Summer at the Sawdust Art Festival

A Tale of Two Customers

There have been many times this summer when I’ve been tempted to write about specific stories related to people who have stopped by the booth, but in general my rule has been to avoid that particular minefield.

However, there were two incidents this past week that I just have to share. Sometimes, the smallest things can make or break your day.

The Bad

A couple stopped by my booth, the woman was wearing nice jewelry, and if I had to guess, I’d say their ages were 60-ish. She asked if I had any plain, black leather neckcords. Which I do — I showed her a medium-thickness one, good quality leather, with a sterling silver clasp that I had made. She tried it on, liked it, said it was the right length and she would take it. I quoted her the princely sum of $30, and she looked at me in astonishment, and said “No, I don’t think so. It was a little short.” And walked away. Although I can honestly say “Good riddance” to people like that, I have to confess that the incident was really dispiriting.

The Good

A lady came into the booth and said she’d been sent my way by another jeweler on the grounds. She had a very delicate gold ring which looked like it had been run over by a car — it was completely squashed. The ring had sentimental value, and she was wondering if there was any possibility of making it round again. I said I’d be willing to try if she would accept the chance that the very thin shank might crack as I manipulated it — metal gets “work hardened” and eventually brittle as it is bent back and forth. She asked how much and I quoted $15. With a bit of gentle plier work and light hammering on my ring mandrel, it was back to being a ring. The customer was ecstatic, said “I have to hug you,” and proceeded to do so. She gave me a $20 and said “I don’t want any change.” And that small transaction put a smile on my face and made my day.

Just Clone Me

Letting Go
I sold a beloved piece this past weekend. It was a one-of-a-kind, made with 2 stones which had been given to me by a good friend. He’d brought them back from a trip to Greece and challenged me to do something interesting with them, and I think I did. There wasn’t a day that went by that people didn’t comment on how unusual it was, and I’d often thought of making it “Not For Sale.” Even as I was wrapping it up for the customer, part of me wanted to tell them they couldn’t have it! We had a laugh about it, and they promised to bring it back for a visit now and then. It’s part of the irony of trying to make a living as an artist that you create things you love so that other people can have them. Here it is:

Olympics
The Olympics have started (some news of the outside world does occasionally penetrate my consciousness). It seems to me that the evening crowds are even thinner than usual, so I’m guessing people are home watching the games.

Visitors
In the midst of all this, I have very dear friends from France who are visiting. I haven’t seen them for 16 years, since we were neighbors and co-workers when I lived in England. I told myself that they would just have to take me as they found me - dusty house, overgrown garden and all - but I couldn’t quite let it go, so I had Pete booth-site one evening before they arrived and I came home and cleaned house.

At this point, I really think I need to clone myself.

Halfway

Well, we’ve crossed the halfway point.

Earthquake
Really, if I make it to the end of the show without being squashed, I’ll consider the summer a success. After the near-miss with the 30-foot tree branch, we had an earthquake. And I’m certain that inside a Sawdust Art Festival booth is not a good place to be during an earthquake. It was a 5.4, with the epicenter in Chino Hills, which is about 40 or 50 miles away. There was noticeable rattling and rolling here at the Sawdust - I was in the middle of soldering something, and am proud to say I had the presence of mind to shut off the torch and close the valve on the tank before dashing out of the booth. Another artist reported to me that he was in the middle of ringing up a sale when the first jolt hit, forcing him to knock his customer to the ground as he bolted from his booth (still clutching the customer’s credit card). He swears he was just kidding about the knocking the customer over part, but he did make me promise not to mention his name. The only real damage I heard of around the grounds was a broken perfume bottle in one of the glass artist’s booth.

Birthday
My birthday happened during the week. I arranged to have a cake delivered to my booth, and it was HUGE. It must have weighed 20 pounds if it weighed an ounce. And it was EXCELLENT. It was from Leigh at Dr. Chocolat, who I’ve known for many years as a creator of sublime chocolates. However, it was through my friend Stuart that I discovered she also makes awesome cakes. I made a lot of new friends that day, sharing it around. I believe that baked goods could form the basis for a new chapter in “How to Win Friends and Influence People”.

