CHA Designer Event

If you are planning on attending CHA, make sure you stop by the Canvas Corp. Booth during the last hour of the show on Day 1. From 4:30-5:30 pm on Jan. 25, they will be giving away product goodie bags and a $25 gift certificate to all the designers who show up. While you are there don't forget to ask for information concerning their designer endorsement program.

Here is a link to their Canvas Corp if you want to have a look around and check out all of their cool products. Can't wait to see you there!


"Bedrock" (22 x 29) Copyright 2008 Melynda Van Zee

I've been busy in the studio planning to head to market. It is good for me to have a deadline-helps me to sort out all the creating I've been up to and try to put some structure around it. I'd rather concentrate on the "just making stuff" but every now and then I have to come up for air and figure out exactly what I've been up to and figure out the best way to share it. That part isn't my favorite part of the process because for me it is the "process" where I find the most joy. I know, I KNOW artists need to be business people as well as artists, but I have to "work" at this part. People are always asking me "what will you DO with that after you make it?" And, I do go through a head and heart process...can I share this yet? Can I let go of it yet? Do I need to keep it around because it is still teaching me something? Is this project really done? Does this go right to the Galerie? Does it hang here at my house? Do I share this with people I love at church? Do I give it away to someone special to me? Will this piece never see the light of day- was it "just for me and God only"?
But, after a certain time-each piece or page has a different time span- it seems I'm finally in the place where I can really let it go. And, once I'm there, it really doesn't "matter" to me where it ends up...oh, I know it should. I KNOW I need to "protect" my work, market it wisely, store it safely, but to be honest, I'm letting go of all that control more and more. If someone else is blessed by my marks, by my color left on the path, great, but it is not what motivates me. Maybe that's the heart of what I'm trying to say. I've finally gotten to the point with my art that it is not the "where this will end up" or "who will someday SEE this" that motivates me, it is that I can't help myself from making it, from saying whatever it is that my brush or pen needed to say. It's been a long time in coming and it feels...well, it feel oh so right.