Urbana

I suppose at some stage in my blog I have to write about Urbana. In the late 1990's I was really looking for an outlet for my own products, I was walking through an area in Dublin called Temple Bar and came across this new shop called Urbana. It was a large shop made up of small merchants, designers, crafts people etc. It was fabulous and was like something you would see in New York or London. I got straight onto the owners who were renting the shop to all the tenants - Temple Bar Properties.

I set up a meeting, the lady in TBP already knew my work and gave me an area at the entrance to the shop. It was a prime location! So, I set up my very first, very small shop.

I sold to Americans, English, French, Spanish, Japanese, the Irish - any nationality you can think of, it was grrrrrreeeeaaattttt! I loved it. The workload was hard and I had to man the shop myself, so I was employing staff while I produced the product.

I sold- vases, plates, mugs, prints, wrapping paper, greeting cards and more!

But trouble was brewing.... Temple Bar properties found dealing with all the different merchants difficult, they decided to close us down and get one big client in. So in January of 2000 we were given a couple of weeks notice to leave. I was disappointed, I was doing great business and had just had a bumper Christmas, but part of me was relieved as the workload had been heavy.

Above some of my handpainted vases.