FAQ

Welcome to the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ page). Below, I have tried to answer the most common questions visitors to this our web site may have. If you find that your question is not answered on this page, please e-mail S.A.G.E. Crafts at Info or call us between 10 AM and 6 PM Mountain Standard Time, Monday through Saturday, at (928) 204-9520.

If you are calling outside of store hours, please do leave a message on the answering machine, and we will return your call as soon as practically possible. In order to serve you better, please include in your message: your name, phone number, and whether you are calling about a class, a question, or an order. Thank you for your consideration.

Questions:

When do you update the web site?
How did you get into the business of making art?
You say that we can come into the store to ask questions any time that classes aren’t being held. Do you really have time to answer my questions and do demonstrations?
Where did you come up with the name for this business?
What is that image in your logo?

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Q. When do you update the web site?

A. I do my best to update it just before the beginning every month in order to be sure that the class schedule is up to date, but sometimes I get sidetracked making class samples and am a little late with the update.

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Q. How did you get into the business of making art?

A. As with most people, it didn’t start as a business, it started as hobbies when I was young. I learned to knit from my grandmother when I was very young, learned how to macramé from books, learned various types of needlework from kits and my home economics classes, and just generally love to work with my hands. My very first exposure to making art formally was in ceramics, via a class that I took in college, and later continued as a hobby in an open ceramics studio, called Mudville, in Massachusetts.

Much later, I started up again with rubber stamping, by taking classes at various stores, watching demonstrations at conventions, and participating in make-and-takes. I was also getting tips, techniques, and tricks from my sister, who ran a rubber stamp store in Westminster, MD. In the beginning, I made cards for friends and relatives for birthdays and Christmas, and as I picked up more techniques, I started to teach.

The students in my classes gave me some great feedback about my skills as a teacher, so I expanded the classes I was teaching further into new territory, past what I had previously learned in taking classes myself. Along the way, I branched out into several related media, including getting back into clay via polymer and precious metal clays. I continue to use these additional media to enhance my creativity and expand my craft horizons.

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Q. You say that we can come into the store to ask questions any time that classes aren’t being held. Do you really have time to answer my questions and do product demonstrations?

A. First of all, I do my utmost to make sure that S.A.G.E. Crafts is a a customer service oriented business. If there are products you don’t know how to use, you can’t use them effectively. If you have seen a piece of artwork that you admire, but don’t yet understand how to create it, you may feel frustrated and I would love to help you get over that feeling. If you are the kind of person that learns by watching someone else do something and then doing it yourself, then a product demonstration may allow you the opportunity to “get” a new technique under your belt. If you don’t ask questions, I can’t help you. Calling me with questions or stopping by to try a product that you are interested in are all part and parcel of what I am trying to do, both at this site and at the store.

Besides all of this, I like having company when I am crafting. As long as you are respectful with the store’s tools and supplies, it will be a pleasure to have you come by to create something. If you are using consumables, like paper or embellishments, please be advised that you will need to buy what you use so that I can keep a stock on hand for everyone to use. Also be advised that there is a use fee for some of the equipment that is located in our classroom.

I get very inspired when I am able to help open the door to someone’s creative side. As I continually repeat, everyone is an artist, even if you can’t draw. One of the great benefits to rubber stamping specifically is that you can create a great looking image quickly with a rubber stamp, without having to take the time to draw it.

Whatever medium you choose to create with, you can become an artist with a little time and patience. If I can help open that door and allow you to express your creative side, you may well wind up teaching me a new technique someday. And that is a wonderful thing!

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Q. Where did you come up with the name for this business?

A. For those who don’t already know, S.A.G.E. stands for Shaman Angel Goddess Enterprises. The name for this business brought together a few threads of my life and work. The first thread is that, through a nonprofit foundation that I started in 1995, I learned that I have both healing gifts of my own as well as non-physical guardians around me who help me in times of trouble. Healers around the world that I have been lucky enough to meet through Ringing Rocks Foundation have spoken with me about sharing my healing gifts more widely in the past few years. This new venture is an outgrowth of those requests.

The other thread is my belief that creating art is a wonderful healing process in itself. I choose to use mostly natural themes for the items that I create because it helps me to focus on the healing aspects of my craft as I create each new piece. Goddess images are especially important to me, as are leaves and trees, animals and birds, and images of the sun, moon, and stars. I find these images bring healing to myself as I work, as well as to those individuals who choose to buy and/or use them.

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Q. What is that image in your logo?

A. I was in Santa Fe during a road trip that I took in the summer of 2002, and I purchased three carved jade goddess pendants. Although I had a vague idea about making a necklace for myself with one of them, I wasn’t sure why I wanted to buy three, but I went ahead and did it anyway.

One of my first forays back into creativity was to create beaded necklaces for myself and the first two Sedona staff members of Ringing Rocks Foundation (both of whom happened to be women) with those three jade pendants from Santa Fe. Since the name for this business is S.A.G(oddess)E. Crafts, and the jade goddess seemed to have started my movement in this direction, it seemed like a perfectly natural thing to use those pendants that started it all as the logo for S.A.G.E. Crafts.