jaeleslie

It is possible that I was a little lackadaisical in my preparations for the art fair, as I pointed out last week, and the result of that was that my sales were very poor. That is the best construction I am able to put on the situation. Yesterday I was really very down about it, because it is hard not to take a poor sale as a reflection of one's personal value.

Friday I fooled around with putting new and much more suitable frames on a couple of old pieces. They look much better now and so I am hanging them in the living room for a while to look at them. Because of course they did not sell. Then we went up to the square to help a bit with setting up the booth, and worry about the weather. Saturday I was up at six and hanging all my stuff and so by ten or so I was completely done in. So I left my friends to take care of the booth and handle most everything, sat around a bit visiting, and then took off in the middle of the afternoon to have a nap. Slept for a couple hours. Sunday I didn't have to go in until eleven, although I started on the bookkeeping. And then it rained a bit late in the afternoon, which was a nuisance and drove away the crowd. Luckily it stopped, so we just had to dry everything off while we were packing up, and tear down the booth. So I took more meds.

Then we all went to dinner at Firefly. It was a highly successful sale for the other four artists in the booth, who made three times as much as I, or five times or ten times. Of course they all have much deeper inventories than I do. As I pointed out at dinner, this is the hardest way I have yet found to earn $300.

But I got lots of ideas, and made note of them. I like having a place to display my works, and I like working with my friends. The bookkeeping is not such a nuisance as I am really pretty quick with it, and have been doing it so long it is all on automatic pilot.

What really got my goat yesterday was that I received the newsletter from the local calligraphers' guild, announcing the art fair, and demanding my annual dues. The person who does the newsletter is not at all interested in the art fair, and it shows, doesn't it? She is quite the professional though. As I am the one volunteer in the group who is not making much money at it, although I am writing the checks to everyone else, this was a little annoying to say the least, and I sent my $15 dues off pronto with a little rant enclosed. I spend that much mailing zines every month! but I don't ask anyone to cover my printing and postage costs. That is the difference between a gift and a service.

If I didn't have so many other things to do I would write a calligraphy zine, and it would be far finer and more interesting and lively and beautiful than her stupid newsletter. So there. But I have to work on title art for Chunga now, and the letter column for Wabe.