I have a lot of history with Advokate and without Kate’s help, I don’t know that I ever would have had my Etsy shop or gotten around to so many art events. She’s always been an inspiration and help for me. I couldn’t have done it without her. I knew nothing when we sold out our farm. I did book work on the computer but never did emails or anything on the farm.
I came to her and said, “Now I have to learn this!” I was used to doing cow and calf records and keeping track of pedigrees and herd health work, but to be able to describe and put up my art for sale was completely a new thing. I had gone to mnny art shows way back before the farm but once I was at the farm, I didn’t get to attend many shows and rarely found time to do any artwork.
Here is the About section of my Etsy shop which I wrote when I launched it back in 2011 after attending an Etsy workshop with Kate.
The text I wrote for that page is below:
The first big challenge for me was that having worked on a farm for 30something years, I was tuned into animals, plants, fencing, nature and had no experience with computers! It was a slow process learning, complicated by the fact that our Internet connection was very poor.
I met a young woman in nearby Glens Falls, New York, Kate Austin-Avon, who has exceptional patience and skills who helped me learn how to set up my Etsy shop, prepare and upload images, set up a newsletter, website and more.
The other challenge was organizing my day. On the farm my day was pre scheduled to care for the animals with a mid day break in which projects and household needs could be worked on. (I still work on farms but not full time and they are not mine, but I still enjoy working with animals).
Below is the AHA! video that was done featuring my batik artwork.