looking back on 2024

vance

vance

— 10 min read

Hello friends!! And an extra special welcome to the new folks who just signed up to the blog/newsletter after meeting me at my vendor events last year!

A table display at a craft fair with a green and purple sign on the front that says "caesium tea". There is a genderqueer pride flag spread over the table. On the table, there are two black pegboards with necklaces and keychains hanging from them, a poster that says "take care" above a list, a bowl of round buttons, and a smaller print of a painting of a person in a pink and white sweater holding a mug.
My table at the Tazza D'oro pride month artist market. IMO it was my nicest looking table setup last year!

You might notice that it's been a while since my last post here - in fact, you might have signed up for the newsletter way back in June and still never seen a single message from me until now! Gosh, the year really got away from me. In April, I actually started working my first non-freelance job in about 7 years, so that was a pretty huge adjustment I had to make in terms of time and energy levels! Plus prepping for my first craft fairs in June, and then being exhausted and burnt out after doing 4 markets in a row that month... Well, a lot of things fell by the wayside. But I'm so excited to be back writing to you all again right now!

I wanted to share a little recap of this past year. 2024 was a pretty huge year for me as an artist and especially as an art business--I vended at my first "real" craft fairs/markets! (technically my VERY first one was the Prototype holiday market back in December 2023, but I'm not really counting that one because I was the one who organized it hahaha.) I got to connect with so many amazing new people, which I'm incredibly grateful for!

a year of markets

All in all, I sold at 6 and a half markets this year! Wow!! And 4 of them were pride events in June, 4 weekends in a row! Phew! That was a pretty grueling schedule hahaha. And overall, pretty impressive for my first year of selling, I would say!

A vendor table similar to the one seen above, but it's only partially set up, and is outdoors on a patch of grass. There's the same genderqueer pride flag, "caesium tea" banner, and two black pegboards full of necklaces and charms. There are also a few other small boxes and tape scattered around the table.
My table at the outdoor Go Folk Yourself Music Festival, also from pride month!

Huge shout out to the very first event to ever accept me as a vendor, Loud & Proud Festival! I can't even put into words what an amazing experience this one was--especially being able to see my wonderful friend DJ Pwuppy taking the stage while I was vending!

Vance standing behind a similar table setup to the ones seen above. This time there is a canopy tent over the table and the "caesium tea" banner is hanging from the tent at the top of the image. Vance is a white adult with long curly brown hair and a beard and mustache, wearing glasses and a purple plaid shirt, and smiling slightly to the camera.
My very first booth at Loud & Proud Festival! I was lucky enough to have a friend loan me a canopy tent for this one.

It's been a ton of work--honestly, all the setup and stuff takes SO much more work than I realized, hahaha--but it's been an amazing experience. As an artist, there's no confidence boost like actually watching someone's face as they pick up a thing you've made yourself and decide they like it so much that they're willing to offer you money for it. One of the most delightful moments was a small child getting excited about one of my necklaces and then proudly paying for it with their own coin purse! Everyone has been so incredibly kind and inspiring--my customers, and also my fellow vendors! Actually, I think that the camaraderie among vendors is my favorite thing about doing these markets. It's so invigorating even just to browse around and see what everyone else has made, and I love chatting with the other makers about their process and work!

The table on the grass from above, seen from the back. The backs of the two black pegboards are visible, as well as a tupperware container, notebook, envelope, and brown paper bag on the table. There is an open suitcase on the ground behind the table.
My view from behind the vending table. So many supplies and things!

Not gonna lie, doing the markets could be difficult sometimes--particularly when the weather was unbearably hot or below freezing, both of which I experienced last year--and, to be honest, my profits so far have been hardly enough to justify the time and effort it takes to go out to these events, especially as someone without a car. Sometimes I didn't even make as much in sales as I spent just to be there. After one of my markets was a particularly miserable day, I felt ready to throw in the towel and just give up on craft markets altogether. I stopped applying for a few months. Who knows how long I would have stayed that way if not for the news that one of my favorite places in all of Pittsburgh, my precious community of queer witches at Harold's Haunt, was hosting their own artist market! The fact that it would be held at a place I know and love gave me the courage to give it one more shot. And I'm so glad i did! It was a miserably cold day, but I still had a lovely time because the HH crew was so supportive and I got to share my art with so many people I love.

