Lemonade Stand for Art

There is a challenge I am issuing myself and I think I can relate it to a lemonade stand if I try. See if you can follow me with this…

What is a lemonade stand about? I usually had them when I was little. My Mom or Dad would take me and my sister to our grandparents’ house. They lived on a golf course, so it was easy to set up a little stand by the 3rd green that was in there backyard. I think we charged a quarter a cup. Most golfers would buy a glass and give us a big smile. Others were nasty grumps that would fill their cup at the water cooler on the next tee.

But then, why lemonade? I know for one, it is because it is tradition/cliche. But then again, it is/was because it was what was on hand. Personally, I can’t stand lemonade and in fact, it was the only thing that my Mom ever got sick on while she was pregnant with me. I have to choke it down. So my thinking is there was always lemonade around because I had drank up all the other flavors. It was the leftovers, lol.

I think lemonade stands are about making do with what you have to get something you want. I wanted to sell lemonade to earn money for things. I can’t remember anything I wanted to get off the top of my head, but I am guessing it was candy. We weren’t well off people, my parents couldn’t afford to give us allowance, so if we wanted something we had to do things to earn it. In hine site, it was probably very good we had to earn things rather then having them handed to us all the time. I think it is a lesson my kids need to learn (but we’ll save that discussion for another day).

A few weekends ago, while I was cleaning the garage, I did a lot of organizing to my glass desk space. There was a bucket full of rods I had been lazy about putting away. There is an overflowing tub of shorts that I saw I had been adding some not-so-very-short shorts to, too. As I was trying to put away all those rods, and sort through all those not short shorts, something dawned on me. I have a ton… a ton… of glass. Okay, maybe not a ton, but certainly enough to last weeks, if not months. I have gotten in the habit of ordering glass every time I run out of a color. No more transparent teal (one of my favorites), well, let’s put in an order… oh and while I am at it, I am kinda low and turquoise… oh and isn’t that a pretty shade of copper… might as well get some ink too… my orders end up costing me $200-$300 at a time (sometimes even more). And I place 5-6 of those orders a year. The result is my fully stocked glass rack and too many colors to count that are not getting used.

I really started to think I am being too wasteful. And the more I organized, the more I realized that I really need to start making do with what I have. The thoughts organized further and I started to think what a great artistic challenge it could be. Inevitably, I am going to run out of my favorite colors, just like I would drink up all the packs of Strawberry flavored Kool-Aid first. But what a challenge it could be to find inspiration in colors I don’t usually use. Like yellow… hello… doesn’t this necklace rock? And I can’t remember the last time I ever used yellow!!

Waiting as long as possible to reorder and making do with what I have will be helpful in other ways too. Being that we are purchasing a new house, my husband and I have put each other on extremely tight spending leashes. Absolutely NO unnecessary spending!! Now, glass isn’t “unnecessary”, it is a very obvious business expense. But I know I could be more conscientious about what I am doing. I could certainly use my “lemonade” colors (this by no means applies to yellow only) and earn some pennies for new things I want for the new house (like a new sofa!).

Do you think you could do it? Could you go as long as possible without reordering supplies? Could you challenge yourself to be creative with alternate colors you wouldn’t normally use? Could you be resourceful, penny-wise, and artistically inventive? Could you have “A Lemonade Stand of Art”?

Kerry Bogert is blogging about her glass art beads and jewelry from her home studio in Ontario NY. Check her work at www.kabsconcepts.com