Finished, Sold, Delivered: ‘Darkest Before Dawn’

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For those of you who don’t follow me on Substack Notes, here’s a long-overdue update on the mixed media panel project I kicked off in November ‘24.

I’m delighted to share that I finished Darkest Before Dawn last April.

Bonus good news: I sold it in August!

Boy, oh, boy—what a rush!

I’ve achieved a few major milestones here: Darkest Before Dawn is the largest and most elaborate beaded panel I’ve created so far; it’s also been my first major sale as an independent visual artist. I’m over the moon to have reached all the ambitious creative, financial, and mindset-related goals I’d set for myself with this project. Selling this piece directly to a buyer, at a price point that initially made my head spin, has been a game-changer for me in more ways than one.

Flintstitch Beadwork is the name of my business. It’s the brand under which I operate as an artist—but as time goes on, the fact that Flintstitch is also a one-person gallery is becoming much more tangible. It’s always been clear that I wanted to sell my own work. But it’s real now that I’ve successfully navigated the entire sales process with a large piece, and have literal receipts proving that this once-delusional dream is starting to materialize. If I’ve done this once, I can do it again.

Taking on all the processes involved in selling this piece—photography, photo editing, copywriting, translation, graphic and web design, social media, blogging, promotion, networking, outreach, sales, client communications, packaging and delivery—has also shown me that brick-and-mortar galleries’ customary ± 50% commission rates are by no means excessive.

You only find that out when you build your own. In this case, a few hundred hours went into making this piece—but then a few hundred more went into getting it into my buyer’s hands.

In opting out of gallery opportunities at this stage, and working instead to build my own clientele from the ground up, some might say I’m doing things the hard way, but that’s a moot point. Given that—generally speaking—the art world’s values are so deeply misaligned with my own, and given that my creative and financial sovereignty are both non-negotiable, it’s the only way. If the multifaceted challenges involved here are daunting indeed, they happen to be some of my favorite problems—and, so far, the rewards have been well worth the time I’ve spent tackling them. For instance…

When a special piece has clearly found its buyer, it’s nothing short of magical.
Onward!

Curious about how Darkest Before Dawn was assembled? Scroll down to see some of the “work-in-progress” Notes—mini-posts—I published earlier this year. (Previews are shown below. To view any Note in full, click the picture.) Here, you’ll find a bunch of studio shots, bonus detailed comments about various stages of the creative process, and more.

Feel free to like and share this post, and/or any of the linked Notes that inspire you.

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Enjoy! -A.

(Lastly, the canvas-wrapped panel was mounted in a hand-finished, solid ash frame.)