Trying to Pinpoint What's Bugging Me

It's not often I get into this particular mood, a sort of unease caused by being conflicted, but when I do, it's a dilly. Basically, the conflict is that my head says to keep going with the art fair and gallery, and my heart says "no more." I did some numbers-crunching when updating the bookkeeping, and my art is more profitable than either of the other activities. However, those sales would not have happened without the other activities, particularly the art fair. But that is just the local market. The local market is small and easily saturated. A wider market is necessary, and this means more paintings need to be painted, and more time needs to be spent on getting them into areas that are not part of the local market. I only have so much time and energy, which doesn't improve with age. At this point the head and heart agree--"you should paint."

The issue is at the forefront because if we keep on with the art fair, which Steve wants to do because he feels it keeps us in the local public eye, and thus is the cheapest yet most effective means of advertising while doing some public good, we need to establish the date of the next one and start making it official and generally known. The garden club meeting is coming up next weekend, and it would be necessary to announce our intentions for next year's fair, whether we will continue to hold it at the same time/place as the garden walk, if we are changing the date or venue, or if we are even having it at all.

The conflict is bugging me, which is not good for my painting. Steve & I are going to sit down later today and talk about it some more, and I hope we can agree on something that will ease this sense of conflict.

In the meantime Nick and Amy are back from their trip and trying to settle into some kind of comfortable routine, but as he has dental surgery tomorrow and law school starting up the week after this, it might be a while yet before they know any sort of equilibrium. We are all such creatures of habit.