This year has started out with a bang for me. I pretty much haven't had any time off since I started getting ready for my Christmas shows. After losing my wholesale show in Toronto, I decided to throw myself into the deep end and applied to show at the New York International Gift Fair the end of January. This meant spending my "holidays" getting samples together, and figuring out a booth configuration that would pack into a 3'x3'x5' crate. I was a complete disaster leading up to the show, and thanks to my doctor and some pharmaceuticals, I managed to hold it together for the five days of the show.
What an incredible experience!
The New York show made Toronto feel like kindergarten. I had definitely graduated to the big kids sand box, exhibiting at a show where companies like Umbra and the official merchandise for the Beatles had booths. There's about three thousand exhibitors at this show, and I was in a section dedicated to handmade. There was a LOT of incredibly stunning work there. I made some incredible contacts, and got some orders. Maybe not as many as I would have liked, but given that it was my first time showing, I consider myself fortunate to have come away in the black.
Orders for my Feltware have already started rolling out - two made it safely to California, and last week I sent out boxes to Vermont and Wisconsin! But by far, the coolest order I got at the show was for a boutique in Tokyo. Given the stunning porcelain that comes from that side of the world, it's incredibly flattering and humbling to have my work represented there.
It will be a few weeks yet before I get any "me" time, and I'm already planning my next trip to New York for their August show. Until then, I'll keep making, packing and sending my Feltware to some pretty cool shops in places I've never heard of before!
