Being at the Sawdust Art Festival

Contemporary Crafts Market

Last weekend I was in the Contemporary Crafts Market in Santa Monica, and it was a trial by fire. It was my first “pack-and-go” show - everything had to fit in one carload & be fast to load-in, set-up and tear-down. The show was only 3 days, and in spite of requesting an inside location, I had been assigned a booth in a tented area on a grassy lawn of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. I did, however, get a corner location, for which I paid an extra fee.

In two hugely important ways I was starting over again: display cases and credit card processing. I needed cases which were much easier to transport and set-up than my Sawdust Art Festival configuration, and I had to figure out how to deal with credit card processing in a wireless situation, since I wouldn’t have access to my own phone line, as we do in our Sawdust booths. I owe an ENORMOUS favor to my talented friend Peter for building new cases for me. As far as the credit card situation went, I eventually decided to use a web-based system that my current merchant account offers. It requires only wifi (which the auditorium claimed to have) and a portable device capable of internet access (our household has an assortment of these). The other options were cell phone-based and were significantly more expensive, both in terms of equipment outlay and monthly fees. In hindsight, I’m not sure this was the right decision, as I am learning that wifi access does not have the coverage and support that cell phone access does. It worked reasonably well on Friday & Saturday, but on Sunday there were problems, and no wifi support staff available either at the auditorium or by phone.

Set-up was on Thursday. I thought it would take a couple of hours - it took 4-1/2. The ground was so uneven that the package of shims I had to level the cases was useless. I needed blocks of wood, not itty bitty shims. The other challenge was the draping for the base of my cabinets. The instructions said that any drapes had to be fire retardant, and I quickly learned that fire retardant material is not that easy to get, and can be expensive. However, the instructions also said that we could purchase a packet of stuff on site - just bring your own spray bottle, add water to the packet of stuff, and you’re good to go. Which we did, but the spray bottle wouldn’t spray, it just dripped pathetically. After taking it apart and putting it back together again several times and much swearing it finally starting working, but not before Pete was covered in fire retardant goo himself.

We got everything else in order, though, and drove home to collapse into bed. I was exhausted from working non-stop for the prior 3 weeks in preparation for the show, and Pete was exhausted because he had only just returned from a trip to England (it was his mother’s 90th birthday!).

We returned early Friday morning, as I wanted plenty of time to fix the tilting cases and arrange the jewelry display before the 10 am opening. I soon discovered that my electrics, which were working fine the day before, kept going out. The staff electrician was my hero that morning - he kept working on the problem until it was fixed. My location was at the edge of the tent, and it turned out that the heavy coastal fog during the night had caused water to drip from the edge of the tent roof onto my track lights, and they were shorting out.

But by a few minutes before 10, the cases were level, the jewelry was nicely displayed, and the lights were on - it was showtime!

Pete was there with me throughout, and he was a huge help. It is really hard to manage a booth all by yourself (and many artists do). Not only are there practical problems like getting bathrooms breaks and food (sadly, shoplifting does happen, so it’s a risk every time a booth is unattended), but it is a law of the retail universe that one customer attracts other customers, so as soon as you are dealing with one person, others will stop to look, and it’s important to have someone to talk to them.

My Sawdust Art Festival world connected with this one - I saw a few familiar faces, both among the visitors and fellow exhibitors. I had several repeat customers, which is always a great feeling. And, in fact, I had a new customer on Friday who came back to be a repeat customer on Sunday! Among the artists, Cindy Stalnaker  (fused glass) and Olivia Batchelder  (hand-painted silk) were both exhibiting there, so it was fun to be able to take the occasional quick break and go visit with them.

The show closed at 6 pm on Sunday, and it was amazing to see how quickly it all came down. It took us 1-1/2 hours to pack up and load the car - I’m sure that with practice, we’ll get faster and more efficient at all of this. All in all, I have to say it was a good experience.

Wrapping Up

The Summer Sawdust is over for another year. It’s been 3 weeks since the closing day and it seems more like 3 months. My booth had to be torn down immediately — all those at the front of the show have to go, to make room for the Santa’s village they create for the winter show. After a great deal of indecisive thought, I decided not to move to another booth to do the winter show. I’ll be doing the Santa Monica Contemporary Crafts Market at the beginning of November, and The Discovery of Art in Pasadena later in December, and I eventually decided that it was too much to try to fit the winter Sawdust in as well. But it did make me sad, when I dropped by the grounds the other day to pick something up at the office, to see my barren booth spot - no trace of my summer home remains.

I’ve been anything but regular in my blog postings, since the first year, when I wrote every day. Instead, I offer a random selection of notes covering the past month.

Beatles Day

Towards the end of August we had a Beatles tribute day, which brought in the largest crowd of the summer: about 4,300 people came through the gate.

MacGyver Would Approve

I recommend keeping a can of compressed air and hairdryer handy, just in case a customer spills beer on your credit card machine. 

