Magic Carpet Ride Winners!

Anybody who knows me knows I am usually behind schedule when it comes to just about anything. I like to think it's that I am sooooo busy, but honestly...I am notorious for biting off more than I can chew. Take for example the One World One Heart Giveaway. I am announcing a week late who the winners are...but that's about right on time for me. So here goes....the winner of my Calamity Jane wall piece is Glassgrrl Studios (yes that's the correct spelling) and the winner of my book and bits is Susan Tidwell. Yea!!!! Congrats ladies. Drop me a line at lipstickranch@yahoo.com so I can have your mailing addresses. I hope everyone enjoyed the Magic Carpet Ride. Thanks sooooo much for all the great comments...all 325 of them! Yikes! You all are amazing and I appreciate your enthusiasm for my work more than you know. And for those of you who are expecting one of the Guardian Angels from the previous giveaway....that giveaway ended last Monday too and your angels will be flying to your homes by the end of the week. I made a bunch and there should be enough to go around. If you don't get your angel say....in two weeks time. Drop me a line at lipstickranch@yahoo.com and let me know.

Hugs and stuff...KC

One World One Heart....One Day

Yes...maybe someday we really will be one heart beating inside one world, but for today we have each other sharing all our goodness and love...and art. Makes me a happy girl!



In 2007, Lisa Swiflka created this amazing giveaway as a way of bringing bloggers together from all over the world. And I'd say it's working. Last year over 900 bloggers from 28 countries participated. Last year at this time I wasn't even blogging, but now I have 200 friends following me and hope to find a few more! I am super excited to be in this event this year thanks to all my Collage Camp students who urged me to get involved.

So I have decided to offer up for giveaway one of my special packages of goodies called "Book and Bits."
A selection of fabrics, trims and doo-dads from my own personal stash (you can even tell me which color palette you prefer) and the very cool book Creating with Fabric (featuring yours truly).

And for those you who may not actually want to create something on your own with said fabrics....how about a completed piece of my art? Okey-dokey...let's try this....
Calamity Jane who wants us all to know...."A girl with a husband can be limited in what she can do. A girl with a rifle ain't got that problem."

So if you want to be a part of this very cool event....

1) You must leave a comment here to get your name in the drawing
2) Be sure I have a link or email to get back to you in the event that you do win. Simple huh?
3) The contest ends February 15th, 2010 & the winners will be announced that day.

Thanks lovelies....and good luck!

Don't Ask...Don't Yell.

Where the heck has she been? I could have said Rehab, but the fact is I considered that and then realized there can not be a cure for Collage Addiction. Who want such a thing? Fact of the matter is...while January is sometimes a slow and lazy month, perfect for holiday recuperation...January 2010 has been one of the busiest on record for yours truly. Time just gets away from you once in awhile. There's that...and then there's the ADD I have struggled with forever...and no it doesn't mean Absolutely Darling and Dear...and while I may be those things...the fact remains that I have been trying to go on-line for weeks and get this wonderful natural remedy for ADD that I love...but I keep getting distracted!

January was already a crazy, almost alive thing right from the start. In-person classes at my studio, ever-growing numbers on Collage Camp, orders for my work from ski-resort towns who find this time of year a busy one for them, and the launching of my on-line art marketing class...first video class up and running with energy and input from all involved. But here's what happened that made it go from nuts to she-has-got-to-be-kidding. Here's also where I show you an example of being fab and fearless when it comes to promoting yourself and your work.

WESA Show at the Denver Merchandise Mart. WESA means Western English Sales Association. (As in Western riding..yee haw...and English riding...tally ho...which almost always involves a horse). If you are not working in a western genre in your art it means nothing...if you are it means you wake up 3 days before the show starts and say "OMG..how the heck did I miss the deadline to get a space in this?" (Way back in September mind you). So the wagon wheels start turning. But I have been away from the Mart for a couple of years and have no connections there right now. What to do? In Marketing Mindset we have learned the power of asking "What If..." So on the Sunday before the Tuesday that is show set-up day I post it on Facebook.
"Anybody know anybody who has a showroom at the Merchandise Mart? Looking to rent a little corner for the WESA show." I am a firm believer in throwing it out there. WHAT IF there was a spot available somewhere. So many wonderful things have happened in my art career because I wasn't afraid to ask and wasn't afraid to imagine...What if.

