dogs and scurried back with my Canon to get pictures. It’s even got a lovely bokeh spruce on the right side, doing a photobomb.

I got the second one glued together a few hours before they were due to be dropped off at North Pole Grange Gallery and Studios.

I brought my family back the night of the show and it was so wonderful to see them on the wall in the gallery along with so many other beautiful pieces! Lovely water colors! Bright oil paintings! Jewelry!

We went downstairs to look at plants and when we headed back up my daughter yelled at me that they were gone!

I even got to meet the lovely woman who bought them! She is an architect. She could have got anything there but she wanted my photographs. I was in a bit of shock about it! Then she thanked me and said she really hoped I did a whole show sometime! Well I have a company and a kid and a homestead to manage but what a fun idea anyway. A gallery show just for me? Wild!

Last night I took 80 pictures of our baby larch tree in front of the sunset and got a handful of ones I will print. I thought about how they might look lined up in frames together. I saw larch needles when I closed my eyes.

I am so grateful for summer, and my family, and the gallery, and the woman who first bought my pictures ❤