Well, goodbye and good riddance to THAT decade. The past ten years have been difficult to say the least, with a few bright spots thrown in– like Mikayla coming into our lives and some truly great times with friends. But now with the start of a brand new decade I’m completely psyched to jump in, shake things up and start anew! While I’m happy to have my things available in places like Michaels and Target and a few other big box stores, what I really want is to get back into the independent gift market (my first love!) where I believe they truly understand and appreciate my art. I want to draw what YOU, my customers, want and what I want– just like I did at the very beginning of my career. I finally realize, after 35 years in this business, that I actually know what’s best when it comes to my designs, and I don’t need 23-year-old buyers (no offense, 23-year-old buyers) or focus groups (go ahead and be offended, focus groups) to tell me what I should be doing. Don’t get me wrong; I’m always open to advice and collaboration and outside ideas, but at this point I really feel like I understand what works and what doesn’t. And I don’t mean just going back and repeating the same old themes that were successful in the past. I’ll always love Scotties, cherries, and our “fried-egg-flowers,” (or FEFs as we call them here) and I’m sure I’ll still use them from time to time, but I really believe that it’s time to see what else I can come up with that people might want to see. And while I’ve got you here, let me ask you what would you like to see that is not available to you now? What kind of products are you interested in and where do you shop for those products? I’d like to see my things in a lot more catalogs and independent gift stores and specialty stores– what do you think? We’d LOVE to hear what you’re thinking and wishing (as long as you don’t wish for the magazine to come back– we’ve already discussed this, ladies.) Any constructive comments are welcome and believe me, we are all ears here at the studio. So go wild.
So, bring on the 20tens! We’re excited to get out there and make the world a cuter place!
~Mary
