The Next Step

Now that you’ve joined the Ashram for $30 a month and gotten a place in the gallery — either a cubby at $100 per month or a booth for $200 a month or both — it’s time to look at the program.

You are now part of a team.

That team operates in the subtle plane, but manifests clearly and tangibly in the gallery as a group of artists and artisans.

The art varies widely, as does the crafting. Materials and methods are very much unique to each of the experienced artists of our Grass Valley Graphics Group, and that creates a lot of excitement in visitors to our space.

Because we specialize in miniature works of art, our walls are filled with lots of interesting things to see. People tend to stay longer in the gallery precisely because there are so many paintings, drawings, sketches, embossings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings and more, and the longer they linger the more likely they’ll shop, meaning you get the sale.

How the support boils down is that whenever we have some surplus, it can be applied to promotion and publicity, but keep in mind that money can’t buy you love, and you can quote me on that! Continue reading

Gorby’s Little Craft Kits

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Can you pick me out  in photo? Craft Session at Camp Woodland, August 25, 1955. You can order the book “Downtown Community School” from Gateways Books & Tapes.

Kids had such a transformative experience working with adults in the Craft Classes at Camp Woodland and Downtown Community School under the direction of Norman Studer during the 1950s, and when families worked together on simple craft projects and craft shows, it was like a bunch of gluons had suddenly bonded the family members into a blended and harmonious unity, and that’s exactly what’s needed in this world of pain.

I’m designing an entire LINE of metal-embossing kits, and I’ll tell you why — the new EK cutter is a piece of crap, although it does admittedly do the job, but it does it with four massive crimps in the sides, which eventually will roll out with pressure and persistence, but the additional effort makes the thing too time-expensive for the marketplace.

So I decided to set up a craft supply “factory” where I either make or encourage and teach others to make little circular foil bits for sale to embossers everywhere.

We’re making embossings that can actually be used in jewelry mountings, because our sizes correspond to the mountings without modification. We’re among the very few who make embossings on round foil disks. Continue reading