Monday, March 26, 2012

The Faire goes on

As I mentioned before, at that time I was waitressing at Bob’s Big Boy - usually with 5-1AM shift. I managed to trade and snag most of those weekends in May off - by working the Friday night before, so I was usually pooped on Saturday’s and often napped for awhile in the back of the booth. The commute was 50 Miles each way from my home to the Faire. Fortunately for me, it only took place during the weekends from 10AM to 6PM, so traffic wasn’t terrible - besides in those days the freeways were nothing like now. The preparation - designing and building the booth, making the woodcuts for it, was really the fun part for me. Once it was all up and going I lost interest in ‘manning’ the booth, selling my stuff, or being at the Faire all day. Luckily for me, my sisters and their friends loved the whole festive scene and were eager and willing salespeople. I kept busy (and entertained) by doing sketches of the Faire – creating more inventory for my booth. My space was between another printmaker who had a little etching press in his stand and some restaurant people who sold either hot barley or cold gazpacho soups –their bets covered whatever the weather. They had a young son who, tiring of his parents gig, hung out with us. I showed him how to cut and print blocks and his grateful folks kept us in free soup for the duration of the faire. The weekends in that month of May provided entertaining amusement for everyone and a unique experience to have under my belt. After that, I was reluctant to do a lot of art fairs, sticking to shorter venues that were closer to home and eventually just sending things to galleries and letting them do the selling – freeing me up to focus my time and energy on just making art. I took in enough money during the Faire to cover most of my expenses – my parents and sisters chipping in on food and gas. Ludy and Jeanne came out to visit while it was on and were there for a day as documented in old photos. Brian - a guy I was dating during that period - loyally showed up as he did at all my gigs, he wore his Lawrence of Arabia-style traditional headdress - wish I had a photo of that.

Here it is forty years later and I find myself in a bit of a flux again. Ageing brings with it a regrouping of energy and attitudes. One of my biggest galleries closed its doors a year ago and I find myself breathing a sigh of relief - yet missing their calls for pieces and projects. It’s as though I do better work when working for someone else – when prodded a bit. I have always been self motivated and industrious, it’s not that, but there is a certain ‘oomph’, an extra effort I seem to throw in when someone else depends on me. So I am sitting back for a bit, taking advantage of this hiatus and not moving with the same zest or zeal. I’m being a bit more selective with time and energy, my eye on changing goals.
Enjoying this warm bed of inertia, I roll over and hit the snooze button and buy myself a little more down-time.

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