New Musical Discovery

I don’t know if these guys performed at the Sawdust in years past and I just didn’t hear them, but my favorite musical discovery of the summer is the Pawnshop Kings . I particularly like the live CD included with their “My Brother’s Keeper” DVD. Actually, I haven’t watched the DVD yet, I bought the set just to get the music.

From the Ground Up, Every Year

Thanks to Troy Poeschl for putting together a time-lapse video of the 2009 booth build. All summer long, I explain to visitors that we build these booths from the ground up every year. Now you can see the craziness on YouTube: Sawdust 2009 Booth Build.

Way to Unwind

I can’t imagine a better way to unwind after the relentless pace of the show than to spend the night at the Crystal Cove Cottages, a nearby state park where the cottages are in very high demand. We were lucky enough to find out about a last-minute cancellation, so we took a 24-hour holiday where we got to just sit and watch the sunset:

Throwing at The Ceramics Center

My booth is directly opposite the Ceramics Center (AKA “The Mud Hut”) where anyone can try their hand at making something on the potter’s wheel (a process known as “throwing”). It normally attracts long lines of parents with young children. For the most part everyone is well-behaved, but I have witnessed a few tantrums - and it’s not always the child who is having one. 

Adults are welcome, too, and occasionally will give it a go. Bruce Linder, a ceramicist in the show and the board member who oversees the activity, will tell people “When I discovered throwing pots, I couldn’t believe that I could earn a living making mud pies!” I’ve seen women of a certain age standing there humming “Unchained Melody” and saying to their friend “Remember, that movie, ‘Ghost’?”

The booth is staffed by a crew of youngsters who are unfailing in their enthusiasm and patience - they have helped visitors make literally thousands of pots already this summer. They did not falter even in the face of the Laguna Beach Parents Club descending on them en masse with dozens of young children:

Well, a week ago I decided it was my turn. It was a quiet Sunday morning, and no one was waiting to throw a pot. Pete was hanging about so he could take care of the booth while I got muddy. However, it would not be truthful to say that I threw the pot, since without the skilled guidance of Ricky, clay would have been flying everywhere! It was fun, but I doubt it will be my next career.

Clean-Up

This past week I reached the point where there was nothing I could do except clean up the booth. In such cramped quarters, being organized in critical. Actually, being organized is critical to me in any quarters - I’m a little obsessive in that regard. I can’t decide if The Container Store is heaven, because of all those ingenious devices for organizing stuff, or hell, becasue it taunts me with the unattainable illusion of permanently and perpetually having all my stuff organized.

Anyway, the booth had been growing more cluttered and dirty day-by-day. Many projects were on my bench in various stages of non-completion, there was a horrifying accumulation of dust and grime from working under al fresco under a tree, and I just could not settle down to work on anything until I had a good clean-up.

But the universe strives towards chaos, so it won’t last.

The Drumming Duck

Monday night was typically quiet, so I took advantage of Pete’s willingness to look after the booth to spend some time listening to the musicians we had on the main entertainment deck - something I almost never do. Officially, the lineup was the duet of Jasso and Garcia. But they were joined by Doug Miller (longtime Sawdust exhibitor with 11,000 paintings to his credit) on violin, which was lovely, and by a young boy (I assume he is Ken Garcia’s son) who sat cross-legged on the floor and patted along on the djembe with both hands, unhampered by the fact that in one of those hands he was clutching a toy duck. I enjoyed watching the drumming duck almost as much as I enjoyed sitting by the waterfall in the cool night and listening to three wonderful musicians.

A Little Help From My Friends

As Lennon & McCartney wrote, “I get by with a little help from my friends.” This past week I’ve had much appreciated surprise visits and support from Bill & Sandi and Erich & Viviane. Then Avis, a colleague from my long-ago corporate career, dropped by and bought me lunch. And Rodney brought me a wonderful dinner one night when Pete was at his choir rehearsal, staying to picnic with me in my cramped little booth. Lucky me!

Addendum....

I wrote the above and posted it, then thought about all the other friends who have helped me out, but didn’t get named because my mind was just on the events of the past week. There have been many, and I’m grateful for the various ways they’ve helped me since I started this adventure.

Almost Famous

Every year the Sawdust Art Festival produces a video featuring a dozen or so artists at work. This year, yours truly was asked to participate. Filming happened earlier in the year (it was March, I think) - the videographers come out to your studio to film you at work and then record a voice-over of you answering a few set questions about what you do. Like Food TV, I prepared different stages of what was (more or less) the same piece. The crew certainly didn’t want to hang about while I really completed a pendant from start to finish, so I had various “...and here’s one I’ve done already” stages set up. I also spent a riduculous amount of time practicing my answers to a few simple questions. Pete helped with mock interviews, and you would not believe how much work I put into getting to a level which was just one step above babbling.  The video is shown over by the Greek restaurant, in between music sets, and it was a strange experience the other day to see myself on screen when I went over there to order dinner.

The First Week

The first week was been slow, and not just for me. I know, I know, it’s the economy. People are losing jobs, homes, times are tough, no money for art or jewelry. It’s never been my goal to talk people into buying things they can’t afford, but it is my goal to earn a living by selling what I make. Which is a challenging thing to do right now.