Sooooo....I have 3 wonderful FB friends e-mail me with ideas and names. Yikes...this might really happen! On Monday I called a gentleman named Don who had what he described as toy showroom in a not so good location. He wasn't even going to be open during WESA because this was not a toy buying crowd. What the heck...I'll take a look. I drove the 40 minutes to the Mart and met with Don. Turns out it was a toy showroom but it was on the first floor of the Mart (the busiest floor) and kitty-corner from a hugely popular western furnishings showroom. For some reason Don thought this a bad location. I'm looking at it and my mind is shouting..."Eureka! There's gold in them thar hills!" Or maybe it was just "I'll take it!" So Don GIVES me this corner in this great location, but to make it look like something I have to first move 5000 rubber snakes and 2000 mood rings somewhere else. I also have to fill this spot with work on a one-day notice. Hubby Logan moves snakes, KC empties the walls of her gallery and we're good to go. Not the prettiest set-up on record...but I'm at WESA! Wow...God is good. I might be brave....but God shows favor on a distracted collage artist and I run with it.

So to make a really long story even longer....I worked many hours with a drive in Denver traffic for the 5 days of the show and came away with new friends, new business (12 shops and galleries to be exact) and new enthusiasm for getting my work in front of the public and for fearless marketing. I also was able to secure a really wonderful spot on the first floor for the largest show of the year at the Mart, The Gift and Resort Show the end of February. How I found THAT spot (in a place where there is usually a waiting list for first floor spots) is a whole 'nother story. So I say thanks to my FB friends, thanks to the cowgirls on my work who speak for me everyday, and to God who continues to bless the work of my hands.

Hmmmmm...now I'm eyeing the Vegas Mart....What if.......




Oh and the Giveaway that I talked about in the blog before this one is still going on. Will be until February 14th. So get in on it. And if you posted earlier this month and have an angel coming it will ship after Feb 1. xxoo

A Giveway Where Everybody Wins!

Here she is...ain't she awesome? A fabric collage on an old book cover. Handmade by moi just for you. On the back I have handwritten the words..."Post an angel at your door. Fear the darkness nevermore." I know...I know...the gift-giving season is over...but the spirit is still upon me. I am giving away one of these angel book collages to EVERYONE who mentions and links just one more time all the cool stuff that is going on at KC Willis' studio. Your blog, Yahoo group, Ning group or Twitter will work. Facebook status updates don't count as they don't stay around long at all...but if you're part of a FB art group and can post it there that will count.

And since you're all so busy this time of year feel free to just cut and paste the following onto your blog...unless of course you have personal comments you want to make about one of the classes that you've taken. But be sure and link to the sites (or just link to my blog and they can go from there). You don't have to link to all the sites...you can pick and choose...just one will work. Then drop a comment below or an e-mail to me at lipstickranch@yahoo.com with the link to your blog and give me your mailing address. Easiest way to have an angel delivered to your door that I've ever seen!

This has been an amazing year at KC Willis Studio. Wow. 170 students from 8 countries currently enrolled at the on-line workshop where I teach the basics of my techniques and inspire you to new creative heights. www.collagecamp.ning.com. You have never seen anything like Collage Camp.

After Collage Camp there's Mixed Media Mania where you take what you learned at Collage Camp and in these workshops I teach Altars and Shrines, Altered Books and Works on Paper. Fun stuff. www.mixedmediamania.ning.com.

And for those of you already making art and wanting to know how you take it to the next level and get yourself a regional or national audience, next week starts the super exciting Marketing Mindset. www.marketingmindset.ning.com. Check out the Main Page and take advantage of the Intro Price which will only last until January 8th.


And if video workshops aren't your thing...how about KC Willis Live! (assuming I've had my coffee.) Come take a multi-day class with me in my very sweet Victorian studio house in Longmont, Colorado. Check it out at www.studioretreats.ning.com.


So there you have it. Your friends and followers will thank you. And I will too...I'm sending you a Guardian Angel so you start off the new decade resting in the shade of angel wings.

Happy New Year!

Just Do It!....Differently...

I've been busy making the first of my videos for the Marketing Mindset Workshop which is up and running in Discussion form as we speak. But one thing I want you to understand is that the journey is on-going for me, even as I teach about what things I have done to get my work in so many shops and my name in so many publications in the past...I too have big plans for 2010.

Part of what will go on in this workshop over the course of the next year is that I will help you get over your fears, set a plan in motion for selling your art, hold nothing back when I tell you what has and has not worked for me and help you develop as an art business in general. But you will also get to watch the plan I have for taking my work to the next level in real time. I will tell you what I've done AND I will tell you what I am doing. I have a whole bunch I want to accomplish as an artist in 2010.

If you want to make your living as an artist or even supplement your income with art sales...then you have to get serious about marketing. And as yucky as that might sound...it's the truth and I am here to make it interesting and fun. It's serious business, but I know for a fact that the right mindset can change what happens with your art...which in turn can change your world. It changed mine.

I started out in one gallery...one cotton-pickin' gallery...and from that came everything. It starts with one place carrying your work. From that one place came other galleries, shops, commissions, collectors, catalogs, licensing my name and work, HGTV....and teaching. But that doesn't just happen. You've got to work it like a job and there has to be a method to your madness. Your intent could be to have your work in 5 places and develop consistency in website sales...and that's all you want to have happen...ok...let's do that. You may want to be in 50 shops, 4 catalogs and do a greeting card line...ok...let's do that.

