Another newbie

Hi, my name is Teofana (Fannie) Beckwith, and I am new in the AFI. I will try to make a nice presentation of myself.

I am Bulgarian (a small country just between Greece and Roumania in the map of Europe for these of you who know where the other 2 are), so please excuse my English.

I am a fiber artist - if there is something than can be done with thread, I can do it. Most of the time I am staying at home mom, together with being entangled in my yarns and threads. When young, I never considered this as a form of generating income, it was just a hobby and a way to be different from my peers, at least in the clothing. Later in my live I had ups and downs, until a moment I was flat broke for the next 3 weeks, with payments comming and banging on the door, and I decided that I do not need 17 pairs (in different colors and designs) or hand crochetted cotton gloves all for myself. I went to the city market and managed to sell all of them in about 2 hours. I started doing this on amore regular basis until it became a full time job for several years - again, it was long time ago and in a different country. Long story short, when I moved in the states 9 years ago, I tryed few community style markets without success, except for the fun I had meeting with different people. Then came Katrina (we lived in New Orleans at the time) and my daughter and I ended in Texas - the Hill Country. I fell in love with this place - the people were so nice with us. There I started doing some other arts and crafts shows - some of them were like a community style ones, but with more traditions and the more important - times more visitors and sales. Then again back in New Orleans, trying to recover and piece together the life we had before - and some other shows that started nicely and degraded to food and beer fests. Somehow I stopped to feel safe there, and when we traveled towards Florida to visit some friends, I fell in love with the small town of Daphne, AL. We moved here 2 years ago, and I finally started calming down. We still have ties to the old "home", and we are visiting it often enough, but just for pleasure. I am trying to attend arts and crafts shows in our area, started with Pensacola, then discovered the markets in downtown Mobile and the other venues along the coast. The sales are not yet the best ones, but as a friend of mine uses to say, they pay the groceries and the gasoline, so it's a start.

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  • Hello Fannie,

    Sorry to be so late in welcoming you to this site. Your comments and presence have made a good contribution here. Thank you. I also see you were on Birgit's FB page commenting about the "copyist"... which led me back here to your page. Thanks for the link back there to AFI. I feel that that issue will resolve itself.

    I know where Bulgaria is and, in fact, have been there! Not an extensive period of time but one of those wonderful Danube cruises that took us from Varna up to Romania. We spent several days in Bulgaria, drove through the countryside (that reminded me of the Midwest in this country), saw all the villages. One of the best parts of the trip was a visit to Bellagradchik on a glorious day. It was sad to see the empty buildings and the obviously smaller population, but I have seen in here in Detroit also, which is even sadder considering the relatively more affluent U.S.

    Sounds like you've had great adventures that many of us would envy. I've been through Daphne. I hope it is a great home for you and your daughter.

  • Hello Fanie and wenlcome to Art Fair Insiders.  Sounds like you have had some good experiences with your work.   Thanks for sharing your experiences with us. 

    Jacki B

  • Hello Fannie and welcome to AFI!  Sounds like you have been on quite a journey  - both around the world and with your creativity.  

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