Although there have been some long, hard days (and it’s only the first week!), there have been some bright spots.Two young girls stopped by the booth one afternoon. I was working, which means my back was turned to the display case, when I overheard small voices admiring my jewelry. I turned around to talk to them, and they were a pure delight. I showed them various examples of gemstones I use, and they were really interested - it was a pleasure talking to them. 

So I try to remember moments like that when I have bad days. Such as the one where I started by melting a pair of earrings I had nearly finished, then badly burned my fingers, and eventually wound up slumped on the floor of my booth, cowering behind the cabinets in the one small space I have where I’m not in full 180° view of everyone, consoling myself with a bar of Toblerone chocoate.

Perspective

Written June 25th (or at least started then)....

The Preview Party was this past Tuesday, and the official public opening is tomorrow morning. It was a chaotic week, even more than I expected. I was more prepared this year than in the previous two, both in terms of inventory and booth construction, but for every step forward I take, I seem to demand 10 times as much of myself. And, because “there’s always something”, Pete had to go out of town for business this week. I took him to the airport Sunday evening, and he didn’t get back until Wednesday night.

I’d been setting my alarm for 5 am the couple of days before Preview, and not managing to get my dinner much before 9 pm at night, working furiously in between. On Tuesday morning, as I was running around the house hyperventilating over The List, I glanced at the front page of the LA Times. There was a photo of a woman bleeding to death in a Tehran street, shot during protests against a fraudulent election and corrupt government. “Perspective,” I thought to myself. “You’ve got to keep things in perspective.”

Preview Party went well - there was the usual crush of loyal friends & customers cramming the aisles. For this night only, the Saloon sets up in the Certamics Center (which is dirctly opposite my booth) as well as their regular location, so that meant that for most of the evening the beer line backed up into my booth, which was not a good thing. Nevertheless, a few people managed to elbow their way to my displays and buy things. I recruited my friend Stuart to help me in the booth, and the fact that he knows everyone in town certainly didn’t hurt! After driving him home at the end of the evening, I collapsed into my beloved bathtub for a soak and then fell into bed.

Prep, Prep, and more Prep

Stains

I spent last weekend (the 13th & 14th) painting and staining the booth. Dedicated readers may remember that last year I used a stain that left a heavy, oily black residue and required an assortment of exhausting, dirty, frantic efforts before the booth was habitable. You might think I had learned my lesson. And I did, truly. Just not well enough. I had paint & stain left over from last year, and wasn’t willing to throw it away and buy more. All the “little” expenses add up to a frightening amount, and we’re all looking to save wherever we can (the stain wasn’t a cheap one, it was about $30 or $40). I figured that if I was very careful to rub in just the barest amount to color the wood, it would be OK.  Well, it wasn’t. But at least I knew what to do: a scrub down with a special wood cleaner (also left over from last year, that had been another $36). Pete and I spent an hour on Monday evening cleaning & rinsing, and it was fine after that.

Signs

The first year I was in the show, I had vinyl lettering with my name applied directly to the wall of the booth. Nice -- but the next year I had to pay to do the same thing over again. So instead, I had the lettering applied to transparent plexiglass so I could re-use the sign. Which works when the sign is backed by a wall, but given my booth layout this year, the sign will be suspended where it will be seen when visitors enter the grounds. So the plexi needed some kind of backing. I was driving around on errands the other day, thinking that what I wanted was a couple of pieces of stainless steel to back the plexi, so the black vinyl lettering would appear on a silvery background. And I was thinking that Larry Gill was the person I should talk to about it - he’s another artist at the Sawdust, and he does stainless steel sculptural fountains. I pulled into the Home Depot parking lot, and who should I see but Larry himself, loading sheets of tin onto his truck!

Of course he’s also busy getting ready for the show, so it’s a terrible time to ask him for a favor, but I did anyway. I was perfectly willing to pay him, but he said he’d just bank a favor. So a few days after that, two cut and polished pieces of stainless steel were left in my booth, thanks to Larry (www.larrygillartist.com). All I had to do was drill the necessary holes for hanging them, and for attaching the plexi signs I already had. Larry instructed me to drill SLOWLY.  The heat generated from the friction of trying to drill stainless is absorbed by the drill bit, not the steel, so you can quickly ruin your bit. How hard could that be? I bought a cobalt drill bit for hardened steel (another $8), and set to work. It took FOREVER. Maybe longer. 

But the results were great:

Yesterday Pete and I took my largest display case (a new one I bought for this year, another $80), and the signs, down to the booth. It was a damp, gray day, characteristic of the traditional “June Gloom” we get here on the coast, and the grounds had a surprisingly subdued feel to them. I expected artists and builders to be everywhere, franticly finishing up construction and preparing for the Preview Party, only 3 days way (gasp). Perhaps there was more going on at the back of the grounds - I didn’t take time to wander around - but around the front, it was pretty quiet.