Pete
One of my 5 or 6 dedicated readers (up from last year’s count of 3!) has suggested that I post a photo of Pete, for those who have heard stories about him but have not had the pleasure of meeting him. I thought this was an excellent suggestion, so borrowing a technique from the aforementioned, un-named fellow artist, I tackled him to get the camera out of his hands. He was not very cooperative, but I managed to get this:

Random News

I’m Still Here
The big news this week is not what happened, but what did not happen. Me and my booth were NOT crushed by a 30-foot eucalyptus branch. I came in one morning to find leaves in the aisle and in the back corner of my booth where the roof is open around the tree, and soon learned that I was very lucky to still have a booth. It seems that the previous evening, around 10:15 (about 5 minutes after Pete and I had packed up and gone home), someone heard a loud “crack,” and notified the grounds crew. They discovered that an enormous branch had broken off the eucalyptus above the booth next to me, and was hanging, barely attached to its host tree, over Natalie’s and my booths. An emergency trip by a tree-trimmer saved us, but if the branch had fallen it would have taken out at least 3 booths on my row, and possibly the ones behind us as well.

Peer Awards
In other news, I was in a 3-way tie for 3rd Place in the Sawdust Art Festival Peer Awards. We all get a ballot to vote for the best/favorite artist in each category. There are a number of very good jewelers in the show, so I’m very pleased to have been honored like this. And if anyone who voted for me is reading this - Thank You!

Potluck
We have been encouraged to have neighborhood potlucks on Sunday evenings, but when I made a half-hearted attempt to organize it a couple of weeks ago, I found the enthusiasm in our neighborhood ranged from “not this week” to “never”. For my part, I barely have time to pack a lunch for myself most days, so I certainly don’t have time to fix anything for a potluck. But I did like the idea of ordering in food and having a neighborhood gathering. This week, John Bullard (his wife, Sherry, is a long-time exhibitor) managed to drum up some support for the idea. To make a long story short, we wound up ordering Chinese food and Pete played delivery boy. We laid everything out on the camping table I have in the back of my booth, and 5 of us crammed in there for dinner - it was really quite a bonding experience.

Life

With few exceptions, I am at my booth at the Sawdust Art Festival from 10 am to 10 pm, 7 days a week. As I’ve written before, I am fortunate in that I can work in my booth, which means both that my days are productive and that I am never bored. I do have a little bit of “off” time - on Monday or Tuesday evenings Pete watches the booth for me and I go to yoga, and on Thursday mornings my friend, Carmen, comes in and takes care of things.

I really don’t mind the long hours in the booth - it’s what I’ve chosen to do, and the time passes surprisingly quickly. And the Sawdust is a lovely place to be - we’re outdoors, the weather is generally great, and there’s live music. Here, for example, is a shot of the waterfall by the Entertainment Deck:

What wears me down completely is everything I have to do in my time “off” from the Sawdust. There’s keeping the house at a minimal level of tidyness and cleanliness, doing my accounting, paying bills, balancing bank statements, etc. And it never fails that at times like these even a simple task morphs into something complicated. For example, I needed to pay my cell phone bill. Pete and I had just recently merged our two plans, and the new charges were far more than what we were expecting. I wanted to call customer service and get an explanation, but of course it’s 11:30 at night when I’m doing this and the phone lines are only open during “regular” business hours. I pay this bill online, so I don’t get paper statements, therefore I wanted to print the statement to look it over. My computer has suddenly decided it doesn’t know how to print. I get the incredibly useless error message “Printing Error”. After a considerable amount of time re-starting and Googling to find reports of similar problems and solutions, I solve the printing problem (however, the printer now needs toner, which I have to order). Still haven’t solved the unexpected charges on the cell phone bill problem.

I also had to file the document for my City of Laguna Beach business license, and my quarterly State Board of Equalization tax return. Having completed this paperwork, I wanted to make a copy of it, but my fax/copier machine flat out refuses to feed any documents through, rendering it USELESS. Now, I have “buy new fax machine” added to my list of things to do.

As far as keeping up with the world outside the Sawdust Art Festival, forget about it. I may occasionally read a headline, if it appears on the front page of the paper above the fold. Our dining room table is currently covered with newspaper (which drives me nuts), and it will likely stay that way until the next trash day, when I will sweep it all into the recyling bin.

Pete, my sweet and supportive husband, helps a lot. He provides taxi, laundry, grocery, and meal delivery services. I have all the respect in the world for my fellow artists who do this alone - my boothmate from last summer, Patricia, and my fellow Sawdust jeweler friend, Emily (to name just 2), are both single and both supporting themselves as artists, and I don’t know how they manage.

Of course one way of coping is by doing what one former participant in the show used to do: buy 2 months worth of underwear before the show started (he didn’t do laundry from the end of June to the beginning of September).