Taking Stock

On Friday I picked up almost 100 keys from a healing centre that had been hosting them since September. I'm very grateful to Jacqueline at Vibe H2O for her interest in my work. I met her on my birthday last August; one conversation led to another and I gave her my card. I was surprised when she called me two days later, said she loved my keys and could she take 100 of them in her store on commission? Well of course I said yes. I mean, how many shoe boxes of keys do I want to be storing in my closet?

Jacqueline suggested I raise my prices. Well, double them actually. This was a bit hard for me...would people really pay double for the keys? Some folks were already balking at the price. I agreed that if the keys were in the store for $80 - $120 I couldn't be underselling them in other places. Three keys sold the very first week (well, the very first day they went on sale). And then, that was it. Was it the low foot traffic that kept interest away? High prices? I don't know. It doesn't matter; that's behind me now.

The good news is that I had to really think about the keys: why I was making them, what value I put on them. I wasn't making them just because I was angry and wanted to be taken seriously as an artist (although that is important too); it was also that I wanted to explore how many different ways/possibilities a person could find to make something and mostly it was because they are fun to make.

The keys are magical to me.

I've dropped my prices to a level I'm more comfortable with (usually $45 - $60, depending on the key); they are a bit higher than what I was selling them at before...creating them takes a bit of time and effort so I'm happy with the increase. My goal is not to make a living from creating and selling keys (although wouldn't that be something); my goal is to make 5000 keys in whatever way that looks like. As long as they're not jewelry they're on the list!

I decided that this weekend would be a good time to take an inventory and re-think my storage system. It was quite something to lay out all the keys and have a look at them. Since I began my adventure I've given keys as gifts, donated some, and sold others. Here are a few pictures of the ~300 keys that are in my possession (I filled two card tables and two dining room tables in the inventory process):