This marketing workshop is one of the things I am most looking forward to in 2010. I want it to be full of artists brimming with excitement, sharing information, and supporting each other in a way that will see the end of 2010 look different for you and your art than the end of 2009.

So share the news about this workshop and make a difference in the life of an artist you know. And tell your readers or your friends that if they sign up for Marketing Mindset they need to mention they heard about it from you...because you will receive a $100 gift card to my site, www.lipstickranch.com. $100 for every person you send to MM who signs up. But I'd like to think you would do it any way...because so many artists need the information we will share at this workshop.

xxoo

The Deciding Factor

Everyday we make a bazillion decisions in our life. I made one when I sat down to write this blog post. When you go to the grocery store you have to make lots of decisions. You don't fill up six carts with everything in the store that appealed to you...at least I don't think you do. You decide what is on the menu for the week and what things are the best items for your nutritional needs. You make a decision or two.

And so it is with your art. In my workshops artists are always saying that they go in so many different directions that they find a signature style does not develop easily and this frustrates them in their marketing. And I understand the tendency. You have so many ideas that excite you, so you want to act on all of them. And you can....BUT at some point you must decide on what is the main genre, look, style, theme etc. that you want to really work on and develop into a series of work. The work that you will market to shops and galleries. The work that will define who you are for that season in time. The other ideas you can play with in your off time and perhaps from them will come next years series of work. But you must decide. Bummer huh? Gotta narrow it down. My dad, the Marvelous Mississipian, always says "You can't chase two rabbits and catch either one."

I like to do many creative things. I have a notebook full of ideas that's so big I carry it around in a wheelbarrow. (Not really, but you get my over-the-top point.) Many of them are in different mediums from what I do daily and they excite me soooo much that when I see them I have been known to exclaim aloud. "Oh man...I really wanna paint!" But here's the deal. I have DECIDED that at this moment in time I am going to focus on mixed media collage, so that I have a cohesive artistic portfolio with which to flaunt my creative prowess to shops and galleries. A gallery owner does not want to see a portfolio of every idea you've ever had. That will not impress them. Amuse them, maybe...but they will not give you a show. They want to see a series of work that will make you recognizable to their patrons. When I took the first fabric collage that actually satisfied me to a gallery in Santa Fe, the owner said..."Make me 5 more so I know you can repeat yourself." She didn't want 5 of the exact same thing, nor did she say make me 5 more of just anything you can think of...she wanted 5 more in a series that would have impact. She wanted to know this piece of art with a cowgirl and a quote was not a fluke. By replicating "my look" I assured her I was not.

I hope you decide to comment.
Maybe you'll even decide to join us at Marketing Mindset. Either way...there's a decision to be made here. xxoo

I'm Just Sayin'....

When it comes to your art...the decisions you make today will affect where you are 5 years from now....heck 5 months from now. Back when I was wanting to be a novelist (I still wanna be one) I loooved to come home from my day job in Los Angeles, put my feet up and watch television. Anybody who had sat in LA traffic for a hundred hours would want to do the same. But I also wanted to finish my book and see what would happen. The thought of all that I had to do to accomplish finishing said masterpiece would overwhelm me. Easier to ignore it and watch television. BUT...that was not going to get my book finished. So I decided to make decisions...little decisions, but decisions nonetheless. One smoggy day at a time. After dinner I made a point of deciding to turn off the TV and instead decide to write for 2 hours. Show up and write. By deciding to do that day by day at the end of a year I had a novel written and a year later I had a contract with HarperCollins.

And in writing that lovely little western romance (ok so it wasn't actually a masterpiece) I discovered something else. Something that I do each and every day in my studio, now that I am artist and not a writer. I decide to get to work. And making that decision everyday has once again affected where I am. And let me tell you...I don't always know what's gonna happen that day or with that piece of art. I just get to work. I lay fabrics together, I select an image and I put the pedal to the metal. Zoom. Art.

So many artists I talk to think they have to have it all figured out in order to get started. They want a Google map. No sir. Not necessary. Sure sometimes you have to have the idea or the layout for a commission or some such thing, but in general...get in your studio and get to work. You will be amazed at the surprises that come your way...the magic that will happen. Some of the best things that I have ever done were a result of a happy accident that led me in a new direction. The work that I am known for came as a result of just getting in there and messing around to see what I could come up with. I still mess around with it.

So this is part of what I'm going to talk about in the first video of my Marketing Mindset on-line workshop. The work ethic in art. Motivation. Finding your Signature Style. Working in Series...stuff like that. I wish I didn't write about making art right before I go to bed...now I'll be up 'til all hours because of that dad-blame work ethic.