Before I tell you how the craft fair went, let me tell you about my experience to date with the sponsor, the Hickam Arts & Crafts Center. In short, they're pretty cool! They have lots of fun things to do, a friendly, encouraging staff, and a great facility to help you express your talents in painting, woodworking, sculpting, etc., and my personal favorite, the fiber arts. You can check them out at greatlifehawaii.com under the "Leisure" tab.
When I was still recovering from my shoulder surgery, I spent some time there hanging out with some fellow crocheters and knitters. They have a "yarn baller" I used for a couple of hours trying to convert an earlier garage sale purchase from a trash bag full of disorganized yarn to nice, orderly cylinders that would fit in my cupboard. That's when I learned about the Art Show.
From 1 Oct 13 to some time in January 2014, the Hickam Arts & Craft Center is sponsoring an art show in their facility. Artists were allowed to submit 3 pieces that will remain on display during this time. I submitted pieces entitled "Michelle's Squid," "Christopher's Caterpillar," and "Clayton's Octopus." You'll hear their stories in a later blog.
Here's a picture of my with my work at the reception on 16 Oct. I'm the one on the left...
Although the reception was free and open to the public (they had great food, by the way!), pretty much everyone we saw there either worked at the Arts & Craft Center or had works on display or was a friend/family member of someone who had works on display. Just as my friend Rebecca (whose son Ethan is a photographer) were noting the lack of "public," the very next people we talked to had nothing on display. Very funny, God!
The most important thing I learned that night was this: kids like my creations. Although I didn't spend much of the evening hanging around my own work, I was able to notice from across the room that whenever little kids came in, they gravitated to my shelf. Any why not? It's in their reach, and it has three stuffed animals on it. Too bad they weren't allowed to touch them (which would have been fine with me, but the staff said that was a bad idea...). Regardless, seeing children enjoy my work brought me a lot of joy.
Preparing my inventory for the Fall Craft Fair, although time-consuming, also brought me a lot of joy! Once I had a sufficient number of Travel Mercies (I think I had around 125), my creative process turned to the Christmas season, and I started experimenting with custom-making garland, tree skirts, and tree stars for small trees. Here are some of them.
I see some real potential here, especially for those who would like to celebrate the holiday using non-traditional colors. My favorite is the "Christmas Island" tree in the middle. Email me if you want to know how I did any of this stuff...
What did NOT bring me a lot of joy was trying to sell my stuff at the craft fair! I was there from 0900-1500, and I only sold 2 Travel Mercies all day! And both of those were to people from work that probably just felt sorry for me. Although I was splitting booth space with Ethan (who did quite well because his photography is AWESOME!!! - http://ethanwhitecottonphotos.smugmug.com/) to save some money, if you count the cost of the materials, my time, the booth, the tent, the tables, the business cards, the ink for the printer, the babysitter, and taking my wife to the movies because we had a babysitter - not to mention all the stuff we're going to buy from Ethan because his photography is AWESOME!!! - the only thing I could do that would be a more epic failure than yesterday would be to run for public office!
It rained fairly hard twice, and it was during the second shower that my silver lining appeared.
What huge lesson did I learn?
What life-changing philosophy emerged?
How am I ever going to make this mountain of lemons into lemonade?
That, my dear reader, is what the next blog will be about.
Until then... God bless and keep you all,
Matt
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