Time to say Goodbye

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And, unlike the old song says, goodbye does mean forever. Goodbye does mean we'll never be together again! It's time to let go of my old art fair set up. I built it in 1994, and while it served me well for many years it has gotten increasingly rickety (not unlike myself) and I have had to resort to more and more desperate measures to make sure it is stable enough to hold the ware for the duration of an event. Last weekend I nailed parts of it together. There was a moment when I was contemplating duct tape. It's time to let it go.

Here's how it looked, in better days...

 The question is, do I build another one? If so, for what specific uses? If it is to be solely a studio evnt display, that has a different set of parameters than an art fair display, that needs to be fairly lightweight, portable, and quick to set up. 

I used to spend a lot of time thinking about booth displays. Lately I am thinking about whether I want to do art fairs at all, given my own increasingly rickety self. Art fairs are a lot of work! And, honestly, I got spoiled in St. Paul; there were maybe 20 top-shelf art fairs within a day's drive; here there's one. Craft Boston used to be, but for the last at-least 5 years it has been sucking mud; the PMA show is headed that way also. 
Most of the good shows that I used to do, when I lived in St Paul are still running, but driving 2 or 3 days, staying in motels (I'm too old to sleep in a tent on the ground, at least when I am working), eating out - fast food is both nastier & more expensive than home-food - the calculation is different. The absolute most I could hope to make from a good show is probably around $5000 - & that would be a rarity. Subtract the booth fee & the studio time, & the classes I'd have to miss & the travelling expenses...not looking like such a great dice to roll now. 

OTOH, I used to love the art fair lifestyle. Seeing new cities, a group of friends I only saw during that season, trying new restaurants...I didn't even mind the driving. I'd try to find a Spanish-language radio station & listen hard to see if I could understand any of it. 

Anyway. The Maine Pottery Tour is over for another year. My event was successful, about 70 visitors & the same sales as last year - which is good, because last year landed in kind of a unique moment, when for about 5 minutes we thought the pandemic which had been keeping us away from public activities for a year was over. (It's still not, of course, but the pottery tour is mostly an outside event, & even a big turnout isn't densely packed, so I felt ok about doing the tour.) Anyway, maybe we've just finally hit a critical mass of people who know about hte tour, return every year, & help spread the word.

This week is always funny for me, because I've spent the last 4 months thinking about & working on the tour in basically all my "free" (lol) time, and now there's a space where that used to be. I have orders to fill & pots to list online & stores to approach, not to mention classes to teach!  - believe me I have plenty to do - but I am going to take a moment to appreciate the not-urgency of those tasks. 

Silver Lining

Yeah, so, that art fair? The one I was so excited about? Kind of stunk for me. And by "kind of" I mean I missed making the booth fee back by $1.

I'm told this was a good fair, until this year. It's that Reverse Midas Touch thing again!Or else some other factors, like a new, larger fair this year - the MCA put on a fine crafts show this year, for some reason choosing the same weekend as the established Designing Women show. (Actually I know the reason - they are piggybacking on the crowd that already comes out for the 50-year-old WSCH 6 Sidewalk Art Festival, which features mostly fine art. (Mostly paintings of lobster traps and lighthouses, honestly. Not that there's anything wrong with that.) Still, sucked for the people who counted on the Manchester show.

Every dark cloud has a silver lining, and I was lucky enough to find two: 1) I had been meaning to rebuild my art fair display for years, but something else was always more important; now it is done and 2) I now have tons of inventory to get to my various accounts for the tail end of summer, going into leaf-peeping season and beyond to holiday shopping. Some of it is already at the Portland Pottery Cafe, and more on its way to Quench in Belfast, Mudfire in Decatur, GA, and my website, if it is a bright enough day to take photos. 

Moving right along!

Ready to Go!

 

The firing went well, the booth is finished (more or less), and I borrowed a canopy because I was stuck like Buridan's ass between the EZ-Up Eclipse or Envoy options. (The one is so expensive! But what if the other is a cheap piece of shit? But what if it would have been fine, and I wasted all that money...?) My friend Karen Dicenso took pity on me and lent me hers, so I could see the difference between that and my old canopy (which perished some years ago in and unfortunate encounter with a strong wind and a stronger police officer.)First impression: if I do well enough at this show, I'll buy the Eclipse. The Envoy is adequate, but the Eclipse is much, much sturdier.

I may have opportunity to fully test the canopy, as rain is expected this weekend. It is, in fact raining now, with intermittent showers predicted for tomorrow. I'd be bummed about that but earlier in the week the forecast for Saturday was "torrential downpour," is intermittent showers doesn sound so bad. Besides, every time I check it's a little less threatening. 

