Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Serendipity

Serendipity.  It seems to be the word of the day.  Word of the past few months come to think of it. In my last blog post in October I talked about finding my groove.  Well, it just seems to be getting better.  And taking turns that I couldn't have anticipated.  Really good turns, but we will get to that....

Those of you who know me well, know that I have a gift of manifesting things that are important to me. Almost to uncanny levels of detail.  We got our last two houses this way, so I turned my attention to my work life.  First, let me say that I already feel like I have it all.  I get to work from home, creating works of art that bring pleasure to hundreds (maybe even thousands at this point).  I attract the most amazing people to my classes and workshops. Basically I get to play mosaics all day every day and get paid for it. Not bad, right? I guess you could say that things were getting a little too comfortable and I was ready for the next chapter.  So I put it out to the Universe that I was ready. Ready for whatever it is that is going to take me to that next level.  My dream is to have a community arts center where I can hold larger workshops, have a retail mosaic supply, have visiting artists of all mediums hold workshops and who knows, maybe even a space for yoga and Reiki, the other two loves of my life. I had no idea how this was going to happen (and still don't fully), but something was presented to me that I just couldn't pass up. Something that is a huge step into fulfilling my dream.

Seven years ago I was shopping for mosaics online at a place called Mosaic-Tile.com (soon after it would be renamed Tessera Glass). As I was placing an order, I realized the company was in Reno. I called them up, picked up the order and we began chatting, totally hitting it off and that was how I got started teaching mosaics. I taught at their warehouse on Dickerson, then followed them over to their new location on Wonder Street. As I grew and expanded Copper Cat Studio, Don and I moved to a home that had a fabulous studio behind the house and there was finally a space that I could teach in of my own. Vernon and Andrea, the owners of Tessera Glass, were totally supportive of me going on my own and we have remained close and continued to send business each other's way over the years.  When the economy took a dive a few years ago they were hard hit but managed to hold on. They started another business in the meantime, Reno Screen Repair, and it has been a great success. As 2014 was coming to a close, they made the very difficult decision to let go of Tessera Glass and concentrate solely on the screen repair business. That's when it hit them that if anyone could take this on maybe it would be me.... It seemed like a no-brainer to me, a fully functioning online mosaic supply store with built in-clients, enough stock to keep me going for quite a while, and all of the support I need from people selling me the business, who want to see me succeed.  I'm excited to be keeping Tessera Glass alive and hope to make them proud by making it bigger and better!



So that Universe, I tell ya.  I asked for it. I knew something big was coming for the last few months. It was even giving me enough anxiety that I had to call in help from my Reiki Master Teacher and friend Denise.  She helped me work through it and the only condition I gave to the Universe was to get me through the holidays, give me some down time (which I didn't get because of another amazing surprise...and blog for another time) and to bring it on after the first of the year.  I got the call on January 2nd. As of Monday, the 2nd of February, I am the official owner of Tessera Glass!  It will remain an online store for the time being, but I'm hoping to have a storefront with larger workshop space within the year. Maybe go back to our roots on Dickerson?  It was our dream that Dickerson would someday be the artist enclave that it has now become.  It wasn't our time then, but maybe now it is....


So back to Serendipity. It seems to be happening on a minute to minute basis lately.  One particularly cool thing was the day that we made the "handshake deal", I went to teach a yoga class that afternoon and one of my very first mosaic students ever, from the Dickerson days was in my class. Just happened to be trying yoga for the first time and ended up in my class. I believe in signs. Serendipity.