some recent developments

Recent developments now give me the opportunity to make a few exciting announcements:

My Etsy shop is up! You can now purchase Mountain Ash Design creations online. It's easy, just go to

http://mountainashdesign.etsy.com/

and click, click, click. Pay with PayPal or even send me a check in the mail. HotHolders, sweet aprons and brand spankin' new belts and billfolds like the ones pictured here all could be yours. Take a peek anyway. You get up to 5 different views of each product. I've also been working on some small quilts and hope to have them finished and in the shop soon.

Mountain Ash Design will be getting some good press in the monthly Times Argus publication, Strictly Business, coming out tomorrow. This was a very fortuitous opportunity. Patrick Mullikin, the reporter, called asking for Richard. Patrick writes the "Made in Vermont" column in Strictly Business and wanted to do a story on Richard's handmade paper business, Langdell Paper. He had already emailed Richard, gotten no reply, and when he called Richard was away doing book conservation at Dartmouth College, which he does 4 days a week. Richard can be pretty hard to pin down for an interview, and after 19 years building the top production hand made paper mill in the US, he's selling the business so he can focus more on book conservation and gardening. [Could this be your new career? Check it out and contact Richard to find out more: http://langdellpaper.com/ ]

I knew Rich wouldn't want to do the interview, at least not this month. Now here's where it pays to have your 30 second pitch down (thank you Alyson at http://artbizcoach.com/!). After apologizing about Richard being so hard to get a hold of I told Patrick about sustainably creating sewn housewares and accessories from mostly recycled materials and it sounded interesting enough for him to schedule an interview with me the very next day. Stefan Hard, photographer for the Times Argus, came over for a photo shoot last week and everything. That event and my family's reaction to my telling about it deserves an entire separate post of it's own. Once I have the pix.
I just discovered it's available on the web right now so you can read the issue online and check for distribution where you live in Vermont. Look for my picture on the sidebar on the cover.
http://timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=strictlybusiness/
Click above the photo of the paper to read it in pdf format, select page 7 on the left, then click on the page to make it big enough to read.

Mountain Ash Design has three new galleries in Vermont. Look for my products in the Frog Hollow galleries in Middlebury and on Church Street in Burlington and at Art On Main on Main Street in Bristol.
http://froghollow.org/
http://artonmain.net/

This post started off with the title "finding my way and The Jury." I was going to write about being in the midst of figuring out where my diverse markets are, what they want and how to reach them, and the variety of jury processes I've experienced (and am currently experiencing). I hope to get to these topics sometime this month so Stay Tuned!
Meanwhile, check out my online shop: http://mountainashdesign.etsy.com/