I had a bad moment just after I took this photo, when I decided to try out the offline mode of my Square credit card reader, and discovered, after much crying and gnashing of teeth, that the device I have is no longer supported. NICE OF THEM TO LET ME KNOW. I could have gotten another for free but since I need it tomorrow, that wasn't going to work, so I went to Best Buy. There was exactly one person in the store who knew what The Square was and where in the store to find it; and when I did find it, there was only ONE left, and I had to buy a case with it, because they didn't have any without. It was a case for an iPhone, which I don't have, but whatever. I have since tried it out, and yes, thankfully, I can now take credit cards again. Disaster, averted.

Countdown: 3 Days

This Saturday, my first art fair in forever. Between now and then: so much work! I've got the display about 80% done - or, more accurately, 80%-as-done-as -it's-going-to-get-before-Saturday, because I am now recalling: the display is never done. I used to say that pottery is my business and the booth display is my hobby.

Here are the shelves so far. This is the main piece of the display I used for many years, updated with paint, crates, and quarter-round shelves. It has a couple of advantages: it's lightweight, it folds down flat to take little space in transport, and it sets up quickly. It has some disadvantages as well: you can see right through it, so it doesn't hide of the spare stock, packing materials, or other items you bring along to an art fair, that you don't want on display. It's also a bit unstable: it won't tip by itself but if somebody comes along, say, and leans on it, well, all bets are off.

I can solve these two problems with lattice panels and a cordless drill. I cut them to size and then just tack them with a couple of small screws to the back to the vertical shelf supports.

With the lattice tacked in place, to make sure it will work

Two screws on each end hold it in place to lend stiffness to the shelves.

I started painting it, so now I have to finish...but man, painting lattice? is a pain in the ass. It's all edges.

I hope to finish this today, and then unload the glaze kiln.

The Art Fair Booth Project

Remember the 90's? I do. I lived in St. Paul for most of them, weighed 20 pounds less than I do now, and I mostly sold my work at arts fairs. And made a living!

I've been saying for years that I am should go back to doing art fairs; my obstacles have been vehicular and boothal. (Do you like that word I just made up? It means "of, or related to, a booth.") Recently, as I've mentioned, I was invited to do a local art fair, one close enough to make multiple trips to bring the wares and the display, so the vehicle part is solved: now I just need a booth display.

The display in my head is awesome, and I was holding out until I had time and money to build it, but with less than three weeks left before the show it's time to admit that the awesome booth is not going to happen, and to settle for the adequate booth: a rehabbing of my old display - the one I used in the 90s.

So, let's see what needs to be done.

1. After a decade of schlepping and another of unheated storage, the stain and urethane are looking pretty shabby, and even flaking off in places.
2. The hinges are rusty and ugly
3. And, last but far from least, one of the ladder-supports has been cannibalized for another project, and will need to be rebuilt.

Surfaces first - I can get some sanding discs and re-purpose the angle grinder I bought to clean the kiln shelves.
To save time, I decided to paint rather than sand right down to the wood and re-stain and vanish. Ain't primer wonderful? Sticks to anything, and covers a multitude of sins.

Now, I've got to make a decision for the final color. Everyone tells me I would be wise to paint it white and keep it simple, and I'm sure that's true...but I can't help wanting something more fabulous than conventional wisdom allows.

When I think about what draws me in at a fair, honestly, at first, it's not the work. I get pulled in by the booths that are appealing, the booths that
are themselves artworks, and then look at the work once I am in. Am I alone in this? I think not. On the other hand, hasn't this resistance to conventional wisdom lead me to some spectacular failures? Why yes. Yes it has. Sometimes the fabulous in my head does not translate, and even other artists don't see what I was trying to do.

Still, like Popeye, I yam what I yam, and even though this will not be the awesome booth in my head, I am leaning toward some and pattern that harks back to the colors and patterns on the pots.

I've got until tomorrow morning to decide.

Booth Layout

Yeah, this is what I did all day instead of loading the bisque. But hey! It's cold out there. And the day isn't over yet.
Yes it is. So here's a lesson: I wouldn't let myself do what I was really inspired to do - in this case, go buy a hot wire tool and build a practice pedestal - because I was supposed to load a bisque today. So, guess what, I ended up getting neither done!
But the booth design isn't (quite) nothing; it was work I was going to have to do eventually anyway. And I can load and fire the bisque all in one day anyway.