3 Artists: Creating a Career as an Artist

Building an art fair career and maintaining it through market changes, bad weather, rejections, social media challenges and personal needs takes focus, adaptability, good timing and some luck. Our entrepreneurial guests share their stories: Stephanie Wheat is a self taught handbag designer specializing in handmade leather accessories. Manufacturing her brand REBELLION in Chicago and selling throughout the country, fine craft shows such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show and the One of a Kind Show, pop up events and strong social media marketing. She has recently been invited to Paris Fashion Week. Kathy Ross, has been a full time self-employed artist since 1978. She has pursued many materials (99% sculptural) and is currently working in these areas: map/book-collaged and bejewelled figures and clothing pieces (which look wearable, but aren’t). The basic method: make a frameworkfound tea/cookie tins (cut up and soldered) to make sculptures like the tin figures, heads, vehicles, houses, globes. The challenge of making something flat behave like something 3-dimensional. Kathy's website: http://kathyross3d.com Kathleen Teach has supported herself at art shows, entirely, for 20 years, starting out with nothing."I look back on it now with wonderful memories and some pride. My independence and sense of adventure was the envy of all my friends." Traveling with her trailer alone for at least 160,000 miles, loving seeing America. Her work is one of a kind meditative zen oil lamps. We listen to their stories and are inspired.