Radiant Light Mandala - (Circles of Light series) - © 2007 Sue O'Kieffe

Tuesday afternoon I received email from my business counselor that he was trying to arrange a meeting with a professional printer to talk with me about my printing concerns. So I decided to postpone taking in anymore information until after I talked with him.

The one thing I am definitely questioning, though, is the need to use archival ink for printing these cards. Hellooooo answer, I'm still looking for you! Am I getting warmer?

With this image, I started a new series of mandalas. My art, at its core, is about the Light piercing the darkness. My intent is to find new ways to let the Light shine through !

THE BUSINESS OF ART

Garden Party Mandala - (Summer Series) - © Sue O'Kieffe 2007

As some of you who have been following my blog may know, I was recently accepted into a 10 month Artists in Business focus group. One of the features of this group is access to a business counselor to help guide and assist us through this process. My counselor and I met for the first time today. On my way to the meeting, I noticed a little patch of tri-colored alyssum planted around a light post and I made a mental note to take a picture of them after my meeting. I was really attracted to the three colors and thought they would make a pretty pattern in a mandala.
This mandala marks the beginning of the next leg of my journey, hunkering down to the nuts and bolts of creating a business. It's a good thing I have a well developed left side of my brain.

So my next step is to begin investigating ways of bringing down my production costs, because right now I am losing money the way I am printing for what I am charging. When I forged ahead back in February designing and producing my cards I pretty much thought it would require some procedural adjustments somewhere down the line. Looks like that time is now!

I did a tiny bit of maintenance on my blog this weekend too and added an icon in my profile. I use that mandala on my business cards. If you go to the beginning of my blog, it was also the first image I posted here last year.

I also added a few more artists' blogs I like to read. If you aren't familiar with these really fine artists, I hope you will take the time to go meet them and appreciate their many talents.