A table outside of a red brick building with a neon rainbow in the window. The table has a green and purple banner that says "caesium tea" on the front. On top of the table there are two white spoked towers with necklaces and charms hanging from the spokes.
My setup right outside the entrance of Harold's Haunt! This was my latest setup with new rotating towers to hang my jewelry from.

Even when it's hard or unprofitable, I really do think I want to keep trying to put myself out there at more events in the coming year. I know that art business is always a slow start. The dream of being able to independently sustain a living on my craft is still far away, but I want to keep taking baby steps toward it.

By the way, back in July I actually recorded footage for a Youtube video about my experience with the first batch of markets! Youtube videos are something I really wanna get back to doing– I posted my first one way back in January 2024 I believe--but they're kinda on the backburner for the moment. I might post the raw, unedited recording of me just talking about vending for half an hour as a subscriber perk on the blog here! Until then, if you're really curious to see it, feel free to just reach out to me and I'll send you the (again, warning, totally unedited) video directly.

the year in art

To be honest, despite my amazing progress with art business this year, I haven't been super happy with my progress on my art itself. I went into the year really hyped up about making art. I had been watching a ton of Kelsey Rodriguez and other art Youtubers over the holidays. I made grand goals about counting 100 days of drawing, I planned to follow the DrawABox curriculum... But then, you know, life happened. I ran out of spoons. I didn't draw much for most of this year. Although, of the few drawings I managed to get out, I did really like quite a few of them!

A sketchbook open to a drawing in brightly colored markers of a person surrounded by waves of cherry-red hair.
Experimenting with some markers that somebody brought to The Drawing Board.

On the other hand, I did do a decent amount of product design! I made more queer 3D printed charms for pride month. I designed and pressed cutesy pronoun buttons. I finished three stickers and brainstormed designs for several more. I raided my hard drives for old art that I could turn into photo prints--and was very surprised to find that several people actually did want prints of a random little owl that I drew years ago for a contest in a game!

A wooden coffee table covered in a variety of plastic charms featuring gender symbols and syringes.
I made SO MANY charms last year! This is about half of my inventory from June.

My favorite thing I made this year is my "be gay do crimes" stickers!! I'm so proud of the illustration and the revisions I went through on it - even just the fact that I took the initiative to ask around for advice about how to improve it is something I'm proud of doing. And I'm just so happy with how the final product turned out! The glitter stickers are so much fun, and then the plain white stickers, I love that I got insanely lucky on a deal and got a whole ROLL of 1000 of them for only $20, making it feasible for me to sell them super cheap or give them out for free in some cases.

A hand holding a 3 inch round sticker with the words "be gay do crime" and an image of a brick surrounded by pansies on a glittery silver background.
This glitter variant of the "be gay do crimes" stickers was so much fun!

Another subscriber-only post I've been procrastinating on making is a download of my original Krita file for that sticker, where you can see my whole process with the different layers and all!

I also did my first experimentation with resin casting this year, which was a blast! I've still only ever done it that one first time but I'm really excited to try it again at some point. There were only 2 resin pieces that I 100% finished already (several others still need sanding and polishing that I've been putting off for months) but both of them have already sold!

A variety of silicone molds spread out on a silicone mat, along with cups of clear resin containing popsicle stick stirrers. The molds include a star and moon with purple resin and some pendants with clear resin and colorful flowers inside.
Resin casting was a blast, but man it takes a lot of setup and table space for such tiny products!

I experimented with polymer clay for the first time since being a little kid, too--shout out to Kiki and The Mellow Moth, both of whom I tabled together with at Tazza d'Oro's pride month market, for inspiring me to give polymer clay another try! Nothing from my first batch feels quite up to snuff for turning into jewelry yet and I definitely have a lot left to learn and practice if I want to get production-quality at clay, but it sure was fun.

