my new career?

So, most of you know I got laid-off, along will 20-30 other designers at my company. They laid-off every designer in the whole company. Not really sure of the "strategy" there but...I was pretty burnt out. After 3 design jobs, in advertising, in-house and publishing, I think I'm done. I feel I reached my max pay at my last job, and all jobs (all one of them in cleveland) would be a paycut. In order to NOT have to go back to a stressful and time-consuming job, I've landed in the lap of a great opportunity. My fabulous sister-in-law got talking with a lady who owns Planet Green in Rocky River about the piece of art I made from scrap fabrics from Kaia's nursery. Turns out, this lady is a shining hope in my life right now. She asked Kim to have me call her, and I did. She gave me a part time position in her store and wants to sell my fabric art from there. She makes it sound like I can really do this as a living. The day after I got laid-off, I was listening to "this american life" (holla!!!! who listens? it's great) and the episode was about Plan A. The gist was that most of us are working at jobs that are plan b, c, d, e, etc. But sometimes those jobs can get you back to Plan A.

I never was a huge career oriented individual. I felt pressured to go to college from friends and family. I went. I graduated. I now owe (still) $27,000 to that school and am super done with my graduate profession. Now edebted to them until I'm 52....I've decided to take my lay-off as a means to get back to plan a...with the help of this new gig. This week, I rushed to get 6 pieces together in order to have a base (and an idea of how to go about this) of artwork to sell. It's all made from re-purposed fabrics, because, let's face it....buying new fabrics for this would not be so green to sell at Planet Green. And, I'm a recycler! So, it's all non-toxic, voc free and completely green art. It's all for sale (hopefully) next week at planet green, but I will be eventually creating a web-site to sell it too. If you want a piece, let me know! I can do anything in any colors and any animals, scenery, etc. Here's what I did this week, the sizes range from 8x10 to 16x20. I have a couple of humungo canvases in the basement I can create and also can do pretty much any size anyone would want. Some of them look spotty and the colors look off from the originals, but i swear it's the camera and not the art. I used repurposed buttons from the shirts I bought at the thrift store, so no new plastic there. And the chording on some of them is metallic and also recycled from christmas present wrapping and such from the past 10 or so years.

please share!
Here's the one I made for Kaia. I have to name the company after her somehow. Open to suggestions! Kaia's Kandles maybe? lemme know. this one is NEVER for sale. ;)


Here are the rest:
This one is pretty big.