Amethyst Studio Retrospective

This weekend at the Amethyst studio we have been sitting in quiet (and not so quiet) contemplation about this past year, and how we got to where we are today.

 Sara and I have been in business partnership for a year this month, albeit from a very slow and cautious start. The 'leap of faith' that we took – going from being employees at the same company, doing jobs we weren't invested in, to starting out on our own - was filled with trepidation and fraught with doubts. We both have mouths to feed and bills to pay, and the possibility of this whole thing being a catastrophic failure was daunting to say the least.

Nevertheless, the idea of being independent of an employer, and making our own decisions about our futures was too exciting an opportunity to pass up. We had some back up from industry friends and most of the important people in our lives supported the idea. So we rolled up our sleeves, adopted the ‘Feel the Fear, But do It Anyway’ school of thought, and jumped off the precipice.

Since then the studio has gone from strength to strength, and we have found that – not only do people like our work – they have also commissioned us to do more personal pieces for them. I painted this piece for the Christmas 2012 craft fair held at Milton Keynes Museum:

It was originally intended as an advent calendar, complete with a polymer clay Santa, climbing a ladder numbered 1 - 24 on the rungs, but it wasn’t finished in time so the piece was put up for sale as a 3 tier folk house. The painting attracted the attention of one lady, who subsequently brought me a picture of her daughters new home, and asked me to paint one for her as a Christmas present ( complete with her 3 grandchildren looking out of the windows!) :

The finished piece was adjusted a little to suit the clients taste, and the little girl in the top window was moved to the middle right window (a request which wasn’t part of the original brief, but was easily changed)  This was one of my most satisfying pieces to date as, although the subject matter was a little odd and it was a real challenge to get all of the roof angles and lines right , I had created a bespoke piece of original art which was personal to the client and all within a deadline of 1 week! Additionally, the client has been in touch with me through email since Christmas to let me know that her daughter  and  grandchildren  were thrilled with the gift – this is almost reward enough in itself, as it is always nice to know that your work is appreciated.

Sara also had a few commission pieces to put together for Christmas gifts – these pieces were mostly created during the lull’s when we weren’t serving customers at the fair – It certainly pays to have your kit with you sometimes! – and I’m sure you will agree, these were going to make for fabulous gifts:

We have also been venturing in to the realms of fabric crafts recently too,  and yet another commission came Sara’s way when she was asked to make this stunning ring pillow for a friend’s wedding:

Last week, another commission was requested from a bride to be, who has decided that she doesn't want flowers to feature in her wedding at all, so Sara has come up with some very exciting designs for her bouquet, the bridesmaids posies and the button holes for the gents. She has also had some great ideas for table centrepieces so keep an eye out for those on the blog in the next few months too.  

Looking back over this last year, we have had some ups and downs and it hasn't been smooth sailing by any stretch of the imagination - we learned quickly that getting to where we want to be is going to be a Sisyphean task, luckily though –

thus far - the up's have been more predominant than the downs – and so the fight continues….