Selling Your Carvings!

This blog has posted up on this subject before.  I do sell some of my work.  However, my decision to sell was not driven to make mucho money.  Instead, it was to keep on making Noah's Arks and the pairs of animals.  My house was over crowded with Noah's Arks and all the relatives had one, and I still wanted to keep on making them.  So I started selling.  But a word of caution!  This is a hobby, something that I love to do.  I said right off, "I'll quit as soon as it approaches being a job".  So far that has not happened with the Noah's Arks.  My other passion is whittling small Santa's, Gnomes, Leprechauns, Wizards, and the like.  What do I do with all of them?  I give most of them away, and sell some at a very minimum price.

There's a warning here.  One can get burnt out if a schedule of art festivals, sales, commissions, and shows require you to carve more and more to just keep up.  Not only can you get burnt out, but the quality of your work will suffer.  Once an obligation to carve/whittle to produce pieces replaces the love of the hobby; it might be time to stop and rethink things.  I am about to "rethink" my decision.  Since I have determined that I really enjoy teaching newer whittlers and carvers, and "turning on" folks to the joys of whittling and carving; I am considering a different venue.  A venue that allows me to participate in art festivals, fairs, and shows  and demonstrate whittling and carving to non carvers (young and older), while still selling the Noah's Arks.