An aluminum pan holding a variety of polymer clay charms. Most are various flat shapes in rainbow stripes with holes at the top for hanging. There's also a little figurine of the Pokemon Oddish.
Polymer clay experiments! Wanted to try making some of them into earrings... Also there's Oddish.

the community

I wouldn't be anywhere near this point if I didn't have a community behind me. First of all, thank you so, so much to all of you here who have been with me along the way. There's a lot of self-doubt and impostor syndrome that come along with being an artist, doubly so when you actually sell your art, and it means so much to me to have friends who believe in me or just see people enjoying what I do. Even just asking me what I'm working on or how my events went goes such a long way in motivating me to keep trying on this silly little endeavor of mine.

Being surrounded by other makers and artists has been incredibly crucial for keeping up my motivation and inspiration, too. there are two main places that's happened over this past year: at my makerspace Prototype PGH and at the Drawing Board meetups!

A piece of purple felt taped down to a honeycomb bed inside a laser cutter, with the letters of "caesium tea" cut out of it.
Laser cutting my shop banner at Prototype PGH

I would genuinely be nowhere without Prototype. For starters, they provide all the equipment for me to physically 3D print my charms and press my pins and such--and I'm always incredibly grateful that, unlike other makerspaces, I can actually afford a membership at Prototype because of their income-based fee model. But much more than that, the people I've met and conversations I've had there have given me so much creative energy. The sewing zine I've been selling at all my events wouldn't have been made if not for Tess's monthly zine workshop, for instance (make sure to check the Prototype Eventbrite to see when the next zine workshop is scheduled!).

Another huge factor in keeping my inspiration running this year was attending meetings of The Drawing Board, a local artists' meetup group! It feels so energizing to spend time in a room full of people all making art together and I've gotten so many cool ideas and new perspectives from our conversations! The group's Discord server has been a great resource too, for feedback on pieces and even things like sharing print shop deals. For a while my work schedule changed and I stopped being able to make the meetups, but I'm really looking forward to starting to go again now.

Pen drawing of a cat with a ball of yarn, surrounded by a squiggly line of yarn.
At one Drawing Board meeting, we all drew a scribble and passed it to the next person, then turned the scribble we received into a drawing. I turned these curly lines into some yarn unrolled by a cat!

Of course, aside from these more organized groups, there's also just all the connections I've been making with other artists and vendors at the events that I go to! It's been just as valuable to just see everyone else's work at those events, and especially to get tips and tricks about vending from the folks who've been doing it much longer than I have. Everyone has been so welcoming to a newcomer like me and so generous in sharing info about their experiences or links to events to apply at.

Along those lines, I actually started a little community of my own this year too! I wanted a more centralized place where us vendors and makers could exchange advice, tell each other about upcoming events, and just support one another. I was surprised that I couldn't find any good venue for that existing yet, so I went out on a limb and created my own Discord server for it. We're called Pittsburgh Artist Entrepreneurs--though we are probably soon going to rebrand as Pittsburgh Creative Merchants Guild to sound less stuffy, haha--and it's open for anyone to join at this invite link! If you make stuff and sell it in the greater Pittsburgh area, we'd love to have you there with us! It really is a lovely bunch of folks who have gathered so far, and I've already learned so much from them!

-

I can't wait to see what 2025 brings. I'm definitely hoping to keep going with the craft markets, especially the pride events, and hopefully apply to even more of them this year! I hope I'll have the spoons, too, to focus on developing my art skills a bit more than I was able to last year. Maybe I'll even take another stab at doing the DrawABox course! (I tried starting it early last year, but only ever got like 2 lessons in, lol.)

A page of sketches in purple pen, including a flowerpot surrounded by wiggly shapes, a marble or planet surrounded by clouds, some kind of bird, and a person with closed eyes and bobbed hair curling in toward their face.
A random page of drawings from, uh, soooome point last year!

One of my biggest concrete goals is to finally get a proper web store set up so that I can take online orders for my crafts. Keep an eye on my Ko-fi page for that in the spring! I'm aiming to have the shop all ready to go before I start the tabling season.

Thanks again for following along on this journey with me, and I hope you all have a wonderful new year! Feel free to share your own highlights of 2024 or dreams for 2025 in the comments!

Read more